From: zstewart@nyx.cs.du.edu (Zhahai Stewart)
Newsgroups: co.politics,boulder.general,co.general
Subject: Re: Overpopulation: where did it go?
Date: 20 Dec 92 00:41:20 GMT
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
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In article <1992Dec12.015430.10615@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary) writes:
>In article <1992Dec11.141602.15246@sernews.raleigh.ibm.com> murray@bullwinkle.raleigh.ibm.com (Charlie Murray) writes:
>>You said it.  Last week I posted an article describing how Boulder is
>>becoming too white and affluent, and I got only one response which
>>basically asked "What's wrong with that?".  I feel, the Boulder that I
>>know and love is fading away.
>
>Although I'm a recent imigrant (although certainly not an affluent
>one), my impression was that Boulder had been rich, white and affluent
>for some time. Certainly the downtown area and the Pearl Street Mall
>is nothing but and the university has (for some time, even before the
>current admissions police) a very large number of rich, affluent 
>Californians as stundets. Actually, moving here from Berkeley (a 
>roughly similarly sized college city) I was amazed by the lack of
>cheap, un-affluent (whatever the word would be) resturants, etc...
>It seems the status quo is to spend more, for higher quality: Certainly
>a sign of long-term affluence.

Boulder's affluence (real or image) isn't new.  It was a strong subject
among my circle of friends back in the mid 70's, and some of my friends
moved away way back then for reasons related to this (among others).  I
thought of Boulder as a very easy town to stay broke in.

Nevertheless, this filtering has increased over the years.

>Further, I seem to recall some discussion of the subject here, largely
>placing the blame on the city's government and its (very expensive)
>growth-limiting and ecologically-sensitive policies. 

Actually, I don't think the growth limitation is all that big a factor;
nearby cities without such limitations are hardly cheap, and many cities
(like Berkeley which you mention) are even more hemmed in by nearby cities
than Boulder is by it's growth limitations.  The key factor, which has 
been operating for many years, is that PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE HERE.  A large
number of the folks I know in Denver would love to live in Boulder if they
could work it out.  Nationally, lots of people would.  Many do.  In other
words, there is a very large demand.  The aforementioned policies are one
of the reasons, and so indirectly may be a significant cause of the high
prices.

Consider the alternatives.  Boulder could increase the supply some, in
terms of housing (but that is not the only factor), but I seriously doubt
that would meet the demand for cheap houses (look at nearby cities with
no growth limitation and their average new house costs; how could Boulder
expand fast enough to drop their housing cost to much less than Louisville?).
Or Boulder could reduce the demand by becoming less attractive; higher
crime rate (like Berkeley) would help, bad economy would be ideal for this,
we can't do much about the weather...  Of course, changing Boulder to have
pro-growth and anti-environmental policies would probably make it a lot
less attractive and might lower costs thereby, especially if folks started
to move out once Boulder got uglier (on many levels).

I don't like those options.  I'm also not pleased with the prices being so
high, but we don't always get the choice to optimize everything without
tradeoffs.  At this stage, I think too many people want Boulder to be as
nice a place to live as they can afford, so I doubt that any "mess up Boulder
movement" aiming to reduce prices by reducing attractiveness would go over
with the voters.  :-)

I think we have to face it; there isn't going to be any "cheap" and "great"
place to live with a good job market anywhere in the country.  The only
cheap places are cheap because people aren't anxious to move there.  I would
be interested in hearing of someplace as desireable as Boulder yet cheaper;
I would seriously consider moving there.  I don't think it's coincidence that
I've been looking for this for 20 years, but I'm still in Boulder.

>I'm not sure about Boulder, but I hope this isn't the case: I'm
>far more comfortable with the current character of Colorado than
>that of California. (One reason why I was happy to move here...)

Case in point.  As long as people can afford to move here, they will; the
prices will continue to rise until they reach equilibrium.  If we could
magically decrease Boulder prices by 40% tomorrow, they would rise back
within a year, as people flocked here for the bargains, being willing to
pay premiums in bidding for slots - until the market stabilized at about
what it would have been otherwise.
   ~z~
Newsgroups: co.politics,co.general