San Francisco population: 815,201
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_International_Airport
"The 52.4 square miles (136 km2; 33,500 acres) of land occupied by the airport is more than one and a half times the size of Manhattan (33.6 square miles or 87 square kilometres). DIA is larger in land area (excluding water) than the US cities of Boston, Massachusetts and San Francisco, California. DIA occupies the largest amount of commercial airport land area in North America, by a great extent."
There's almost nothing on that land. It's a huge, flat, undeveloped area thirty miles outside Denver. The city border snakes all the way out there along the cooridor used by the light rail. They very specifically put it way outside the city for whatever reason, probably noise pollution and expansion.
It's huge, flat, and undeveloped but it's also right next to a nature preserve and in a state with a severe housing crisis.
The housing crisis is 100 nimby shitheads afaik. The whole state is either impassible mountains or flass flat wasteland, the pressures on housing are legal and water afaik. Density? Over my dead body!
Isn't there also a giant landfill out there, or am I thinking a different area? Been a bit since I've been. I just remember the people driving us were very proud of the landfill and can't remember if that was when we were heading out to the airport or somewhere else
They put it way outside the city because the previous airport at Stapleton (named after a klansman btw) was so close the city grew around it over time
they put it there because the old mayor's buddies owned the land. all the getting the 'noise away from people' got cancelled out by the new developments around the place for its workers and such