Note to Editors: Copies of the complete report are available on the Web at or by calling (303) 492-4007.
The American West may be renowned for its "boom and bust" economy, but during the last two centuries it's been vastly more boom than bust, according to a new report from the Center of the American West at the University of ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ at Boulder.
Since 1850, the economy has been on a generally upward trajectory, and the West's population has grown at a faster pace than the rest of the United States in all but one or two decades, according to the 21-page report authored by history Professor Patricia Nelson Limerick, geography Professor Bill Travis and research assistant Tamar Scoggin. However, "Crashes happen and still require anticipation and preparation," Limerick said.
The report titled "Boom and Bust in the American West" contains the findings of 12 prominent thinkers about the American West who gathered at ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder for a two-day workshop last December. Participants included Richard D. Lamm, former ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ governor and co-director of the Institute for Public Policy Studies at the University of Denver, Ed Marston, editor and publisher of the High Country News, Ben Sherman, president of the Western American Indian Chamber, Professor Richard Wobbekind, director of the Business Research Division at the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder Leeds School of Business, Limerick and Travis.
"Above all, the most significant conclusion we made was this: smarter decisions about growth and management during boom times can ease the impact of busts, and efforts to avoid degradation of community and environment during bust times can lay the foundation for a more resilient and stable kind of prosperity," the report stated.
The panel noted that growth controls were generally ignored during good times - and also ignored or even repealed during bad times. "The minute things slow down, legislatures often act to eliminate all growth restrictions," Limerick said.
The alternative to this pattern is better planning, the panel said. "In good times, take action to make your community come out the way you want it to be," Travis said, such as providing for open space and the clustering of homes.
"Even when economic recoveries occur promptly, workshop participants felt strongly that booms should not be occasions to put the busts out of mind and memory," the report stated. "In good times, governments should anticipate downturns, and make intelligent moves to build and maintain infrastructure when tax revenues are more abundant. During booms, Westerners should fight their susceptibility to amnesia about previous busts and to the denial of future ones."
The panel noted an inverse relationship between California and the interior West -- when employment in one area is up the other is down -- and also noted the importance of international immigration to the economy.
"In many ways, population growth equals economic growth," Travis said.
The increased ties of the Western economy to the global economy in recent years means that the West has become more vulnerable to global downturns, but also that it should incur fewer jobs losses than before, according to Wobbekind. And as the West becomes less dependent on natural resources and provides more service sector jobs -- a huge sector including everything from hamburger flippers to doctors -- it also has become more resilient.
The panel also forecast a major impact on the West from the aging Baby Boom generation, which it dubbed the "Assisted Living Frontier." "The retirement boom is coming," said Travis. "Retirees bring in money just like jobs do."
"Most thinking about the Western economy occurs in an atmosphere of urgency and sometimes agitation. This report invites Westerners to take a step back and think with more tranquility about the "ups and downs" of Western prosperity," Limerick said.
Contents of the full report are posted on the Web at .Ìý For more information contact the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder Center of the American West at (303) 492-4879.