Denver's Big Sqeeze

"Sorting through a stack of planning documents and books on a shelf in her office, Denver city planner Ellen Ittelson pulls out a faded booklet with yellowed pages. It's a Denver planning-department primer from the 1940s, and the main topic is how to remake the city's streets to accommodate cars. 'The entire theory of planning for street traffic has changed since the advent of the automobile,' it reads. 'We can remedy these faults by making streets sufficiently wide to carry traffic.'"