Essay by Ed Quillen
Politics – May 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
EARLY IN APRIL, the U.S. Census Bureau released its most current population estimates, with what its statisticians believe is the population of each county in the United States as of July 1, 2003 — almost a year ago, but certainly more current than the last census of April 1, 2000.
Colorado had six of the top 100 “Fastest Growing Counties in the U.S.” Douglas County (between Denver and Colorado Springs) was 3rd in the nation; it had grown 27.1% in those 3¼ years, which my rusty math indicates is an annual growth rate of 7.67%. The national leader was Loudoun County, Va., at about 8.6% a year.
Other Colorado counties in the Top 100 included Weld, Archuleta, Elbert, and two of our counties: Park and Saguache. Another one-time leader, Custer, had continued growing at a fair clip — 2.4% a year — but that wasn’t enough to make the list.
Now, as any Custer County resident I know will tell you, you don’t need a lot of new people to get an impressive growth rate when you start with a small base. If in a given year, 100 people move into a county with 2,000 residents, that’s an impressive 5% growth rate. If 100 move into a county with 500,000 residents in a given year, it’s barely a blip.
Since those 100 people are going to need about the same number of water taps, school classrooms, and the like, this emphasis on “growth rate” may not tell us all we should know.
But still, I had a batch of numbers, and I thought I might learn something if I played with them. So, what about our counties in Central Colorado? Are they growing as fast as they did in the 1990s? Or declining, as some did, in the 1980s? What about the San Luis Valley?
First off, to compare growth rates in different sorts of places, I divided Colorado counties into regions, for example front range, rural mountain, etc. Arizona, which is bigger than Colorado in both size and population, manages with only 15 counties. Whereas Colorado has 64 counties, but our county boundaries often don’t fall in useful places.
For instance, we claim Saguache County as part of Central Colorado. It’s also part of the San Luis Valley. And since a goodly portion of the county (in area if not population) lies west of the Continental Divide, it could also be deemed a Western Slope county.
I solved that problem, when I was grouping counties, by putting Saguache in both Central Colorado and the San Luis Valley. Similarly, I put Mineral County in the Valley, and in “Rural Mountain.”
Frémont County is another one where the lines don’t work well for my purposes. I’d consider western Frémont, everything down the canyon to about Texas Creek, as part of Central Colorado. The rest I’d put with the Front Range. But since the lines don’t fall that way, I put all of Frémont in Central Colorado, even though most of the county’s population lives to the east.
HOW FAR SOUTH does the Front Range go? I generally think of it as from Fort Collins to Pueblo. Does Weld County fit there?
And where does that leave Huerfano and Las Animas counties? Parts of them are quite mountainous, others are short-grass prairie. And they do have Interstate 25. I put them in Eastern Plains, even though that’s not quite accurate. But since the coal-mining ended, they seem to have more in common with Prowers and Otero counties than with any other grouping that came to mind.
My other categories were “Rural Mountains” (where we’d be if we weren’t in Central Colorado), “Mountain Resort,” and “I-70 Mountain Corridor” (just out of curiosity about the effects of the Interstate as it crosses the Rockies).
After piecing out the counties, I ran some numbers. I started with the census figures from 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2003. I then calculated the average annual growth rate for each interval: from 1980 to 1990, from 1990 to 2000, and from 2000 to 2003.
Locally, the results confirmed my impressions. Central Colorado was a stagnant place in the 1980s. Three counties (Chaffee, Gunnison, and Lake) lost population during that decade, and the others didn’t grow much. The regional annual growth rate was 0.37%, when the state grew at 1.32%.
But in the ’90s, Central Colorado roared along at 3.73% a year, led by Park and Custer counties.
The San Luis Valley is more stable. It grew a little faster than Central in the ’80s, and not as fast as Central in the ’90s.
That general pattern — little if any growth in the ’80s, followed by some roaring ’90s — was followed by the Rural Mountain counties. The steady growth in the mountains is along the I-70 corridor. Many Eastern Plains counties are losing population; the real exception is Weld County, which perhaps should be moved to the Front Range, except I’ve already done all the computation (and related formatting for typesetting) that I can handle.
If you’re looking for a home in the mountains, and you can figure out how to make a living from that home, then the logical places to look are the mountain counties that have been losing population since 2000, since their real-estate should be cheaper: Lake, Costilla, Rio Grande, Dolores, Hinsdale, Jackson, and Rio Blanco.
Or if you like the Eastern Plains, you have even more people-losing places to choose from: Baca, Bent, Cheyenne, Crowley, Huerfano, Kit Carson, Lincoln, Otero, Prowers, Sedgwick, Washington, and Yuma counties.
Many of those are in the lower Arkansas valley. Note that the south metro suburbs — Arapahoe, Douglas, and Elbert counties — are still growing. Those places are short on water, so they look to import it. These population changes — farm counties lose people while these suburban counties grow — explain quite a bit about recent water battles in Colorado. The defeat of Referendum A last year was only one battle in what promises to be a long war.
