Colorado is now the third-most expensive state in America to live in, which is only shocking if you spent the last eight years huffing Gold Dome incense and believing “making Colorado affordable” meant something other than “please clap while we bury you in fees, mandates, and smug little press releases.”
Nobody is surprised.
The Denver Gazette reports that Colorado now ranks 47th in affordability, down from 46th in 2024 and 34th in 2022. Housing affordability is even worse, ranking 48th in the country. That is not a policy hiccup. That is a controlled demolition with a recycled tote bag and a land acknowledgment.
And right on cue, Governor Polis and the affordability theater troupe want credit for “steps” they have taken. Property tax reductions. Housing funds. Transit dreams. Condo reforms. Accessory dwelling units. Programs. Grants. Strategies. Initiatives. Every bureaucratic comfort blanket in the drawer.
Meanwhile, normal people are looking at grocery bills, insurance bills, mortgage rates, rent, child care, utilities, gas, and the price of existing in this state and wondering when exactly the help is supposed to arrive.
This is the great Colorado scam: regulate everything, mandate everything, subsidize the damage, then hold a press conference pretending you are the fire department instead of the guy flicking matches into the curtains.
The Chamber’s own regulatory update says Colorado businesses faced more than 205,000 state-level business restrictions last year, plus roughly 60,000 environmental restrictions. Colorado Chamber CEO Loren Furman said the state’s regulatory environment remains the top issue, especially because small businesses cannot keep up with complex and constantly changing mandates.
Translation: the people in charge made Colorado expensive, then acted confused when Colorado became expensive.
They wanted the moral glow of endless environmental, labor, housing, transportation, and energy tinkering without the bill. But the bill always shows up. It shows up in rent. It shows up in groceries. It shows up in insurance. It shows up when a family that did everything right still cannot buy a starter home unless their starter home comes with four roommates, two side hustles, and a blood oath to Zillow.
And then comes the gaslighting.
Polis says state policy is only a partial solution, and sure, mortgage rates are real. Inflation is real. Federal policy is real. Nobody serious says Colorado exists in a snow globe. But when your state keeps layering cost after cost after cost onto builders, employers, landlords, energy producers, insurers, and small businesses, you do not get to point at Washington and act like you just wandered into the crime scene.
This is not affordability. This is an elite progressive Costco run: buy mandates in bulk, slap “equity” on the receipt, and leave working Coloradans to load the cart.
The suburban normie was told this was compassion. This was smart growth. This was climate leadership. This was modern governance. Now the same normie is paying $500,000 for a house that used to be called normal, watching food pantries serve hundreds of working families a week, and wondering why “affordable Colorado” feels like Aspen prices with Aurora potholes.
Colorado used to be a place regular people could build a life. Now it is becoming a boutique lifestyle brand managed by people who think affordability is a slogan, not a grocery receipt.
So no, this is not a surprise.
It is the receipt.
Source: The Denver Gazette
Just Stop It
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