Denver, CO, will be under the media spot light this week for the Democratic National Convention. So I thought I'd take this chance to highlight some of the best attributes in this Rocky Mountain metropolis. Denver has become a fast growing city, leading the charge in sustainable urban development.

Population growth, congested freeways and out-of-control sprawl, provided Denver's political leaders the impetus for the city's new growth strategy — investing billions in its modern FasTracks public transit system. With gasoline prices reaching over $4 a gallon this summer, Denver's decision to funnel millions into a new transit system a decade ago, has shown great foresight into sustainable social and economic urban development.

Translating that urgency for a public transit system didn't happen overnight. Many said a galvanizing event was a 1992 report by the Denver Regional Council of Governments, the region's primary planning agency. The comprehensive study on growth and congestion recommended that the region follow the lead of Portland, St. Louis and San Diego and build a mass transit system. City planners and political leaders would spend the next 12 years setting the stage for their massive investment.

The technical competency of Denver's Regional Transit District, the public transit agency, also helped catapult the project forward. RTD spent $100 million of its own money in 1994 to build a 5.3-mile downtown rail line on time and on budget, according to a report from the Michigan Land Use Institute. Six years later, with $35 million more of its own money and $132 million in federal funds, RTD extended the line 8.7 miles to suburban Littleton, also on budget and on time. In 2001, the agency added nearly two miles more to link the suburbs to the city's downtown sports stadiums. With each addition, ridership increased.

Planners predict that when Denver's FasTracks public transit system is finished in 2016, it will attract so much new development that half of the region's new residents — 550,000 people — will live and work within walking distance or a short ride of a transit stop. The rail and rapid bus routes alone will carry a quarter of all rush-hour commuters.

FasTracks represents economic development in Denver that connects housing, jobs, recreation, and retail businesses together not by new highways, but by steel rails and other public transit. And in my book, that is a major step towards a greener future.

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