Looking at a bigger picture, though, I concluded that if you’re really concerned about population growth in Colorado, and think we’ve got too much of it, then you have only one choice this November: vote Republican.
Granted, some Democrats talk about “smart growth” or even “zero population growth,” and many Republicans are big boosters of population growth because they believe it brings prosperity and more business.
Let’s examine the record. We could look at the ’80s as a Republican time, with Ronald Reagan and then George Bush the Elder in the White House. We can call the ’90s a Democratic time, and the 00’s to date as Republican.
During the GOP ’80s, Central Colorado’s population grew at 0.37% a year. In the Democratic ’90s, the growth rate increased tenfold, to 3.73% a year. Since the turn of the millennium and a Republican return to the White House, the rate has dropped to 1.31% a year.
The San Luis Valley had a similar cycle: 0.59% in the ’80s, 1.4% in the ’90s, 0.51% in the ’00s. The Rural Mountains in general, no growth in the ’80s, 2.5% annual growth in the ’90s, down to 1.27% in the ’00s. The entire state followed a similar cycle, though not as pronounced as the mountain counties.
ONCE I HAD A THEORY about this. Colorado does better, by some economic measures anyway, during inflationary times. Prices rise for things like gold, coal, petroleum, wheat — stuff we can produce here. So current operations become more profitable, that attracts investors, as well as a lot of folks out for a quick buck on real-estate speculation.
The reverse is true during stable or deflationary times. Investors look elsewhere, and the get-rich- quick-and-get-out folks move to greener pastures.
Democrats presumably favor debtors, who like inflation — you’re paying off your loan with cheaper dollars. Republicans favor creditors, who want a stable currency, or even a deflating dollar. So Colorado’s population should grow more under Democrats than under Republicans.
Of course, that’s all based on 19th-century economic theories that were major issues in 1896, and I have no idea whether they’re relevant any more.
But I can read those census numbers, and relate them to presidencies. And they tell me that the surest way to cure any problems of growth around here is to re-elect George Bush. For some reason, though, I doubt that this will appear in any campaign advertising.
County (Seat) 1980
pop’n 1990
pop’n 80-90
rate 2000
pop’n 90-00
rate 2003
pop’n 00-03
rate
Chaffee (Salida) 13,227 12,684 -0.41 16,242 2.50 16,841 1.12
Custer (Westcliffe) 1,528 1,926 2.34 3,503 6.16 3,784 2.40
Frémont (Cañon City) 28,676 32,273 1.19 46,145 3.64 47,556 0.93
Gunnison (Gunnison) 10,689 10,273 -0.39 13,956 3.11 14,046 0.20
Lake (Leadville) 8,830 6,007 -3.77 7,812 2.66 7,731 -0.31
Park (Fairplay) 5,333 7,174 3.01 14,523 7.31 16,465 3.94
Saguache (Saguache) 3,935 4,619 1.62 5,917 2.51 6,708 3.94
Central Colorado 72,218 74,956 0.37 108,098 3.73 113,131 1.31
Alamosa (Alamosa) 11,799 13,617 1.44 14,966 0.95 15,126 0.33
Conejos (Conejos) 7,794 7,453 -0.44 8,400 1.20 8,403 0.01
Costilla (San Luis) 3,071 3,190 0.38 3,663 1.39 3,563 -0.84
Mineral (Creede) 804 558 -3.58 831 4.06 881 1.81
Rio Grande (Del Norte) 10,511 10,770 0.24 12,413 1.43 12,346 -0.16
Saguache (Saguache) 3,935 4,619 1.62 5,917 2.51 6,708 3.94
San Luis Valley 37,914 40,207 0.59 46,190 1.40 47,027 0.51
Delta (Delta) 21,225 20,980 -0.11 27,834 2.87 29,409 1.71
Dolores (Dove Creek) 1,658 1,504 -0.96 1,844 2.06 1,825 -0.31
Hinsdale (Lake City) 408 467 1.36 790 5.40 759 -1.21
