Michael Hancock, the mayor of Denver, joins Peter to offer his insights on the city, its best features and how it’s changed since he was growing up there….
Peter Greenberg: I’m a big fan of Denver and I heard you speak yesterday at the Global Business Travel Association. I’ll give you a little slack – you did say the Rockies were going to beat Houston, and they did. Then again, you could probably beat Houston.
Michael Hancock: That’s why I only make those secure comments. I knew better.
PG: When I first came to Denver I was twenty-one years old and there were not many hotels here. There was the Brown Palace, of course, but not much else. There has been such an exponential explosion in terms of the infrastructure here. Not just in terms of the hotels, but the art and cultural scene, the whole LoDo area. I mean it’s always a pleasure to come here. And it’s now a walking city for me.
MH: We’ve really worked hard over the last decade to create a more multi-modal city. And we want our people to be mobile. We want them to be mobile in a variety of different ways, and walking and bicycling are two of the ways we really think about. And of course, we’re making a tremendous regional investment in our transit system to get people out of their cars, to get them moving, so we can move people and not automobiles anymore.
We’ve made a concerted effort, a very intentional effort, to create a more multi-modal city, and certainly a more walkable city. When you come here for conventions we want you to be able to enjoy the conventions, of course, but we want you to be able to walk to hotels, to restaurants, to entertainment. That all helps to make a great convention experience.
PG: And you guys were one of the first cities that really started focusing on bicycles.
MH: Oh absolutely we have a bike share program today which has become a national model – thousands of miles of bicycling are done everyday through our B-Share cycling program. And it’s just a wonderful, wonderful program. We’re already thinking about how we can make it a year-round program.
Photo credit: Hancock for Mayor
PG: You know I always ask people when they learned to travel or first got the experience to travel. You’re an army brat, aren’t you?
MH: I am.
PG: So that means you were dragged around.
MH: I’m the youngest of ten children, so by the time I was old enough to know better my dad had received his last orders which were here in Denver. That’s how we wound up here. So I didn’t get to go to Germany, and Tacoma, and L.A., and Texas like my older siblings. But as a teenager, I’ll tell you, I got to travel for the first time. And the first time I got on a plane–I actually flew to Tokyo, Japan as an exchange student. And that experience changed my life. Now all I want to do is travel.
PG: Wow. So you’re one of those twenty-six percent of Americans that actually has a passport?
MH: Absolutely.
PG: And when you say your dad came back to Denver for the Army, was it Denver or Fort Carson?
MH: He came, it was Denver actually. He retired at Fitzsimmons, but interestingly enough, it was full circle, because our parents met while Dad was stationed at Fort Carson and my mother was in Denver visiting her great aunt in Denver, so she and some girlfriends went down to Fort Carson for a party, met my daddy, and the rest is history.
PG: Partying in Colorado Springs.
MH: An oxymoron.
credit: Michael Hancock for Mayor
PG: No it’s not. I actually had an opportunity as a journalist to go out on maneuvers with that division. And I’ll never forget going thirty miles down the rain in the mud, and the snow, and mess, and they said to me “Hey, would you like some earplugs?” And I said “Why would I need that?” And all of a sudden a tank fired.
MH: Oh my.
PG: And that was it, I surrendered. It was over.
MH:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, ringing in the ears.
PG: Ringing in those ears. What would you say, Mr. Mayor, is the biggest surprise for people who have never been to Denver, who come here for the first time, that they’re not expecting to see, but they go “Wow.” What’s the “wow?”
MH: You know I think if you talk to, and I did, a lot of folks who had come to Denver before for the DNC, the Democratic National Convention, and you may have run into them somewhere else throughout the country. They say hey, I was there for the DNC. Well what did you think?
I was blown away by how beautiful Denver was. And I think when people come here they’re blown away by how clean Denver is, how walkable it is, and how beautiful the city is with all the architecture – particularly when you’re downtown in the Cherry Creek Area, and other wonderful unique neighborhoods.
PG: If I can be devil’s advocate Mr. Mayor, every mayor is going to say his city is beautiful, so I want you to go one step beyond and tell me one real surprise. Finish the sentence, people say to you I had no idea that….
MH: I had no idea that we had actually crossed over to a more walkable city because I live here and it’s so easy for me because I know where everything is. But when you talk to people and they talk about how they can get from their hotel to restaurants, or entertainment venues, or to the very next unique neighborhood, that is a specialness about Denver. Of all the places I’ve been throughout the country, it’s the places that I didn’t have to jump in a cab that I tend to reflect upon the most, and I enjoyed the most… the cities like Boston. I was there for the convention: I walked everywhere. I never forgot that. And I think that adds to to a special uniqueness. You certainly are able to experience the city a little more and take in take in the balance and culture of the city.
PG: But you’ve also seen a huge explosion in the culture and the arts scene too.
MH: And I think the people that want to be mobile those are the things they’re looking for. Again you know, our arts program is one of the best in the nation, and I’m very proud of it and I’m glad people get a chance to see it and enjoy it.
By Peter Greenberg for Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio.
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