Affordable Denver

Johnston's vision

Mayor Mike Johnston gave his annual state of the City speech this week. It is a reminder that he is a gifted orator.

He is also running for re-election, in a race that will happen in spring 2027. It is getting more attention (and candidates – with city councilwoman Shontel Lewis announcing this week).

Johnston provided a Frontier city narrative, staked out some accomplishments from his first 3 years, and laid out a bolder vision for his next term. And, he presented this in a climate of recent wins, or substantial progress, by more left wing candidates in Denver.

A major focus was affordability, which is a theme of these progressive candidates, and highlighted recently in a Colorado poll.

Within affordability, one topic he addressed is child care. It is somewhat unusual for a city to take this on (as opposed to state level actions). His approach is long term. First, a task force – to cut regulations, develop more options, and support the sector more.

But, this is a challenging problem, as analyzed recently by Chandler Reilly.

With reasonable ratios of kids to providers, it is just automatically expensive. Even as the workers themselves aren’t paid very well. Parents feel like they are paying a lot (and they are), and workers aren’t making much, sometimes not even a livable wage, in an expensive city like Denver.

Johnston also highlighted housing affordability. Denver is making some progress with homelessness and some other housing efforts.

This is also not an easy problem either. Johnston signaled more active city involvement in housing, related to DDDA downtown and elsewhere.

Another new idea is the “Mile High Line.” It even has a map. This aims to connect 7 ongoing city projects, with more planful transit-oriented development (TOD), aiming also to reduce gentrification. This seems like a great name, a bold idea, but another difficult one to actually implement well.

In any case, the Mayor has put forth a bold agenda, aiming to inspire citizens and next year’s voters. Hopefully, it will help improve our city.