Last week our youngest son messaged me from Fort Collins, Colorado. He was there with his oldest son, checking out Colorado State University. I believe his message was something like: “Do you know how cool this town is?” My response: “Take some photos and show me.” Our son is a videographer (producing on-line video of various racing events). However, I think he may have acquired a few of my city planning traits – a little bit of the apple falling not far from the tree (even if it is a crab apple tree). By the way, when I searched for the name of a small apple, the first choices were small versions of the apple iphone.)
First – a little information about Fort Collins.
Having not been to Fort Collins, I did the natural thing – and went to the internet. Here’s what I found: Fort Collins, the county seat of Larimer County, with a population of 161,000 (4th largest in Colorado), is located at the base of the Rocky Mountains along the Colorado Front Range; is home to Colorado State University; has a Downtown ‘Old Town,’ a thriving business culture with many breweries, brew pubs and the annual Brewer’s Festival; has a performing arts center with symphony, opera, concert, dance venues and children’s theatre, and center for fine art photography; has a botanical garden; and has passenger air, bus, bus rapid transit, regional bus, and bicycling services – along with a heritage trolley. Given all of this, I am sure this city would be of interest to most planners. In addition, Fort Collins is known along with Marceline, Missouri, as one of the towns that inspired the design of Main Street, U.S.A. inside the main entrance of the many ‘Disneyland’ – style parks run by Walt Disney Company. (For more information, click HERE.)
Next – What did our son highlight in his short time in Fort Collins? Following are the photos he sent me:
A busy downtown scene
A street with pedestrian and bicycle facilities
Bicycle racks
A transit stop with bike racks. (Guess what? My son likes to bike.)
A streetscape – including train tracks. He also sent a train video. He knows I love trains.
And — a different example of the apple not falling far from the tree:
We share a love of bacon. It’s worth going to Fort Collins just to find this!
All in all, I think his pictures capture things of interest to planners – so the apple may have fallen not far from the tree!!
Thanks for reading!!
All photo credits go to Barry Braun, 2016.
Carolyn, I LOVE the street scene where the lightbulb strings are hanging… Wendy who owns the building we have Friday night projects in had a vision to do that on the north side of this building connecting with other buildings, and have weekend artisan and others (foods, things for sale, etc.) with booths, live music, etc. Wouldn’t that be cool? -Debbie
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It makes it look so festive – like a place you would want to be. Maybe she should try it – starting out with one weekend – or one day — and see how it goes, Thanks for reading!
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