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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.
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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. |
