While the Colorado Rockies saw long-awaited snow this weekend, depths remain historically low.  Signs caution of “early season” conditions (more typical of November),  yet the economic impact is still unclear—resort revenues benefitted from robust holiday traffic through New Year’s Day.

This background—a low snowpack and its potential impact on the economic base of resort towns—provides an ironic gloss to my annual presentation at a national continuing legal education conference in Aspen.

Hence, an unoriginal, yet salient question: What of cities and towns built on climate-dependent activities, and the consequences of over-dependence on consistent weather?

After all, enthusiastic, robust tenets of urbanism usually rely on similarly strong, underlying economies.

The presentation is embedded below, and addresses—in summary form—several urbanist ideals, as well as the interplay of market preferences and public policy initiatives in two key areas: redevelopment in concert with new transit infrastructure, and reuse of formerly contaminated properties within urban cores.

Understanding the Domain of the Urbanist Lawyer

Posts from 2009, 2010 and 201l comment on earlier January visits and presentations in Colorado..

Image and presentation composed by the author.