Boulder’s Economy at a Glance
Boulder, Colorado is home to both residents of the area and college students. After looking at Boulder County data I wanted to look at data related to the economy. I specifically wanted to look at data from 2000 all the way up to 2022. I choose to look at data frames related to GDP, population, and housing prices over time to get a sense of how boulder county’s economy has historically done in the past to speculate what the future might entail. In all three of these categories, we can see both increases and decreases in the data presented, and how this has affected the economy. I found this data from the FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) website which hosts all the data used in this study. Not only do I want to investigate how boulder is doing, but I wanted to see how events from the past might or might not have affected the economy. By using various charts and graphs I was able to uncover a lot of interesting information that would help me in my search to uncover the health of Boulder county’s economy.
I wanted to start off by looking at Boulder’s economy to get an idea as to how healthy the Boulder economy is. For this I choose to look at the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of Boulder County. Boulder being a “little” city it is a large community that has lots to offer from various economic ventures from the Pearl Street mall to the University of Colorado Boulder, and housing there is lots to offer economically to the community. I wanted to narrow my focus by looking at the GDP over time from the years 2000–2022. For this part I choose to use a histogram to show the GDP over the specific 22-year period that I choose.
After looking at the data it is obvious that Boulder has had its ups and downs in terms of GDP, but overall, it seems consistent. This histogram gives us a good idea as to how Boulder’s economy is doing in general. To get a more in depth look at the data over time I wanted to also look at a cat plot chart to show the GDP over the 22-year period. With the use of a cat plot chart, I can look at the years that had the biggest impact on the economy. By comparing the histogram and the cat plot chart I can look at the dates to see what years had the biggest impact on the GDP of the Boulder County.
After looking at the cat plot I can see years where the GDP took a dip, and this can help explain the dips in the histogram. A few dates I wanted to highlight in this study are points in history where I would expect the GDP to fall. I wanted to focus on a few dates which I would expect would take the biggest hit on the GDP. I choose to look at the market crash in 2008–2009 and Covid 19 pandemic which occurred in 2020. From the cat plot we can see that from the 2008 market crash the GDP took a slight dip. From this point in the GDP started to slowly climb back until it hit a small spike in 2016. From an associate director of campus communications in 2016 Elizabeth Lock states “Colorado will remain one of the top growth states nationally in 2016,”(Lock, 2015). In this article she talks about Colorado employment rising which could be a factor in the GDP rising in Boulder in 2016. Another dip in the GDP occurred in 2020 which was when covid-19 was taking place. After 2020 the GDP started to decline slightly which reflects the GDP recovering from pandemic. After looking at GDP I wanted to investigate the population of Boulder around the same time period from 2000–2022.
After looking at the GDP I wanted to see how the population of Boulder affected the GDP of the community. This information was also pulled from the FRED website. Boulder has a lot to offer in terms of outdoor activities, and even though I am speculating I feel like it has a direct correlation towards the population in the Boulder area.
Looking at the time series of the population from the years 2000–2023 there are a lot of similarities in the data. In the time series graph the years are on the x-axis and the population is represented by the y-axis. The population values that are represented are per 1000 people in the community. Boulder’s maximum population was around 330,000 people which occurred 1–1–2020 before covid-19 and had a minimum population of 271,000 people which occurred around 1–1–2000. It’s interesting to see the population compared to the GDP and how they relate to each other. Referencing the market crash in 2008 we can see a significant dip in the population around the selected time frame. Especially since Boulder is a great area to be outdoors, we can see an increase up until the market crash when the population declined. Later in the article I will go over the housing prices during the dates from 2000–2022. This cat plot shows the affect that the market crash in 2008 not only had on the Boulder community, but also the effect on the United States at this time. It is also interesting to look at the year 2020 which is about the time COVID was occurring in the United States. As said above this is when Boulder county had the largest population. From the data we can see a small decline in the population but given the circumstances around covid-19 it could signify that college students were at home instead of being on campus.
After looking at how similar the GDP and the population were to each other I wanted to represent this data in scatter plot to show the relationship the data.
From the scatter plot we can see there is a strong positive correlation between the GDP and population. This makes sense because employment is dependent on the GDP of the population of the Boulder community. Considering both the GDP and the population I also wanted to look at housing prices in the Boulder community to understand the city a little better.
Housing prices data could be a good indication as to how a community is doing. Boulder is unique because of its scenic beauty. This is why many people choose to live here. After looking at population and GDP in Boulder I wanted to see if the housing prices had any relationship between the previous two data sets. I choose to use a histogram to show a rough picture for housing prices from a different range of years from 2000–2023. The data represented shows the housing price index which represents the shifts in the housing market which again I pulled from the FRED website.
The histogram above represents the housing prices remaining consistent. There is a wide range of data with lots of highs and lows in the price index, but one value that stood out is the price index between the 150–200 mark. For a more in depth look at the data I wanted to use a time series chart to explain some of the tends that were occurring in the data.
From the time series chart the housing price index is consistent for the most part. Especially during the housing crash the housing price index did not have much fluctuation in the data. From the years 2000- 2010 there is a slight increase in the housing prices, but not as quickly as 2015. In 2015, we can see the housing price index starts to increase until around 2021 when the data takes a jump in 2021 from a price index of 358 to 437 which occurred in 2022. This is interesting to see given Covid which was occurring during this time did not have as much of an impact as I would have thought. From 2021 till 2023 the housing prices jump to a housing price index of 449. To me this time series chart shows how unique this Boulder community is. Even with the COVID 19 pandemic people are choosing to move to Boulder which causes the demand for housing in the area to remain high.
Boulder, Colorado is a unique part of the country and home to many people. With the flatirons in the background and a university in the middle of it all Boulder is special. After looking at the GDP, population and housing prices Boulder seems to have a thriving economy. Given there are a lot of outside forces that are reflected in the GDP Boulder itself seems to have a lot to offer in terms of not only its economy, but its environment as well. Having said that there are a lot of factors that will continue to allow Boulders economy to rise. From what I have seen Boulder stands to only go up from here.
Sources
Lock, Elizabeth. “Colorado’s Economy to Continue to Expand in 2016, Says Cu-Boulder’s Leeds School.” CU Boulder Today, 12 Mar. 2017, www.colorado.edu/today/2015/12/06/colorados-economy-continue-expand-2016-says-cu-boulders-leeds-school.
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Total Gross Domestic Product for Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO (MSA) [NGMP19740], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP19740, December 14, 2023.
U.S. Census Bureau, Resident Population in Boulder, CO (MSA) [BOLPOP], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOLPOP, December 15, 2023.
U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency, All-Transactions House Price Index for Boulder, CO (MSA) [ATNHPIUS14500Q], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ATNHPIUS14500Q, December 15, 2023.
