The American city of Denver finds itself in a perplexing position, having been declared one of the world's best cities in a prestigious global ranking, even as its decaying city centre grapples with notorious levels of crime, vagrancy and drug use.
A Tale of Two Cities: Economic Boom Versus Urban Decay
In the annual ranking by marketing firm Resonance Consultancy, the Colorado metropolis, nicknamed the Mile High City for its elevation near the Rocky Mountains, secured the 84th spot out of 100 global urban centres. Experts praised Denver's robust economy, highlighting its annual job growth of 1.2 percent in 2025 and an unemployment rate of four percent, which sits comfortably below the national average of 4.4 percent.
The report credited Denver's strong economic performance for attracting significant foreign investment and fuelling a construction boom. Major projects like The River Mile, an enormous new park surrounded by skyscrapers that will also house an aquarium, are set for completion by the early 2030s. Furthermore, Denver's famous airport, the largest in the US by land mass and second largest globally, served a staggering 82.3 million passengers in 2024, significantly contributing to the city's prosperity.
The Stark Reality of a Downtown in Freefall
However, this glowing international assessment makes no mention of the severe social issues that have severely tarnished Denver's reputation. Data from the Common Sense Institute reveals a disturbing crime wave. In the first half of 2025 alone, the city witnessed 235 crimes per 100,000 people, the highest rate in Colorado by a considerable margin.
The property crime rate was even more alarming, with 1,122 incidents per 100,000 people, meaning more than one in every 100 residents fell victim. Between 2020 and June 2025, crimes against persons surged by 56 percent, with aggravated assaults rising by 38 percent.
This urban decline is starkly illustrated by the commercial property market. A pair of downtown skyscrapers, purchased for $400 million in January 2020, were recently resold for a mere $57.4 million—a catastrophic loss of $340 million in just five years, a decline hastened by the Covid pandemic.
A Deepening Humanitarian Crisis on the Streets
While the Resonance report speaks of an appealing 'lifestyle', the reality on the ground tells a different story. Beautifully renovated landmarks like Union Station are now infamous for being surrounded by homeless encampments, vagrants, and open drug use. Similar scenes of squalor encircle the majestic Colorado state capitol building just a mile away.
The homelessness crisis has dramatically worsened. Despite Democrat Mayor Mike Johnson making tackling vagrancy a key pledge upon entering office in 2024, Common Sense Institute figures show he is failing spectacularly. The number of people living on the streets has now reached 10,774, with vagrancy soaring by 86 percent between 2019 and 2025. During Johnson's first year in office, the homeless population increased by 12 percent.
This dire situation has been further strained by the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants since 2022, after Texas Governor Greg Abbott began busing border crossers to Democrat 'sanctuary cities' like Denver. The city, once glamorised as the setting for the 1980s soap opera Dynasty, now contends with a crisis of near-biblical despair in its core, creating a profound contradiction for a city simultaneously celebrated on the world stage.
