Colorado’s “housing crisis” is essentially unsolvable by simply building more market-rate housing, at least if we care about our quality of life here in Colorado.

According to a 2023 survey of 1,000 Americans, discussed in a recent Forbes story, Denver took first place as the most desired place to live. 17% of the respondents picked it for first; that represents 58 million people nationwide. Even if only 1 in 5 had the means to move here, that’s 11.6 million people, nearly tripling Colorado’s population.

Do we want 2-3 times as many people in Colorado, with the attendant crowds, traffic jams, air pollution, water shortages, etc.? How about mandatory reservation systems requiring weeks-ahead planning just to visit mountain areas? Rocky Mountain National Park, Brainard Lake, Mt. Blue Sky, and Quandary Peak already require reservations. Great Sand Dunes may soon, as visitation has about doubled in the last 10 years. What about going skiing, but with even longer lift lines and bigger traffic jams.

Or do we want a less populated state? In July 2022, Rasmussen Reports surveyed over 1,000 “likely to vote” Coloradans to gauge their feelings on the matter. According to an article on this survey, “Overwhelmingly, the answers showed they want to limit population growth. In recent years 92% feel that the state has become more crowded. 90% desire a future where far fewer people move to the state. 59% prefer a complete stop to population growth or even a decline in the population.”

Some data on Colorado’s alleged “housing crisis:” According to county-level data, the big price hits are limited to the high-demand Front Range cities, suburbs, and mountain resort areas. The rest of the state remains relatively affordable. And census data gives Colorado the fifth highest percentage increase in the number of housing units between 2010 and 2020, with an increase of 10.9%; that’s 86.1% above the national average.

With such a strong housing market in Colorado’s high-demand areas, doubling or tripling the housing supply, as some legislators want to do, would make some difference in prices. But multiplying those populations by 2-3 times comes with huge impacts in everyday life and completely ignores those issues that local control addresses.

Colorado does, however, have a real “water crisis.” The arguments between the seven states working on sharing the Colorado River revolve around Article III(d) of the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which requires the Upper Basin states to deliver 7.5 million acre-feet per year on average to the Lower Basin states,  plus multi-million acre-feet/year obligations to Mexico, Native American tribes, and pre-Compact water rights holders.

There just isn’t enough water for all that, plus serving many millions more people in the Front Range cities that depend on trans-mountain diversions of the Colorado River. Instituting a policy (stronger than the current Arizona one) that would require developers to use renewable water supplies and not deplete groundwater would lead to making some necessary choices about who faces cuts versus how much development could occur.