Colorado
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Biking–not casinos–banned in small Colorado town
In the 100-person town of Black Hawk, Colorado, you’re free to gamble away your savings at any of its fine casinos, but you better get the heck off that bike of yours if you don’t want a fine of $68. Black Hawk has recently become the first town to outlaw cycling, which it did for […]
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Culinary boot camp whips ‘lunch ladies’ into cooking shape
School cafeteria workers, a.k.a “lunch ladies,” rank somewhere below custodial staff in the school pecking order, yet they’re expected to perform miracles in the kitchen, turning pennies into full-blown meals. As part of my Cafeteria Confidential reporting, I recently went to Colorado to observe a “culinary boot camp” in which food-service directors and workers from around […]
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Denver busts urban farming’s yuppie stereotype
January 2011 update: Many of the photos have been removed from this series so they can be published in a Breaking Through Concrete book, forthcoming this year from UC Press. When we were still in Seattle, preparing for this project, a few friends asked if this was a tour of ‘yuppie urban farm projects.’ Isn’t […]
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Down the Colorado
As a native Coloradan, photographer Peter McBride always wondered how long it took irrigation water from his family’s cattle ranch to reach the Colorado River and ultimately the sea. That question sent McBride (with author Jonathon Waterman) on a two-year journey to follow the water. He photographed the Colorado, mostly from the air, in an […]
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Hey, look: Denver has a bike-sharing program
Courtesy B-cycleDenver today launches the nation’s largest bike-sharing program, distributing 500 bicycles at 50 stations around the city for citizens to use wherever they find them. The B-cycle program mirrors bike-sharing networks in Paris and Montreal, and it’ll be followed soon by networks in Boston and Minneapolis. Oh, and Mexico City too, which is launching […]
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Colorado Springs experiments by slashing public services
Courtesy Jasen Miller via FlickrCivic-minded urbanist types like to experiment with collective projects. Apparently, so do people who don’t like civic projects, taxes, public parks, pools, police officers, or firefighters. Famously anti-tax Colorado Springs launched an astounding experiment this year: More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The […]
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How the West is Winning Against Coal
There is so much good news coming out of the western U.S. these days on coal and clean energy. First up – another domino fell for the Blackstone Group. Blackstone had been funding the construction of three new coal-fired power plants in the U.S. (I’ve written about them before). Last month the River Hill plant […]
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Community solar gardens
A new bill being considered in the Colorado legislature would create “solar gardens.” Solar gardens allow people to participate financially in owning part of a solar array even if they do not have a suitable site on their own property. My reading of the proposed legislation is that subscriptions in a solar garden would be […]
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Democratic candidate in Colo. guv race questions climate science
“I get in trouble every time I say this, but I’m not 100 percent absolutely sure that climate change is occurring at the rate that some people fear it is and is going to be as catastrophic.” — Denver mayor and gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper, speaking at the Colorado Rural Electric Association’s annual meeting. Hickenlooper […]
