AURORA, Colo. — Covering more than 164 square miles, the vast City of Aurora is one of the most diverse cities in Colorado with residents representing 60 different countries.
On this week's Denver7 | Your Voice, we headed down the road to our neighbors to the east of Denver to hear directly from the community about what they love about their home, the challenges they see and what the news is covering well — and not covering — about their city.
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“I love the diversity. I love how everything is so close. I live three miles away (from my store), my wife works at the VA, which is three miles from our house. It just offers everything,” said Heirlooms Antique Mall owner Scott Davenport.
Davenport's store is located at Havana Square, a shopping center on Havana Street with more than a dozen stores owned by people of different backgrounds.
“The store has been here since 2005. I bought it in August of 2015, so it will be 10 years for me this year,” Davenport said. “It’s like a trip down memory lane without buying a ticket… My store — I’ve kind of made it where it’s as diverse as the city."
But Davenport said portrayals of his beloved city often don’t include depictions of that diversity or hardworking store owners like himself.
“You know, we had that national thing with the TdA (Tren de Aragua), which was bad publicity. And again with the retail theft,” Davenport said. “I think crime, like every city, is an issue."
A few doors down from Davenport's store is Piramides Mexican Restaurant. We stopped by to talk with Manager Victor Urresti, who has personal experience with crime in the city.
“Aurora — well, it's growing. Lots of cultures, but violence too," he said. "Here at the restaurant, I’ve had — four times — people take everything and the police, I think they're short on help and we need more police."
Urresti said the thieves used different tactics each time and during the last incident, they only got away with food. But Urresti, who has called Aurora home for 30 years, said he remembers a time when he didn’t have to worry about crime.
“When they approved the marijuana — after that it got a little hard," he explained. "More people, more violence, more disorder, yes. And more everything. Even more traffic."
We also caught up with Prentis Dawson, a Marine Corps veteran who lives in Aurora and owns several businesses, including Better Choice Labor. He went to Hinkley High School and graduated from Gateway High School. He's a member of the car club Hostile Hemis. With two combat tours under his belt, he said he loves the United States.
Like Urresti, he has noticed some changes around Aurora too. And he's well aware of the issues the city faces.
“Obviously, the immigration problem, really, the lack of real, pure opportunities, you know what I mean?" he said. "Some of the violence is a problem here. The cost of retail spaces, the cost of rent, the cost of groceries — these are all major problems that take away from the people's opportunity to really grow and see a different side of life
LEARN MORE: See all of Denver7's news out of Aurora here
He said he does not watch the news and mostly uses social media to stay updated.
"But when I do watch the news, there's a lot of fear mongering… Nowadays, it feels like they're trying to be the first to report something and not necessarily do the accurate research," he explained.
Davenport and Dawson both said they want to see more positive Aurora news coverage.
“There’s just a lot of good things that people do on a daily basis that just never get noticed,” Davenport said.
Dawson stressed the importance of sharing news about organizations and businesses — such as his — that help the community.
“We’re bringing the community together, versus some of the stuff we see on the news tearing people apart with the division and stuff like that," he said. "My car club is a very diverse thing. There's Mexicans, there's Indians, there's Black people, there's white people, we got a Ukrainian dude in there."
Denver7 also heard from Courtnee Bell, who said she lives in Central Park but visits Aurora for a lot of her daily needs, such as food. She said she would also like to see more positive stories out of Aurora reflected in the news.
“I’d like to see more community-oriented events, festivals, things like that," she explained.
Urresti said he too would like to see more uplifting community stories, but understands some viewers want to know about the negative happenings too.
“You normally cover more of the bad things and well, that’s because the people like to watch that,” Urresti said.
“Let's find out what brings us together versus what pulls us apart,” Dawson told us.
Aurora is home to nearly 400,000 Coloradans representing 60 different countries and Davenport said he would like to see Aurora's diversity reflected in the media more often.
This marks our third Denver7 | Your Voice, where we want to hear from you about what matters most in your community. We started in Longmont and Castle Rock, and are deciding where to go next week. We hope to hear what makes our communities special, the challenges facing them, and everything in between. Have an idea? Fill out the contact form below.
