An ARCHES and School of Landscape Architecture and Planning Lecture Series Event
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The Denver Metro region is home to three million people spread across eight counties along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Having experienced periods of boom and bust when the region was largely depended on the energy economy, the region’s leaders coalesced to build several “world class city” amenities and to diversify the economy, including a new airport, sports stadiums, and light rail lines. They also hoped some investments would eliminate the region’s notorious “brown cloud”. But land use planning, housing planning, and infrastructure investments were absent or counter to other aspects that come with a “world class city” and its differentiated and highly educated workforce. Admittedly, the region’s leaders “never imagined” they would have an affordable housing problem.
This study uses multiple longitudinal data sets, interviews, planning documents, zoning codes, and geospatial analysis to trace the region’s path to its affordable housing crisis, continued low mode share by non-auto modes, and its lingering non-attainment air quality status. It then investigates how the newly passed state-led land use and housing reforms and affordable housing funds, along with local planning responses to assess the prospects for greater housing affordability and sustainable travel.
Refreshments will be provided through the support of the ARCHES HUD grant. The event is free and open to the public, but prior registration is requested. AICP CM Credit (American Institute of Certified Planners Certification Maintenance) is available for this program (1 Equity CM).
About Carrie Makarewicz, PhD
Dr. Makarewicz is an associate professor and department chair at the University of Colorado Denver. She joined the faculty in 2013. Her research focuses on how the interactions among public investments, development, and public policies affect human development, through their effects on household income, accessible and safe neighborhoods, housing affordability, individual health and well-being, access to regional opportunities, and environmental quality. Her work has examined access to public transportation and active modes, affordable housing outcomes, how the built environment affects families’ daily lives, public-private initiatives focused on arts and sustainability, and post-disaster housing recovery.
In her five years at the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), she co-developed the Housing and Transportation Affordability Index and worked on programs for equitable approaches to carsharing, energy efficiency, green buildings, and transit-oriented development. She has been an active member of several committees focused on equity in planning, including STAR Community Index’s Affordability and Equity Technical Advisory Committee for eight years; the Task Force for the American Planning Association’s Planning for Equity Policy Guide; the Public Schools Interest Group in the American Planning Association, Meow Wolf Denver’s Community Advisory Committee to guide and track the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility commitments; the City of Denver’s COVID Mobility Task Force; and the Auraria Campus’s Gentrification and Urban Displacement Task Force.
She has a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Michigan, a Master’s in Urban Planning and Public Affairs from the University of Illinois-Chicago, and a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley.
Header image credit: Caribb, Flickr - licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.