Today one of the major policy concerns is declining fertility. How times change. In 1968 Paul Ehrlich came out with his hysterical book, “The Population Bomb,” which began, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death.” Yet global population rose steadily from 3 billion in 1960 to 5 billion in 1987, even as global poverty declined.
Today the hand-wringing in Colorado is about too many people leaving. “Colorado’s population growth is slowest since 1989 as thousands leave for other states,” says a January 27 headline from CPR. Colorado is still growing, just at a slower pace. The state’s population “broke 6 million in 2025,” CPR reports, “with an annual growth rate of just 0.4 percent . . . now lagging behind the national growth rate of 0.5 percent.”
In 1982, then-Governor Richard Lamm, with Michael McCarthy, came out with the book “The Angry West,” which, among other things, lamented the population explosion in Colorado. In 1982 the population of the state was about half of what it is today, a little over three million.
But Lamm was a politician, not an alarmist like Ehrlich. You don’t get to be governor by screaming “Oh My God Everyone’s About to Die!” (In 1984 Lamm did suggest, however, that older people have a “duty to die,” earning him the moniker Governor Gloom.)
So Lamm’s book tends to take both sides of an issue and use many words to say little. For example, Lamm writes (p. 127), “Looking to the future, the conventional wisdom is that growth is advantageous to an area. But, again, this is not necessarily true. It can be an advantage or not, depending upon its rate, its type, and how it meshes with existing economies.” On his last page (p. 326), Lamm concedes, “Unbridled growth, even with its problems, is clearly preferable to decline.”
Fast-forward to 2026.
Democratic candidates debate growth
With apologies to Barbara Kirkmeyer, one of the few competent and sensible Republicans left leading her party, the next governor of Colorado almost certainly will be one of the Democratic candidates, Phil Weiser or Michael Bennet. So I watched their February 21 debate on housing and transportation with interest.
Hilariously, Bennet tried to paint Weiser as the candidate overly friendly toward markets. To my mind, Weiser’s main schtick as attorney general, other than suing Trump, has been insisting that he knows how to run other people’s businesses better than they do. I would describe Weiser as a central planner more than a free-marketer. That Bennet openly mocks Weiser as the pro-market guy tells you a lot about the current state of the Democratic Party.
To quickly review my position on housing: The main problem is that local governments in many ways forcibly prevent the building and use of housing, which drives up housing costs. The fundamental solution is for governments to stop interfering. That’s a standard pro-market, libertarian position (although not one all conservatives get behind).
Weiser and Bennet both think government should take a more active role in regulating and subsidizing the housing market, although Weiser was relatively more friendly to the construction of market-rate housing.
In response to a question from Kevin Matthews of YIMBY Denver, Bennet said, “You asked . . . whether the key is to build market-rate housing in Colorado. I actually think we know what the market will do in Colorado, which is build housing for rich people.” Ridiculously, Bennet suggested that the proper alternative to “market-rate” housing is “imaginative financing” by governments.
Weiser, reading the room (the event was cohosted by YIMBY Denver), replied, “We need more market-rate housing that provides starter homes.” He continued, “The market got broke, we gotta fix it.” He said, “It’s not the market that’s the problem, it’s [excessive] permitting fees.”
Maybe Weiser is not quite ready to get in touch with his inner Milton Friedman, but I was nevertheless pleasantly surprised to hear him lean in to relatively market-friendly rhetoric. Weiser also promoted modular housing. That said, I think fees are far less important than overt building restrictions.
Bennet did quickly concede, “We gotta cut red tape.” But then he piled on, “The market has created the massive asset inflation that has made it impossible for young people and working people” to live in much of Colorado.
Weiser countered with what may be his clearest statement on the relation between markets and government: “It’s important that government figure out how to enable the market to work to achieve the results that we need.” This can involve “incentives” (i.e., subsidies), “oversight” (regulations), and some government-built housing. So Weiser definitely is no libertarian, but he does lean toward relatively market-friendly views.
Matthews had to really push to get either candidate to admit that local zoning plays a role. Matthews said, “The National Zoning Atlas found that nearly 70% of land zoned for housing in Colorado effectively bans the most affordable options like apartments, town homes, condos in wealthy neighborhoods.” Both candidates conceded that’s a problem, but neither seemed to want to push too hard against local governments.
The candidates’ closing statements were revealing. Bennet said he wanted his legacy as governor to be that “working people didn’t have to spend more than 30% of their income on housing.” That’s a solid populist message.
Weiser said, “The measure of our success is whether we change the [relative] population decline” by fostering “a growing and dynamic economy.” That to me is the more inspirational message.
Calling all abundance democrats
The Democratic Party is locked in an internal debate between the democratic socialists and the abundance Democrats. These are not always well-defined groups. Often the same person will espouse democratic socialist slogans and yet advocate aspects of the abundance and pro-growth agenda.
As in the YIMBY movement, abundance Democrats and libertarians often can find common cause. Generally, abundance Democrats, like libertarians, want to see a growing economy and believe that advances in science and technology can help us better-meet our challenges. Although the ghost of Malthus lives on in the degrowth wing of the Democratic Party, the abundance crowd seems to be the one with the new ideas and the optimistic spirit.
The blunt fact is that the Republican Party of Colorado has all but destroyed itself as a state-wide force. For those interested in free markets, I see little alternative but to try to work with the abundance Democrats.
Abundance conservatism might be dead, but the abundance movement lives on.
Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.
