Denver hasn't been a "Cow Town"--the knocker's favorite pejorative for this city for decades--since the late 19th Century, but it's typically employed by either 1) insecure natives who think Denver has to be exactly like New York or Chicago to be "great", or 2) migrants who don't have a single clue about the city's past.  

The only way to expand affordable housing at this point, given that we're getting 1,000 new residents here a month, is to build new housing structures.  And the reality is that in order to make that happen, a lot of older, historic homes and neighborhoods are going to have to be physically remade if all these new people want to live within the city's immediate orbit.  If that can't happen, then perhaps the lesson here is that an economic boom can cause just as much social degradation and community upheaval as a bust, and city leaders should be more cautious in encouraging perpetual business growth.