On this episode of Arizona Edition.
As Colorado’s population doubled between 1982 and 2017, the state lost more than 12 hundred square miles of open rural space.
The majority of this land, 86%, was developed to handle the additional consumption caused by Colorado having an additional 2.5 million people.
The remaining 14% was used to build their homes, places of work, places where they could shop, go to church, park, etc.
Population growth is a direct contributor to overuse of water in the West, but public policy continues to promote the idea of growth as a measure of economic and political power.
Our guest is Leon Kolankiewicz. He is Scientific Director of Numbers USA and Vice President of Scientists and Environmentalists for Population Stabilization (SEPS).
Kolankiewicz is also the co-author of a new study on sprawl in Colorado. A study that highlights what is lost when people are won.
He wrote a similar report for Arizona last year in a study that determined the state had lost 1,744 square miles (1.1 million acres) of natural habitat and farmland to buildings, pavement, gravel and other surfaces to support a population that grew by 4.2 million people between 1982 and 2017.
National Spread Report