COS Independent Letter to the Editor—Garden of the Gods apartment article was biased
By Benedict Wright
I’m writing to express my frustration and disappointment with the limited and slanted coverage you provided on the city council’s approval of apartments on Garden of the Gods Road ("City Council approves controversial apartment project on Garden of the Gods Road," June 2). From the accompanying photo of a wildfire to the favorable emphasis on angry neighbors to the multiple descriptions of the developer as being from “out-of-town,” it was pretty clear what this supposed news article was trying to convince its readers.
Exactly nowhere was there mention of the city’s desperate need for more housing. There was no attempt to include the larger context around why our city council wants to approve higher density development to address that need and prevent even more sprawl. If we’re worried about traffic and wildfires (which of course we should be), it is not new apartments that we should be going after, it’s the historic development pattern of low-density, auto-dependence, excessive water and energy consumption, and reckless sprawl. I hope the Indy’s coverage of these issues in the future will attempt to read more like balanced news.