Designing Denver

Denver "visionaries" review their picks for the best of "Denver design history." Highlights include the city park system, which increased from 2,409 acres to 4,759 acres from 1991 to 2003; "the 1988 designation of lower downtown as a historical district"; the opening of Denver International Airport ("a seminal event of the latter twentieth century"); the "1974 passage of the Poundstone Amendment, which limited Denver's ability to annex land from outlying suburbs, effectively boxing the city in when it went looking for new areas of growth"; and the eight-county approval of the FasTracks transportation system, which "challenges us to confront the struggle between the individual and the community and redefine urbanism in a Western context."