Opinion: Boulder’s growth – by the numbers

Given the push for more development dominating the Opinion Page lately, I thought Daily Camera readers might find it useful if I laid out some of the numbers related to Boulder’s growth, since they provide a quantitative basis for evaluation. But these numbers also need to be embedded in a long-term historical perspective, especially in this age of rapid climate change, with its serious questions about the sustainability of human life at our current population level.

As I said in my March 16, 2021 column about humans being the most invasive species, it’s worth looking at a graph of human population over the millennia (https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth). Human population grew very slowly from 10,000 BCE until 0 BCE, averaging around 0.04% per year. It then averaged around 0.09% per year until 1800. Since then, we humans have been growing at an average of almost 1% per year, increasing by around eight times to almost 8 billion humans on the planet. So it’s no surprise that in many parts of our globe, we are experiencing massive scarcity.

Boulder grew from a population of a few hundred in 1870 to 20,000 by 1950 (per Wikipedia), reaching around 77,000 in 1980 and over 108,000 by 2020, for an average growth rate of 0.85% per year for the last 40 years. Job growth went from around 50,000 in 1980 to around 104,000 in 2020, for an average growth rate of 1.85% per year, more than double the population growth rate!
https://bouldercolorado.gov/boulder-measures/about-us-boulder-community-profile


Last time I checked, the Denver Metro Area’s overall job to population ratio was roughly 2 to 3. So it’s no surprise that we have around 60,000 in-commuters, with the attendant traffic congestion, excessive carbon emissions, and massive pressure on housing prices and rents.

CU-Boulder has been no slouch regarding growth. CU went from 12,549 students in 1965 (7,665 resident, 4,884 non-resident) to 33,157 students in 2022 (19,096 resident, 14,061 non-resident). That’s an average growth rate of 1.72% per year. (At that rate, doubling takes about 40 years.) In case you were thinking that CU’s growth was driven by Colorado’s growth, note that non-resident students have increased slightly faster, at 1.87% per year. Apparently, they are the “cash-cow” for CU. https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/university.of.colorado.boulder.ir/viz/HistoricalEnrollment-1877/Enrollment

As to our future, one of the big potential growth areas is East Boulder. One might think that the city’s East Boulder Subcommunity Plan effort would have at least attempted to balance out the current excess of jobs by focusing on housing development and limiting job growth. Unfortunately, the numbers indicate quite the opposite.

The data for the various East Boulder scenarios show the following numbers for job growth to population growth to resident worker growth using the ratio of 2 workers per 3 residents discussed above: Concept 1 – 17,001 new jobs, 5,716 new residents, so approx. 3,810 new workers and an excess of roughly 13,191 new jobs over new workers. Concept 2 – 16,318 new jobs, 13,243 new residents, so approx. 8,828 new workers and an excess of roughly 7,490 new jobs over new workers. Concept 3 – 16,493 new jobs, 12,806 new residents, so approx. 8,537 new workers and an excess of roughly 7,956 new jobs over new workers. None of this makes any sense given Boulder’s already excessive jobs to population ratio, at least if you care about affordable housing, traffic congestion,  vehicle emissions, or our water supply. By the way, the proposed transit may not help much — the jobs are so spread out that the “last mile” issue will limit its use.

No doubt there will be claims that all this job growth will provide tax benefits, since a lot of the workers will live out of town and so will impose fewer demands on city services. But the very intensive multi-year Jobs/Pop study done in 2001-03 showed no significant benefit. Plus, new city facilities, like recreation centers, will no doubt be required, and our development impact fee system is woefully inadequate.

Finally, there is the Planning Reserve north of US 36 and mostly west of North 26th Street. How much of the approximately 500 acres might be developed is uncertain because much of it was bought with dedicated city Parks funds to be park land. But, for example, 200 acres developed at a moderately high density of 20 units per acre, with 2.4 residents (1.6 workers) per unit, equals roughly 6,400 new workers, not enough to even match East Boulder excess job growth. So no net dent in the jobs/population ratio, about zero effect on housing prices, but lots of scarce water consumed.

Clearly, it’s time for our Council to start dealing with the real numbers when talking about growth.

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