Downtown Denver Morning in Fall

Time to wax poetic.  One of my favorite parts of the day, and year, is the morning in fall in Downtown Denver.  I would say that I am a morning person now, implying that I wasn't always so.  My walk to work (after a short light-rail ride)is from Union Station, to Writers Square, about 4 blocks.  A stop at the Tattered Cover Bookstore for a coffee, and a quiet stroll down 16th st; well, relatively quiet.  There are of course many other people on their way to work, or wherever else they may be going.  The fall chill is blowing through the downtown streets, and everyone is hustling and bustling, but mostly to themselves.  It is a calm energy, but an energy nonetheless.  Walking from Union Station eastward also implies a direction in time.  From the historic buildings in lower downtown (LoDo), to the 1980's glass and steel oil-funded skyscrapers further east.  The gradient of energy increases with the gradient in building types. The planters on the mall are being prepared for the harsher weather ahead.   The homeless are selling copies of the Voice newspaper,  the regional buses are roaring in and out of Market Street Station, and my coffee from the Tattered Cover is delightfully warming my hands.  While my walk visually continues on, my body stops short of the 1980's skyscraper wonderland.  My destination is Writers Square, a peculiar piece of Urban Design.  As a designer, we try to create and enhance experiences like these, but one must wonder if these experiences are a result of calculated environmental design, or a confluence of many other factors that, try as we might, we just can't control?