Aurora, Colorado

Aurora is a city divided between Arapahoe County and Adams County in Colorado, with a small portion lying in Douglas County. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 276,900. Current estimates (2005) place the city's population at around 300,000.

Related Topics:
Arapahoe County - Adams County - Colorado - Douglas County - 2000

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In 1891, Donald Fletcher founded a town on the plains east of Denver and named it after himself. The real estate tycoon ran out two years later, leaving the new residents with bond payments for non-existent water. The town was renamed Aurora in 1907, and remained a small community until after World War II. Postwar suburban development transformed the town into what became the fastest growing city in the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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Although Aurora has long been considered by many only as one of Denver's larger suburbs, its growing population in recent decades (now over half the size of the City of Denver) has led to efforts by some of its citizens to be recognized as co-equal with its larger neighbor. A former mayor once expressed the somewhat whimsical notion that eventually the area would be called the "Aurora/Denver Metropolitan Area." It is widely recognized, however, that such an effort is somewhat hampered by the lack of a large historically important central business district in the city, which is highly surburban in character.

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Aurora is the location of the former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, and is the birthplace of 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The Fitzsimons site is now under redevelopment as the campus of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and Hospital, which are relocating there from Denver, and the Colorado Bioscience Park Aurora. These facilities will employ a workforce of 32,000 at build-out.

Related Topics:
Fitzsimons Army Medical Center - John Kerry - University of Colorado Health Sciences Center

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