With the University of Colorado and its many federal labs, Boulder County has long been an employment hub.
The local economy has been on a tear for several years, growing at a fast clip. Between 2007 and 2017, employment grew by 39,719 positions — a 17% increase.
Housing, however, has not kept pace. For every 3.5 new jobs that came to Boulder County in the last decade, just one housing unit was added: 11,262 in all.
This extreme imbalance in supply and demand forces tens of thousands of people (and their cars) into the county each day just to work. The imbalance also has contributed to a rise in homelessness, according to experts, and pushed up housing prices.
The median cost of a single-family home more than doubled from 2003 to 2019 in Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette and Superior. In Longmont and Erie, both cities that straddle Weld County and have built (slightly) more homes, prices rose 72% and 75%, respectively.
Rents are harder to track, with multiple sources and most datasets skewing toward higher-end units. But where the pricing data might be indistinct, certain numbers are clear. More than half (58%) of renters in Boulder County spend more than a third of their income on housing costs, according to Census data, compared to 46% of renters nationally.