Jackson (Walden) 1,863 1,605 -1.47 1,577 -0.17 1,507 -1.38
Moffat (Craig) 13,133 11,357 -1.43 13,184 1.50 13,527 0.79
Montezuma (Cortez) 16,510 18,672 1.24 23,830 2.47 24,335 0.65
Montrose (Montrose) 24,352 24,423 0.03 33,432 3.19 35,984 2.29
Ouray (Ouray) 1,925 2,295 1.77 3,742 5.01 4,021 2.24
Rio Blanco (Meeker) 6,255 6,051 -0.32 5,986 -0.10 5,938 -0.24
San Juan (Silverton) 833 745 -1.10 558 -2.84 572 0.77
Rural Mountains 88,162 88,099 .00 112,777 2.50 117,877 1.27
Archuleta (Pagosa Springs) 3,664 5,345 3.85 9,898 6.36 11,313 4.20
Gilpin (Central City) 2,441 3,070 2.32 4,757 4.48 4,845 0.57
Grand (Hot Sulphur Springs) 7,475 7,966 0.64 12,442 4.56 13,173 1.77
La Plata (Durango) 27,424 32,284 1.64 43,941 3.13 46,229 1.57
Pitkin (Aspen) 10,338 12,661 2.05 14,872 1.62 15,002 0.27
Routt (Steamboat Springs) 13,404 14,088 0.50 19,690 3.40 20,788 1.68
San Miguel (Telluride) 3,192 3,653 1.36 6,594 6.08 7,154 2.54
Teller (Cripple Creek) 8,034 12,468 4.49 20,555 5.13 21,786 1.81
Mountain Resorts 75,972 91,535 1.88 132,749 3.79 140,290 1.59
Clear Creek (Georgetown) 7,308 7,619 0.42 9,322 2.04 9,538 0.71
Eagle (Eagle) 13,320 21,928 5.11 41,659 6.63 46,020 3.11
arfield (Glenwood Springs) 22,514 29,974 2.90 43,791 3.86 47,611 2.61
Mesa (Grand Junction) 81,530 93,145 1.34 116,935 2.30 124,676 1.99
Summit (Breckenridge) 8,848 12,881 3.83 23,548 6.22 25,143 2.04
I-70 Mountain Corridor 133,520 165,547 2.17 235,255 3.58 252,988 2.10
Baca (Springfield) 5,419 4,556 -1.71 4,517 -0.08 4,223 -2.04
Bent (Las Animas) 5,945 5,048 -1.61 5,998 1.74 5,613 -2.01
Cheyenne (Cheyenne Wells) 2,153 2,397 1.08 2,231 -0.71 2,052 -2.53
Crowley (Ordway) 2,988 3,946 2.82 5,518 3.41 5,449 -0.38
Huerfano (Walsenburg) 6,440 6,009 -0.68 7,862 2.72 7,827 -0.13
Kiowa (Eads) 1,936 1,688 -1.35 1,622 -0.39 1,444 -3.50
Kit Carson (Burlington) 7,599 7,140 -0.61 8,011 1.16 7,911 -0.38
Las Animas (Trinidad) 14,897 13,765 -0.78 15,207 1.00 15,499 0.59
Lincoln (Hugo) 4,663 4,529 -0.28 6,087 3.00 5,881 -1.04
Logan (Sterling) 19,800 17,567 -1.18 20,574 1.59 20,928 0.53
Morgan (Fort Morgan) 22,513 21,939 -0.25 27,171 2.16 27,922 0.84
Otero (La Junta) 22,567 20,185 -1.10 20,311 0.06 19,754 -0.84
Phillips (Holyoke) 4,542 4,189 -0.80 4,480 0.67 4,511 0.21
Prowers (Lamar) 13,070 13,347 0.21 14,483 0.82 14,164 -0.67
Sedgwick (Julesburg) 3,266 2,690 -1.91 2,747 0.21 2,683 -0.71
Washington (Akron) 5,304 4,812 -0.96 4,926 0.23 4,813 -0.70
Weld (Greeley) 123,438 131,821 0.66 180,862 3.21 211,272 4.90
Yuma (Wray) 9,682 8,954 -0.77 9,841 0.95 9,799 -0.12
Eastern Plains 276,222 274,582 -0.05 342,448 2.23 371,745 2.37
Adams (Brighton) 245,944 265,038 0.75 347,961 2.76 380,273 2.77
Arapahoe (Littleton) 293,621 391,511 2.92 488,896 2.25 516,060 1.68
Boulder (Boulder) 189,625 225,339 1.74 269,785 1.82 278,231 0.95
Broomfield (Broomfield) 39,199 42,169 2.27
Denver (Denver) 492,365 467,610 -0.50 553,693 1.70 557,478 0.21
Douglas (Castle Rock) 25,153 60,391 9.15 175,766 11.27 223,471 7.67
Elbert (Kiowa) 6,850 9,646 3.48 19,872 7.50 22,254 3.54
El Paso (Colorado Springs) 309,424 397,014 2.52 516,929 2.67 550,478 1.95
Jefferson (Golden) 371,753 438,430 1.66 525,330 1.82 528,563 0.19
Larimer (Fort Collins) 149,184 186,136 2.24 251,494 3.06 266,610 1.81
Pueblo (Pueblo) 125,972 123,051 -0.22 141,472 1.40 148,751 1.56
Front Range 2,209,891 2,564,166 1.50 3,330,397 2.65 3,514,338 1.55
ENTIRE STATE 2,889,964 3,294,473 1.32 4,301,997 2.70 4,550,688 1.74
Ed Quillen, who abides in Salida, will blame any math errors here on the SPITBOL programming language.
