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The
City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous
city of Colorado, in the United States. Denver is located
in the South Platte River Valley on the High Plains just
east of the Front Range of the Southern Rocky Mountains.
The Denver downtown district is located immediately east
of the confluence of Cherry Creek with the South Platte
River, approximately 15 miles (24 km) east of the foothills
of the Rocky Mountains. Denver is nicknamed the Mile-High
City because its official elevation is exactly one mile
(5280 feet or 1609.344 m) above sea level.
The
United States Census Bureau estimates that, in 2006, the
population of the City and County of Denver was 566,974,
making it the 26th most populous U.S. city. The Denver-Aurora
Metropolitan Statistical Area had an estimated 2006 population
of 2,408,750 and ranked as the 21st most populous U.S. metropolitan
statistical area,[5] and the larger Denver-Aurora-Boulder
Combined Statistical Area had an estimated 2006 population
of 2,927,911 and ranked as the 17th most populous U.S. metropolitan
area. The city claims to have the 10th largest downtown
in the United States.
Denver's
economy is based partially on its geographic position and
its connection to some of the major transportation systems
of the country. Because Denver is the largest city within
600 miles (1,000 km), it has become a natural location for
storage and distribution of goods and services to the Mountain
States. Denver is also approximately halfway between the
large cities of the Midwest like Chicago and Detroit and
the cities of the West Coast, another benefit for distribution.
Over the years, the city has been home to other large corporations
in the central United States, making Denver a key trade
point for the country.
Geography also allows Denver to have a considerable government
presence, with many federal agencies based or having offices
in the Denver area. In fact, the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan
Area has more federal workers than any other metropolitan
area except for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
Along with the plethora of federal agencies come many companies
based on US defense and space projects, and more jobs are
brought to the city by virtue of its being the capital of
the state of Colorado. The Denver area is home to the former
nuclear weapons plant Rocky Flats and the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory.
In 2005, a $310.7 million expansion for the Colorado Convention
Center was completed, roughly doubling its size. The hope
was that the center's expansion would elevate the city to
one of the top 10 cities in the nation for holding a convention.
Denver's position near the mineral-rich Rocky Mountains
encouraged mining and energy companies to spring up in the
area. In the early days of the city, gold and silver booms
and busts played a large role in the economic success of
the city. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the energy crisis
in America created an energy boom in Denver captured in
the soap opera Dynasty. During this time, Denver was built
up considerably, with many new downtown skyscrapers built
during this time. Eventually, the oil prices dropped from
$34 a barrel in 1981 to $9 a barrel in 1986, and the Denver
economy dropped with it, leaving almost 15,000 oil industry
workers in the area unemployed (including current mayor
John Hickenlooper, a former geologist), and the highest
office vacancy rate in the nation (30%).Energy and mining
are still important in Denver's economy today, with companies
such as EnCana, Halliburton, Rio Tinto Group, Newmont Mining,
Noble Energy, and Anadarko.
Denver's west-central geographic location in the Mountain
Time Zone (UTC -7) also benefits the telecommunications
industry by allowing communication with both North American
coasts, South America, Europe, and Asia in the same business
day. Denver's location on the 105th meridian at over 1-mile
(1.6 km) in elevation also enables it to be the largest
city in the U.S. to offer a 'one-bounce' real-time satellite
uplink to six continents in the same business day. Qwest
Communications, Dish Network Corporation, Starz-Encore,
and Comcast are just a few of the telecommunications companies
with operations in the Denver area. These and other high-tech
companies had a boom in Denver in the mid to late 1990s,
but the technology bust in the new millennium caused Denver
to lose many of those technology jobs. The unemployment
rate has since improved with an unemployment rate in the
Denver metropolitan area of 3.8 percent as of October 2007
[42]. The Downtown region has seen increased real estate
investment with the construction of new skyscrapers. |
