LandDesk
Wish list for Durango’s growth Looking into the future, with a focus on mobility
by Jonathan Thompson
T
he above photo shows downtown Durango as seen from a Google Earth satellite in September 2019. And no, someone didn’t paint the streets yellow in real life; I colored them with photo-editing software. I started doing it for my own purposes. I wanted to see how much of the city’s commercial core was devoted to automobiles, highlighting those areas with yellow. I started with streets, then moved onto parking lots, then alleys. Every time I thought I was finished, I’d encounter another rectangle of asphalt. Ugly, isn’t it? But it can also be a useful tool, one to keep on hand to whip out next time someone says there’s a parking shortage in Durango. There’s not. Obviously. Durango’s not alone in dealing with this automobile-centric affliction. Many cities are far worse. Still, it’s one of many
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problems that need solving. We’ve looked back at what Durango was, and what some of its leaders wanted it to be, and what it became. Now it’s time for us wannabe planners to envision the future we want – just like the planners of 1971 did. And the future the Land Desk Planning Commission desires is a Durango that is sustainable and livable for all. And not just environmental sustainability, but also human, economic and community sustainability. It’s our belief that Durango – and many communities in the West – are moving rapidly away from any semblance of this sort of sustainability. They increasingly are becoming traffic-jammed enclaves for the wealthy, vacationers and the upper echelons of the Zoom class, places that squeeze out teachers, firefighters, food service workers and all those who keep the gears of society grinding. It would be bad enough if the influx of
wealth was accompanied by a corresponding uptick in the quality of life. But that is hardly the case. If Durango was “urban” a half century ago, shouldn’t it be more urban now? In the 1971 planning document, my father wrote: “The challenge we face is whether or not as a group of 12,000 we will let that change shape us or whether we will shape the change. … Durango is a series of communities: labor, education, retirement, agricultural, professional, service, youth, educated, uneducated, Chicano, Anglo, poor, middle income … and among many of these sub-communities there is almost no communication, no feelings of concern for the other. It is this fragmentation that makes us very much “urban” in the modern American sense. We are not a small town.” Durango’s population has nearly doubled since then, and La Plata County’s shot up from 19,199 in 1970 (the same as in 1960) to 55,638 in 2020. I think it’s safe to say that Durango has progressed as a
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community in many ways, partly as a result of growth, partly thanks to good planning and leadership. But over the last decade or so, the growth and wealth influx has continued at a rapid pace, while progress in other realms has slowed. Growth has not brought with it the trappings normally associated with urban places, be it robust public transportation, diversity, good jobs or more opportunities. The “series of communities” of 1971 have, if anything, diminished in number and diversity, while still remaining as fragmented as ever. Mobility, the ability to get from one place to another by car, bike or foot, is decreasing, and the roads are becoming more dangerous. The arts, culture and food scene isn’t exactly exploding with vibrance. The town can’t – or maybe won’t – sustain a daily print newspaper anymore, which has further diminished the community as a whole.
