Where is SoDoSoPa?

Below, please watch the South Park clip voiced by Trey Parker in one of their episodes called: The City Part of Town. In this episode Kenny’s “historic neighborhood” gets gentrified into what is now referred to as SoDoSoPa…

Is SoDoSoPa Making Fun of Denver?

South Park’s nature is to make a mockery of current issues and is able to do so as they amazingly produce the cartoon in 6 days prior to airing. For this reason, it is quite apparent that South Park is turning up the heat to roast one of the United State’s up-and-coming hipster communities in “The City Part of Town”, but which one?

To us it seems apparent, but in a forum on Reddit this controversy exploded with people from all over the United States declaring they are in the area in which the creators of South Park were parodying. Everywhere from Houston, to Brooklyn, to Cincinnati, to Portland Reddit users were taking claim for SoDoSoPa.

With all the life out there on this topic, we wanted to kill it dead by putting a final nail in the coffin of this metropolitan mockery. Here are five reasons why SoDoSoPa can be no other place than LoDo/LoHi in Denver, Colorado.

Gentrification

For those that live in Denver the similarities that exemplify South Park’s community of SoDoSoPa are evident. Colorado has become a hotbed of new growth which is backed by the highest real estate market growth outside of Florida.

Due to this rapid expansion the prominent communities of Denver; such as LoDo and LoHi are being renovated to meet the increasing housing demand. Renovations are often preferred as it maintains the historic aesthetics of the buildings while still offering interior “state of the art finishes” as Trey so elegantly put it.

These key up and coming neighborhoods in Denver are booming with this type of revival and it’s easy to observe the comparison of SoDoSoPa on a stroll through a number of different Denver communities.

Hipsterism

The episode’s sarcasm embodies more than just the district but also the hipster charged new-age culture that is finding its way throughout the prominent areas of Denver. In this respect, LoHi ranked on Forbes Best Hipster Neighborhoods. There are bunches of these articles affirming LoHi’s claim to hipsterism exemplified again in this article by Sunset – the first paragraph in itself could be the script for the commercial of SoDoSoPa (seen above).

Whole Foods

SoDoSoPa was unearthed from Randy pitching for a Whole Foods in the town of South Park, but what does Whole Foods have to do with anything?

Well in Colorado, they are just about everywhere. Colorado has the second most Whole Foods in the country per capita. It’s no mistake that Matt and Trey would chose this particular business as their epicenter of SoDoSoPa.

Phonetics

Another obvious comparison to why SoDoSoPa is right here in Denver is quite simply the name. SoDoSoPa is not a far stretch from the abbreviated neighborhoods of LoDo/LoHi/RiNo/SloHi/SoBo in Denver.

While we know that SoDoSoPa technically stands for South Downtown South Park were fairly certain this is meant to identify with Denver’s big city neighborhoods. If you have ever spent time in the actual town of South Park you’d know that there is definitely no south, east, west, north or even a downtown in that boisterous town of a 679 people.

Location

Finally, the most clear-cut reason why the creators of South Park were definitely talking about Denver’s gentrification is because… well… South Park is in COLORADO.

The reason that South Park is set in Colorado is because of Matt and Trey’s humble beginnings. Trey was born in Conifer and spent most of his life growing up in Evergreen. Matt was not born here but moved to the Rocky Mountain State at a very early age and grew up in Littleton (a suburb of Denver). They both attended University of Colorado at Boulder and is where they met. Their history in Colorado encouraged them to create their infamous cartoon show and is why they continue to still use Colorado as an inspiration throughout their episodes.

Colorado’s influence is seen throughout the series with references to Denver, Greeley, Fort Collins and many more. Other instances such as the Denver Broncos and Colorado Avalanche appearances in South Park help further set the scene for where South Park is truly spirited from. There is no question that Colorado continues to hold a special place in Matt and Trey’s heart, as they premiered their only Broadway sensation, Book of Mormons, hit right here in Denver not too long ago. One of only two Broadway plays to ever be premiered in Denver.

Between the obvious gentrification, hipsterism, Whole Foods, the phonetic name, and the rocky mountain setting of the series we have no question in our mind but to crown Denver’s trendy new developments in RiNo & LoHi as SoDoSoPa!

Want to Live in SoDoSoPa?

If you’re interested in living in “SoDoSoPa” we have 6 different historic renovated apartments right here in Denver. While all of them might not have the sleek abbreviations like LoDo and SloHi, we’re happy to make some up for you if that’s of any interest. Check out our properties here or contact us today!