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   The entire northern Front Range, especially metro Denver, was a hot   
   spot coming out of the Great Recession, drawing in young workers   
   from all over the country and powering one of the fastest-growing   
   economies of any region in the years before the pandemic. But that   
   important driver of growth looks like it has stalled and even   
   reversed.   
      
   Colorado may have both welcomed and feared the disproportionate flow   
   of new residents last decade. But this decade it will need to find a   
   way to attract its share from a shrinking pool of new workers, and   
   early on it looks like it is falling behind.   
      
   “Large urban areas with very large labor markets had power and   
   people were willing to pay up to live there. They have lost that   
   edge a little bit. They are competing more with the suburbs and the   
   exurbs. We expect Denver to be hit hard,” said Adam Ozimek, chief   
   economist with the Economic Innovation Group, which conducted a   
   study of population winners and losers among U.S. counties during   
   the pandemic.   
      
   Zeroing in even more, EIG compared population trends of the largest   
   counties, defined as 100,000 residents or more, in Colorado,   
   Wyoming, Utah, Kansas and New Mexico from the middle of 2020 to the   
   middle of 2022.   
      
   Denver County, which averaged a 2.1% annual rate of population   
   growth between 2010 and 2019, lost population in 2021 and started   
   growing again in 2022. But it remains down by about 4,304 residents   
   over the 2-year period, or 0.3% per year. The county’s   
   deacceleration was among the largest regionally and nationally,   
   according to EIG. As in many places with population losses, it   
   reflected a big drop in international migration, outflows of   
   residents to other areas and other states, and a higher death rate   
   because of the pandemic.   
      
   Denver, Boulder, Jefferson and Arapahoe counties lost nearly 34,000   
   residents combined in domestic out-migration in the past two years,   
   according to counts from the U.S. Census Bureau. Over the same   
   period, Weld, Douglas and Larimer counties saw net migration of   
   35,656 people.   
      
   Ozimek said the fingerprint of remote work is all over the shift   
   from costlier urban areas to outlying areas where land is still   
   available for home construction. Even though Weld and Douglas   
   counties lack the concentration of jobs that Denver and Boulder   
   counties have, their population growth has been much stronger.   
      
   In 2019, 40% of residents in Weld County commuted to another county   
   for work, compared to only 10% of workers in Larimer County and 8%   
   in El Paso County. It remains a commuter county, but the pandemic   
   caused the rate of workers crossing county boundaries each day to   
   drop to 36%, said Cindy DeGroen, a senior demographer at the   
   Colorado State Demography Office.   
      
   Weaker population growth in Colorado also reflects the big run-up in   
   home prices and rents. The areas with the biggest increases in   
   housing costs have become much more vulnerable to an exodus as the   
   economy tries to work toward an “equalization” or rebalancing in   
   real estate values, Ozimek said.   
      
   “The urbanization of the last few decades has driven up the cost of   
   living. Those are the places where people feel the most pressure to   
   leave,” he said.   
      
   Colorado’s growth relative to other states has been slowing for   
   years, even before the pandemic, said state demographer Elizabeth   
   Garner, and she isn’t in the camp of those saying Denver has fallen   
   out of favor.   
      
   https://www.denverpost.com/2023/04/18/colorado-population-declines-   
   outmigration-housing-costs-remote-work/   
      
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