Data-devourers, prepare to devour data. At a recent PLAN Boulder County presentation, we learned of a giant one-page document released by the City of Boulder that summarizes a lot of demographic and real estate trends for the city. View or download the PDF here.
The comparison between job growth and housing-unit growth stood out in particular. In short, while jobs grew from 49,640 to 102,500 between 1980 and 2013 (or 106 percent), total housing units grew from 30,287 to 44,028 between 1980 and 2014 (or 45 percent). There, in stark statistical terms, is a snapshot of why we have about 60,000 people driving into and out of Boulder to work each day.
At the PLAN Boulder Meeting, the term being used both by presenter David Driskell, Executive Director of Community Planning & Sustainability, and by audience questioners, was “jobs-housing imbalance.”
The same chart also notes that residential population, measured as 102,420 in 2014, is projected to grow to 114,025 by 2035.