Liberal Lies in the Mile High City

The DNC has left town, and this blogger, who lives in the ‘Yellow’ zone, is relieved to see it go. To be sure, it was exciting to have so many people enjoying the LoDo neighborhood. For a few days, the eyes of the world were on the few city blocks Denver so routinely ignores.

The first thing to disappear from and later return to LoDo was its homeless population. These gruff addicts and bums were a constant part of LoDo life until the day before the convention, and they returned the day after. One gets to know their faces, and in some cases their names. Where did they go? The City enticed them to stay away so as not to antagonize the conventioneers. Denver has always been a fully Democrat city, so unless the homeless are to blame for their own situations (impossible), it must be the Democrats. True to collectivist form, the Democrats hid the problem rather than admit that decades of great society politics have only made things worse. In parallel, China built walls to obstruct the view of Beijing’s slums from Olympic passers by.

Lodo has poorly maintained sidewalks and streets. Even though about 10 years ago, LoDo was essentially a slum, and Denver has received exploding tax revenues from the neighborhood since then, Denver spends nothing on its streets. That is, until the DNC. Every pothole was patched just in time for the convention. Piles of broken street lamp parts and guard rails that had littered LoDo for months or years were removed and sometimes repaired. Why the City can’t take care of its property until the second largest convention of 2008 came to town, is a mystery (or not so much). As if by spite, the potholes were patched with a temporary material that is already breaking down into dust.

LoDo is sometimes dangerous. Over the past 4 years, 11 people have been shot in the streets of this small neighborhood, 4 fatally. Dangerous gangs filmed videos of themselves brutalizing strangers. Aside from the one person shot fatally by the Denver Police, nobody has been arrested for these crimes. Just prior to the convention, surveillance cameras were installed on every street. Privacy aside, if multiple shootings, sexual assaults, robberies, and general mayhem aren’t enough to protect the streets of LoDo, why should some well connected out-of-towners do the trick?

LoDo is a Mecca for graffiti vandals. Denver has a anemic graffiti removal program, but during the DNC, they were out in force. LoDo was, for the first time ever, clean and graffiti free. Most graffiti is a simple nuisance, but a fair amount is dangerous gang communication, such as the ’13′ scrawled into this blogger’s front window. Denver needs to take this issue seriously the other 361 days of the year.

In short, LoDo is returning to its pre DNC state, Denver’s playground where vandalism, violence, decay, and filth are the norm and tolerated by the City for some inexplicable reason. LoDo is not an established neighborhood in that it can easily revert to the slum it was a decade ago if the City takes it for granted. LoDo’s immense tax base should be used for cleanliness, security, and reasonably well maintained infrastructure. The City of Denver lied to the world about itself, or perhaps it just put its best foot forward. Either way, let’s hope the City chooses to maintain at least some of the shine it put on LoDo for 4 days in 2008.