I’m all for everyone is entitled to their own opinion.  However, I do expect that opinions that are to be taken seriously are based on facts and logical reasoning.  This piece, published Sat. Feb. 24th in the Rocky Mountain News Wall Street West section, doesn’t measure up.  Please note the picture accompanying this piece is of my neighborhood, Bradburn Village.  The photo is of the apartments here, which comprise only 10% of the housing, the other 90% are single family homes and townhomes–the photo and caption makes it look like the entire development is very high density, which it is not.  We are also NOT a “transit-oriented development”, those are developments which have direct access to light rail, or other public transit, which we do not.  Use a fact-checker Rocky Mountain News.  Also, Bradburn was NOT subsidized with a TIF, and local municipalities regularly subsidize retail and office developments–would you rather them give more money to a big box crappy looking Wal-Mart, or a beautiful, mixed-use community people love to live and work in?  Give me a break.  My letter to the editor in response to this poorly written and researched opinion piece is below.

Dear Rocky Mountain News,

In the opinion piece “New Urbanism’s Flip Side” (Wall Street West-Saturday, February 24th), author Jennifer Lang–who obviously never interviewed residents of Colorado’s new urbanist communities–stated “..Certainly singles and childless couples will find these areas attractive..”.  I live in a single family home in Bradburn Village in Westminster, and while we have childless couples and singles who live here, our community is overwhelming populated by families with children who have found our new urbanist community an ideal place to live.  Anyone who has ever spent more than one day at home with a small child can attest that having things close by to walk to–parks, schools, churches, restaurants, shops, and bars (for parent’s nights out!)–prevents the feeling of social isolation and boredom so common for parents staying at home with their kids in a traditional suburban subdivision–where they have to get into the car (always a big production when you have small children) and drive to get anywhere.

I find the author’s declaration that “Denver-area residents are being bombarded with high-density living centers” and “the freedom to choose where you live is subtly being eroded by the insistence of planners with New Urbanism on the mind” patently ridiculous. New urbanist communities either completed, under construction, or planned in Colorado are far, far outnumbered by more traditional suburban developments, providing more than ample free market choices for house hunters. Ms. Lang states “..how many more people want to live with little or no yard and with all the urban annoyances of noise, crime, etc?”.  First, yes, yards in new urbanist communities are smaller than the average subdivision.  The only thing this means to my family–and to most others that live here–is we don’t spend our time, money, and effort watering, weeding, mowing, and trimming a vast swatch of yard that barely ever gets used.  We all go down to our local pocket parks so our kids can play together and we can socialize instead.

Urban annoyances?  Please.  Bradburn and other Colorado new urbanist communities in suburban areas are higher density than traditional subdivisions, but they are far from being urban, with the blights that can follow.  The only annoyances I’ve ever had living here are decidedly suburban–dog barking. New urbanist communities combine the best of city living–the ability to walk to interesting places–with the best of suburban living–low crime, great schools, and lower density (than cities). 

As to how many more people want to live in new urbanist communities–plenty judging by our resale value in Bradburn, which is much higher than surrounding traditional subdivisions.  New urbanism creates places people want to live, which in a free market drives up prices, meaning there is more demand than supply.  As to the comment that “social engineering” the lifestyles of Coloradoans is the goal of “urban renewal planners”: How horrible that I know all my neighbors, that I have a list of thirty people who live close by that I can call in case of an emergency, or if I just need someone to watch my five-year old so I can get something done.  How horrible that the pleasing streetscapes, walkability, pocket parks, and porches of our community encourage neighbors to talk to one another; to create the true community we have here in Bradburn–I feel so oppressed by our never ending social events, the safety I feel in our community, and the beautiful and architecturally different houses in my new urbanist neighborhood, not all painted fifteen shades of beige.  
 

My brother and I suffer from some rather volatile tempers, today we were talking about his beat to crap steering wheel (he takes his driving aggression out on it–it’s frayed to shreds, exposing the wires underneath), and we got to talking about the inanimate objects we have both destroyed in our not so illustrious temper history.  Here’s a list neither of us are proud of: 

The History of Objects destroyed by Lowe Family Anger Management 

My brother: 

-His steering wheel

-His PDA 

-”Numerous” printers (PC Load Letter, WTF?????-smash, smash) 

-Several keyboards–one smashed so completely he found keys scattered around the house months later.

