There’s a certain civic comfort in believing that if you just chase out the “wrong” kind of businesses, the “right” kind will magically show up with exotic succulents, sourdough starters and a line of Labradoodles out the door.
Aurora is flirting with that idea again.
City lawmakers are considering a plan to limit “concentrations” of vape shops, liquor stores, pawn shops and check-cashing outlets across town, but especially in supposedly sketchy parts of Aurora. It’s the usual suspects in the lineup of what polite company calls “unsavory.”
Say it with a deep and throating North Carolina accent. It’s fun.
The theory is that fewer of these businesses will mean less crime, better neighborhoods and, voila, urban renewal.
If that sounds familiar, it should. Aurora, especially along East Colfax Avenue, has been down this road so many times it should install a roundabout.
For years, policymakers have tried some version of “blame-it-on-the-pawn-shops” zoning.
The results? Let’s just say East Colfax is still East Colfax. It’s a complicated, gritty, economically diverse corridor that also has killer restaurants, fun pubs and some of the best theater in the metro area.
It has, for decades, many decades, stubbornly refused to be fixed by ordinance.
The current proposal leans on something called “risk terrain modeling,” which suggests certain types of businesses attract crime.
Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t.
But here’s the problem, which comes from Reporting 101: Correlation is not causation, and the science here is about as sturdy as a folding chair at day care.
Yes, police get called to strip malls with liquor stores and vape shops. They also get called to places where people gather, park, loiter and, occasionally, make bad decisions. That’s not exactly a revelation.
You know where else crime happens? Dark parking lots. Late-night bars. Poorly lit transit stops. In other words, environments, not just storefront signage.
Experience with urban renewal shows the tentative problem behind being certain about the chicken and the egg. In reality, businesses that cater to the whims and needs of poor and poorer people, who are more likely to smoke, go to check cashing stores and pawn shops, don’t create poor people and poor neighborhoods. They open up in poor neighborhoods to meet market demand.
Honest.
If you really want to reduce crime, start with increased and very, very visible police patrol, lighting, design and consistent enforcement.
It won’t get you your own TED Talk, but it provably works.
What hasn’t worked is pretending that banning your way to a better neighborhood is a substitute for investing in one.
There is solid science behind urban renewal. It’s just not cheap and doesn’t fit neatly into a zoning crackdown.
Look at Edgewater. Or Olde Town Arvada. Or even Aurora’s own Gardens on Havana. Those places didn’t transform because someone drew a 300-foot buffer around a vape shop. Those once-super-sketchy places changed because cities and developers created incentives, improved infrastructure, supported mixed-use development and made it worthwhile for the “desirable” businesses to accept tax and other incentives, and invest.
After sitting through a lifetime of marathon urban renewal authority meetings, I can safely say that in the case of carrots versus sticks, places like The Stanley, Old Gaylord Street and even Cherry Creek weren’t the result of sticks from city hall.
If you want better retail, make it easier and more profitable to open better retail. Offer tax incentives. Help property owners renovate aging strip centers. Improve streetscapes so people actually want to walk there. Partner with small businesses instead of quietly trying to regulate them out of existence.
This isn’t zoning. It’s a way for the government to put a heavy thumb on the scale of the free market without calling it that.
It comes with consequences.
Councilmember Gianina Horton is right to worry about displacement and gentrification. When you start deciding which businesses are acceptable and which aren’t, you’re also deciding who gets to make a living, and who doesn’t.
Today it’s vape shops. Yesterday it was car dealerships along Havana.
Really.
Once the black sheep of Havana Street, noisy, gangly and totally not boutique-friendly, they now coexist just fine with a revitalized and successful business district.
Sure, there’s a whiff of “broken windows” theory in all this, the very real philosophy that visible disorder and chaos breeds more of it.
A neglected property invites trouble. A well-maintained one discourages it.
But that’s not what this proposal targets.
Cities are messy ecosystems, and Aurora’s is especially weird.
Communities don’t thrive because every business fits a curated vision of artisanal perfection. They thrive because they’re diverse, adaptable and, yes, sometimes a little rough around the edges, especially the edges of northwest Aurora.
The city doesn’t need another experiment in zoning alchemy. It needs sustained investment and the wisdom to admit that there are no shortcuts to revitalization.
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