Clayton

It's a bit strange how there's a strip of areas running east from just north of downtown that has not seemed to keep pace with the rest of Denver's development. Logistically, this is a prime location. It is handy to the main arteries of Colorado Bouldevard and Martin Luther King Boulevard. It is very handy to downtown, to City Park, and not one but two golf courses. It has quiet streets, and is filled with the cozy detached bungalow housing that makes many Denver neighborhoods so desirable. Home prices are very low by city standards, and this is an old established family neighborhood. And yet...
While the area is full of little gems and promise, it's not quite what you'd expect. Improvements and maintenance in this neighborhood are only mediocre. It's hard not to want to like it, but it's not a very safe neighborhood. It's very close to downtown and other lively neighborhoods, but somehow feels isolated from that lively activity.
If you are willing to make a short drive to reach great shops and restaurants, this could be a good spot. But the bigger chance you would be taking is on home values and safety. It's so hard to say what the local markets will do in the coming years. But if you're a bit adventurous in this sense, then it might be worth looking into as a residential neighborhood. I would be very cautious about buying a home here, especially if there are children to consider. Clayton could be a really terrific neighborhood, but it's not quite there yet.

Initially the Clayton neighborhood was mostly farmland, producing crops to feed the rapidly-growing city of Denver. It gets its name from George W. Clayton, a Philadelphia-born philanthropist who established Clayton College for orphan boys in 1907. The complex of elegant sandstone buildings that housed Clayton College still stands, at the corner of Martin Luther King and Colorado Boulevards. The surrounding neighborhood was developed in the middle of the 20th century. Almost all homes are single-family bungalows or ranch houses. The neighborhood is a few miles northeast of downtown, and its southern edge is north of City Park, one of Denver’s largest green spaces.

The neighborhood is family-oriented, with strong African-American and Latino populations, and many families have lived in the neighborhood for several generations. Most residents are blue-collar workers or retirees. The poverty rate in Clayton, however, is much higher than the Denver average. There are not a lot of employment opportunities in the immediate neighborhood, especially for residents without cars – and public transportation, while it exists, gets much slower and less reliable once you are in neighborhoods like Clayton, which are off the main commuter routes.

Indeed, in the wave of redevelopment and economic growth that’s affected many Denver neighborhoods in the last decade, Clayton feels a little forgotten. There are convenience stores, but no grocery store in the neighborhood, and aside from a couple of gems such as Cora Faye’s soul food café, the only real options for going out for a meal are summed up in a dismal stretch of fast-food joints on Colorado Boulevard. With a planned expansion of Denver’s light rail system to DIA passing near the Clayton neighborhood, let’s hope that in a few years this little neighborhood will get the TLC it needs to reach its potential.