From 9News.com (Jeffrey Wolf):
Colorado’s population now stands at 5,029,196, an increase of 16.9 percent from 2000 when the population totaled 4.3 million. That year, Colorado gained a congressional seat after seeing a growth rate of 30.6 percent in the 1990s. The seat is the 7th Congressional District in suburban Denver currently held by Democrat Ed Perlmutter.
Elizabeth Garner, Colorado’s demographer, said the state’s growth rate this decade may have been affected by the economic slowdowns brought by the 2001 dot-com bust and the Great Recession. Other states that have seen big growth in the West, like Arizona and Nevada, have benefited from having a large retiree base. Arizona grew by 24.6 percent and Nevada by 35.1 percent, the highest in the country…
[Andrew Goetz, the head of the geography department at the University of Denver] says during the 1990s, Colorado’s population grew by 30 percent. He says the 17 percent increase is easier to handle. “I would say 17 percent is sustainable, at least in the short run. There are some longer run issues that we’re going to have to deal with – water being one of them,” he said. “Accommodating the growth in a more sustainable way is a challenge, but it’s not a new challenge. It’s something that we’ve known about, we’re planning for it.”