A year ago, I ran across one of those business page statistics which confirmed current reports more families are moving out of Colorado than arriving. Rental companies were noticing for the first time in their memory, certainly since the 1960s, they were hauling more and more empty trucks and trailers into the state. In the past, for nearly half-a-century, they’d been ferrying them away. I was perhaps stretching interpretation last year when I speculated there might be reason for concern. My suggestion elicited a snippy email from the governor’s office informing me that, in fact, Colorado’s population was continuing to grow and referring me to several state demographer’s reports. It struck me I must have stepped on some pro-growth economic nerves. There is perhaps nothing more gratifying than being able to crow, “I told you so!”

When I moved to Colorado in 1972, the 1970 census results found 2.2 million residents. According to the state demographer we passed 6 million in July of 2025, an increase of 200,000 over the 2020 census. Buried in this accounting, however, is the fact emigration is now exceeding immigration. Still boasting one of the younger average age cohorts in the nation our mortality rate remains low, while Colorado families steadily breed new “natives” — although the state’s fertility enthusiasm can’t outpace that of neighboring Utah. Though you might expect this developing exodus would be driving down the cost of housing for the rest of us, our median house price is closing in on half-a-million dollars, far exceeding inflation.

During the 1970s, there was a joke about Colorado’s “last-man syndrome.” Immigrants were arriving at a pace straining civic and economic infrastructure. Both private utilities and public services were struggling to keep up. The result was an anti-newcomer sentiment that developed within weeks of settling in. Thus, the joke was that arrivals would yell, “I’ve made it to Colorado, please throw up the fence!” It’s not hard to believe our population has nearly tripled during my residency. Congestion, pollution and an escalating cost-of-living attest to a far more crowded and more expensive future. You don’t have to be a fiscal genius to recognize there is a probable link between accelerating departures and quality-of-life concerns.

Business writer Aldo Svaldi reports, “In a population that prides itself on physical fitness, Colorado residents are financially obese, carrying around the heaviest debt load of any state.” At first that statistic seems a little startling, but consider the following: Colorado’s average, per-capita debt reached $90,760 in 2023. If you pause to consider those $500,000 homes, however, it isn’t all that surprising. Whenever a young family with two children manages to cobble together a 20% down payment, often with help from parents, their mortgage is $400,000. They are already $10,000 apiece over the average debt. Add in auto loans, credit cards, childcare and student loans still pursuing them into adulthood — it can be a load. The national average debt burden is $57,627 per person, making Colorado half again as expensive or more. Is there a chance some of our out-migration is driven by the cost of living? How did we come in higher than California?

We know we’re short at least 200,000 housing units statewide and this deficit is growing rather than shrinking. There is considerable political chatter at both the local and state level about incentivizing homebuilding. Unfortunately, it is a generally recognized problem that voters seem reticent to tackle. Steamboat Springs purchased a large ranch property that could accommodate several thousand homes. Routt County voters said, “Not so fast.” In a cognitively dissonant move, Littleton voters re-elected the mayor and City Council members who sent them a zoning change to promote greater density which they rejected. Opponents, organized as “Rooted in Littleton,” advocated in favor of maintaining “our small-town feel.”

Jump-starting affordable housing requires a pile of money. Homebuilders will construct smaller, denser developments as long as they are paid promptly. TABOR makes it difficult for public housing authorities to accumulate a substantial trust fund. This is a shame because once a housing program kicks off it can keep itself rolling. Smaller homes sell fast, returning dollars into what should be a revolving fund. Billions will be needed. There was probably no better opportunity to establish such a strategy than during the immediate post-COVID years when the federal government was ladling dollars into Colorado. There is a partisan dispute at the legislature on whether these moneys were wasted, at least some obligated to new programs that can no longer be sustained. I don’t recall any sustained advocacy on behalf of affordable housing on either side of the aisle.

Coloradans like to brag about their outdoorsy lifestyles. But access to these amenities have suffered astronomical price hikes. Fifty years ago, you could pick up a daily ski pass at a Front Range grocery story for $25. Today our premiere resorts are asking nearly $300 per day, a $1,000% increase. Salaries have not kept pace. Season passes will temper this outlay, but that family of four can no longer pack their own lunches and hold their costs to $100. It was 20 years ago a Vail Resorts executive told me, “If we cared about Denver skiers, we wouldn’t be building condos in our free parking lots.” Now it costs $30 to enter their garages. This will be a tough season for our mountain towns. Businesses will fail. Jobs have already been lost. Even ICE has stopped raiding hotel and kitchen staffs now in hiding, while the chances for major March snow dumps are vanishing.

If this winter’s dry weather presages a longer drought, we will start to see mountain condos dumped on the market where up to 80% of housing units belong to out-of-state second homeowners. There are other infrastructure investments Colorado needs to make that will require leadership on the part of our next governor. Our roads are a mess, nowhere more so than in our rural counties. Yet what population growth we do expect can be expected to concentrate along the Front Range. Building out the proposed Front Range Passenger Rail project should be a priority. Its ridership would likely double if a high-speed fixed guideway to our central mountain resorts were attempted as well.

There are many voters who remember the highway package promised by Bill Owens 25 years ago. It claimed there was something for everyone. Money ran out once T-REX was completed along Interstate 25 along with a half-dozen other Front Range projects. The promised rural projects were cancelled. U.S. 550 south of Durango is only getting fixed today, 25 years later. It’s doubtful voters south of Denver to Trinidad will approve taxes for the North Segment of Front Range Rail to Fort Collins without an iron-clad guarantee they will actually live to see a train headed their way. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. It was the economist Herbert Stein who noted, “If something can’t go on forever, it will stop.” Perhaps Colorado might benefit from a breathing spell with slower or even little growth. We could use the respite to tackle the considerable “catching up” we need to undertake. Something we will need to do for ourselves. Help is not on the way.

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.