Me:-A dishwasher door (my brother and I lived together at the time, I got really pissed off and slammed the dishwasher door down, breaking it.  When he came home, he asked how it got broken and I said, “I couldn’t open a bottle of Italian dressing” to which he replied, “Oh, OK”–because of course, it made sense to him.  -A window in my college apartment.  My college apartment had my bedroom window facing the interior courtyard and one night before a big test my neighbors were outside being really loud at 1 a.m. so I threw my textbook at the window, cracking it in half.  -The roof of another apartment. Upstairs neighbors making tons of noise, I got pissed off, looked for something to hit roof with (passed up hammer because thought “no, that will leave a mark”).  Picked up broom and shoved the handle into the ceiling, which predictably, sunk into the drywall about 6 inches leaving a large hole I had to pay to fix. 

Now, it’s only inanimate objects that draw our ire, both of us are well adjusted enough to never direct our physical anger at a person. As I’ve gotten older I have mellowed some.  I never act out that way in front of my daughter because I don’t want her to do it, and I know it’s stupid, but I also know it’s always there–simmering in my DNA.    

My husband told me last night about a show he heard on a NOVA podcast about the construction of a space elevator.  This idea I’ve heard bandied about in the scientific community for some time.  My husband said he was discussing the story with coworkers when one of them asked, “How long would it take to get to the top? [in orbit around Earth]”, to which the reply was “4 days”–my husband commented, “That’s a long time to have to listen to that music!”.

ha ha.

My husband is a homebrewer and loves to make, drink, and share beer and wine.  I don’t drink beer or wine, but I have an interest in walkable neighborhoods and community, which is where believe it or not, our interests overlap.  As I mentioned in a previous post people in my neighborhood drink, all the time, and around their kids (stick that in your cap, those opposed and indignant about the “martini playdate”–we laugh at that term here–it isn’t sufficient in scope to characterize what happens, “neighborhood wide drinking-fest” would be more accurate–someone (out of about 50 people) is always however, sober to drive in case of emergency)–It takes a village allright.

My husband and I have been trying to work on a portable beer tap that we can wheel around the neighborhood from park to park, party to party, house to house.  Most of the “portable” kegs on the market are *Ehem* too small for our neighborhood of at least 50-100 people we see during the summer every weekend, and others are refrigerators with wheels, but also with a power cord.  So we are in the process of designing and building our own from a wheely trashcan, pipes, and a tap, guess we could call it “The Pedestrian Keggerator–a portable keg large enough for new urbanist neighborhoods”.

The actual best place we’ve found for the brewing of the beer is on our front sidewalk.  This involves a gigantic metal kettle and a propane burner.  We sit on the porch while it brews and enjoy speculating what people who are driving through the neighborhood looking at houses must think **strains of banjo music playing–you know the tune****

 

 

You know you have kids when you go into their bathroom to clean because Grandma’s coming over for the weekend and find this kind of shit: an Angelina Ballerina playing card smeared with toothpaste and shoved under the baseboard behind the toilet.

Now, I can’t really point fingers (although I showed it to her and asked her not to do it again) because when I was a kid I distinctly remember conducting similar messy and I’m sure infuriating science experiments.  I took this one calmly because I figure it’s karmic retribution for the time I froze a banana when I was 7 and threw it against the wall of our living room to see what would happen (testing the properties of matter).  Predictably, it made a large hole in the drywall which I blamed on my teenage, perpetually pissed-off brother; I got away with it then so I have to pay for it now.  I know one of my husband’s childhood science experiments was in physics–specifically gravity and trajectories: He threw a rock up in the air and then moved to watch it come down–it came down on his head, creating a huge dent that’s still there today.

What I am NOT looking forward to, is the universal justice for the time when I was a teenager and two friends and I drove a Ford Bronco onto a very large swath of lawn in the front yard of the house of a boy who had jilted my friend (the driver).  We put the car in neutral, hit the gas, and left a 50 foot, double furrow in the turf.

I know I’m going to pay for that one eventually.