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Sometime this year, Jefferson County's population will pass that of the City and County of Denver, and Jefferson will thus be the largest county in Colorado. By the next official census in 2000 El Paso County will also be larger.
Or so I gather from some numbers recently released from the U.S. Bureau of the Census. The figures are estimates of population as of July 1 of last year. I used those along with the official counts from April 1, 1990, to determine the annual growth rate.
Then I searched for a formula that would tell me when, at those annual growth rates, various jurisdictions would equal Denver's population as it continued to grow at about 1 percent a year.
I never did find the formula, but eventually figured it out myself. Let this be a warning, children. When your 11th-grade trigonometry teacher tells you that you'll need to use logarithms someday, even though you plan to major in liberal arts and become a writer somewhere, believe him.
Denver had 467,410 people in 1990, and 497,480 people in the 1996 estimate, 6.25 years later. So it grew at a rate of 1.064 across that span, which works out to 1.01 annually.
Jefferson had 438,430 in 1990, and 492,528 last year, for 1.019 per year. Subtract the logarithm of Jefferson's population from the log of Denver's. Then subtract the log of Denver's rate from the log of Jefferson's rate. Divide the first subtraction by the second to get the number of years, since 1990, for Jefferson to pass Denver.
The result was 7.4 years since April 1, 1990, so along about Labor Day, Denver will no longer be the most populous county in Colorado. Jefferson will have 503,260 people and Denver only 503,259 on some morning in late summer.
Assuming current growth rates continue, then El Paso County will pass Denver in about two years, when both reach 511,620, but El Paso continues to grow faster.
Another contender, Arapahoe County, will pass Denver late in 2002 at 529,923 people. Douglas County, just south of Arapahoe and the fastest-growing county in the United States -- from 60,391 in 1990 to 111,647 last year -- should pass Denver in 2013, at 588,914 people.
Granted, it's silly to extrapolate too far from these figures. Custer County, for instance, was the fourth fastest growing county in the nation (1,926 to 3,062), and if all growth rates stay the same, it will pass Denver in 2075 at about 1,110,000 people. That's hard to imagine.
Nationally, states in the Mountain West led in growth rates: the top five were Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Utah and Colorado.
The Mountain West gained 2.46 million people 1990-96. That's impressive, but Texas grew almost that many people, as did California. There are more people, 17.4 million, in five southern California counties than there are in all eight states of the Mountain West.
Some people may be worried about all this growth and what it bodes for the future, but there are reasons for hope.
For instance, along U.S. 285 at the edge of Park County (third-fastest growing in the nation), just inside the Jefferson County line, there's a prime example of growth in the Stupid Zone.
Big forest fires have rampaged nearby in recent years, and yet at Will o' the Wisp, you can see wood-sided houses with big wooden decks, sitting among flammable trees that nearly poke into their windows. A hot, dry summer some year will cure some of that growth.
Perhaps that one will be big enough to leap the South Platte into Douglas County, as was feared for the Buffalo Creek blaze last summer. (Sad to say, I was sitting in a saloon one night when that news was on, and, believe it or not, there were people cheering for the fire.)
Other people worry about the growth of El Paso County, since Colorado Springs is the home of right-wing groups eager to impose their version of biblical standards.
So they boldly oppose homosexual marriage, but if the
right-thinkers gain political clout and courage, they'll
promote polygamy as the divine standard (King David, for
instance, had multiple wives, and was a man after God's
own heart
).
Then they might go after banks (usury is forbidden in the Old Testament, and some scholars interpret any interest as usury) and seafood restaurants (shellfish is taboo in Leviticus).
The resulting uproar will entertain the rest of us as we pack our worldly goods and prepare to flee from the Ayatollah Dobson. That exodus will slow Colorado's growth, and the publicity will discourage other people from immigrating.
In a century or so, Colorado should be fit to live in again. So don't despair. This, too, shall pass.
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