Submitted by greggles on
Our good friends Kaycie Rosen and her fiancee Steve Grigel just moved down to Colorado after spending a few years living in Anchorage. We're really excited to have them around again and, perhaps even more exciting, is that Kaycie is a Naturopathic Doctor and just opened the doors of her own Holistic Medicine Clinic in Golden, Colorado.
Submitted by greggles on
Denver is seeing some great "infill" or development of underutilized space (parking lots) into something with a higher value (condos, retail, office, etc.).
The Denver Infill site is recording this information for lots of developments including the Piranesi Condos.
Submitted by greggles on
Boulder is a hippy town. They seem to have a fleet of cars for some of their city employees like for driving somewhere to do maintenance or look at something.
What kinds of cars are they? Governments need to get a good value for their money, and they need to buy cars consistent with the values of their constituents. For Boulder this means:
Submitted by greggles on
Denver is really a great place. Every time I say that I wish I didn't say it because one of the things I like about Denver is that it's a medium sized city. There will come a day in the future when we have suburbs and shopping malls from the New Mexico Border right up to Wyoming all along the front-rang/I-25 corridor. Until then, we can just be excited about infill, denser downtown Denver, and a lot of exciting mass-transit options. As the Denver Infill Blog put it:
Submitted by greggles on
In Emma Lazarus famous poem The New Colossus she describes her personal interpretation of the Statue of Liberty. Lazarus' brief poem captures many of the concepts and ideals that people have for America as a land of opportunity, a shining city on the hill where poor exiles from around the world can seek freedom:
Submitted by greggles on
As I've written before water policy is something that is frequently done in a relatively inefficient manner.
Here's some more fun examples:
This was the plan that Denver used a few years ago. They didn't want to raise prices because some people complained that water is a basic human "right" and that you shouldn't have to pay a ton of money for it. I can kind of agree with that, a certain amount of water is necessary in the world and since Denver's water is a public utility company they should provide at least some water at a low rate.
So, they instituted quotas - if you live on the odd side of the street you can only water on certain days, you can only water for certain amounts of time, etc. They hired little water police to go around giving citations if you broke the rules. And people broke the rules often. I know I did because I'm frequently out of town on the weekends so I had to break the rules if I wanted to make sure that my yard got enough water. But the end result was that significantly less water was used.
When less water gets used and the price stays the same but the cost of policing and education goes up what happens? The water utility brings in less revenue and they have to do something...so they raised their prices. Which is what they wanted to avoid in the first place. So, they spent extra money on the enforcement and education programs and raised prices in the end. They also could have just announced that they were going to raise prices slowly over time and then let people adjust their own lives/gardens/usage patterns to deal with the increased prices, but then they wouldn't have had to hire anyone extra or force us onto their watering schedule.
The NCPA had an article a little while ago titled CITIES REWARD 'LIFESTYLE' THAT CONSERVES WATER and aside from the fact that they use all caps in their titles, it was an interesting summary of subsidies in various cities that reward people for doing things which should reduce water consumption. Now, let's think about this for a second. The water folks pay you to put in a low flow showerhead. So, if I put in a low flow showerhead, collect my credit, and then remove it. Has anything good actually happened? How enforceable is the plan? Give people a game and they will play it!
The subsidies that they give you are relatively simplistic: $100 rebate for a "low use washing machine". However, low use washing machines vary in the amount of water that they use - one machine may save 20% while another saves 40% so the rebate amount should vary based upon the amount saved ,right?
One way to offer a subsidy that distributes the benefit according to the amount of water actually saved would be, you know, to raise prices. Because then when I install a washing machine that saves 40% I will save 40% of the money that I had previously spent on the washing machine usage. Ditto for the showerhead. With higher prices there is no need to hire a consultant to come into my home to check if my showerhead is low flow and no need for an enforcer to check up once every few years - I'm going to keep the showerhead because it's in my own self interest to do so.
Now, this is possible because Los Angeles did it about 15 years ago: use a tiered system. The first 100 gallons a day are a low fee. The next are more expensive. The next are even more expensive. Simple! If someone wants 3 acres of Kentucky Blue Grass in the middle of the dessert then let them have it and make them pay for it! If someone wants a rock garden and wants to shower once a week, let them roll around in a bucket of money that they'll be saving. And the beauty of a tiered system with increased prices is that it requires no extra investment from the water department - no need to hire enforcers, no education or public relations program to discuss the right day of the week to water if you live in a blue house without shutters on the odd side of the street. People will figure out the smart thing to do because people are smart!
Unfortunately, as Stan says:
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blockquote>American society considers you to be basically a good person, but a little bit stupid.
Submitted by greggles on
From anecdotal reports (my sister in law) to traditional media outlets it seems everyone in Denver is complaining that voting went poorly. Denver City Auditor Dennis Gallagher said "Heads should roll". Really?
If you planned ahead more than 5 hours before the end of the polls, here were your options:
