Urban Studies Commons^™

Child Care Deserts In Mountain West Congressional Districts, 2024, Cason Noll, Yash Kalla, Yiselle Olivas Ruiz, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet presents data on child care deserts across 28 congressional districts in the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah as of 2024. The percentage of young children residing in a child care desert and the urban, suburban, or rural designation of each congressional district are included. The Center for American Progress (CAP) report, ‘America’s Child Care Crisis Leaves Many Families Without Access to Licensed Care,’ includes data on all 435 U.S. congressional districts.

Fastest-Warming States And Cities In The Mountain West, 2025, Maisoon Faris, Kahlen Coss, Kevin Yang, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Environment

This fact sheet presents data published by Climate Central on the change in average annual temperatures for the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah and 15 Mountain West cities from 1970 to 2025. City-level data are derived from Applied Climate Information System (ACIS) operated by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), state-level data are derived from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

Gross Metropolitan Product (Gmp) And Gross State Product (Gsp) In The Mountain West, 2024, Devin Streuter, Phillip Seo, Zafeen Boulware, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet presents 2024 Gross Metropolitan Product (GMP) and Gross State Product (GSP) data for five Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, and selected metros in these states. The data are derived from a report by the United States Conference of Mayors titled, “U.S. Metro Economies Annual Report and Forecast June 2025."

Manufactured Homes In The Mountain West, 2025, Yiselle Olivas Ruiz, Dre Boyd-Weatherly, Taylor Volk, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Housing & Real Estate

This fact sheet presents 2025 data on manufactured homes in the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The Construction Coverage report, “U.S. States Investing Most in Manufactured Homes,” based on analysis from the U.S Census Bureau and Zillow’s Home Value Index, includes data on all fifty states. This fact sheet focuses on the number of manufactured homes, site-built home permits, and the average price of manufactured homes in the Mountain West.

Data Centers In Mountain West Markets, 2026, Cason Noll, Krish Sharma, Maisoon Faris, Olivia K. Cheche, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Transportation & Infrastructure

This fact sheet reports on the distribution and geographic concentration of data centers across the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah as of March 6th, 2026. Using data from DataCenterMap, this fact sheet examines the number of data centers in each Mountain West state and further analyzes market-level  distribution, defined as cities within each state where data centers are located. The data are used to compare state totals and to rank Mountain West markets from highest to lowest based on the number of data centers operating in that area.

Local Journalist Equivalents (Ljes) In The Mountain West, 2025, Taylor Volk, Anthony Arroyo, Yiselle Olivas Ruiz, Olivia K. Cheche, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet presents 2025 data on Local Journalist Equivalents (LJEs) for the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The data are derived from the Muck Rack report “Local Journalist Index 2025,” which includes data on LJEs for states and counties across the U.S. This fact sheet highlights state-level LJE data among Mountain West states, as well as LJE data for the following 17 Nevada counties: Carson City, Churchill, Clark, Douglas, Elko, Esmeralda, Eureka, Humboldt, Lander, Lincoln, Lyon, Mineral, Nye, Pershing, Storey, Washoe, and White Pine.

Economic Growth In Mountain West Cities, 2019-2023, Anirudh Polagani, Isabelle G. Graham, Olivia K. Cheche, Kristian Thymianos, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet presents 2019-2023 data on economic growth indicators in 32 Mountain West cities across Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The CoworkingCafe report, “Rising Powerhouses: The Cities Making America’s Economic Future,” includes economic growth data for 269 cities across the United States. This fact sheet highlights data from select cities in each Mountain West state, categorized by population size: five large cities, eight mid-sized cities, and 19 small cities.

Latino Or Hispanic-Owned Businesses In The Mountain West, 2017-2022, Anthony Arroyo, Cason Noll, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet examines the growth of Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses in the largest metropolitan areas in the Mountain West between 2017 and 2022. The data are derived from the Brookings Institution’s “Charting the surge in Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses in the US” report, which highlights data on Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses in metropolitan and micropolitan areas across all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. This fact sheet focuses on data for the following metropolitan areas in the Mountain West: Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ; Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO; Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV; Albuquerque, NM; and Salt Lake City-Murray, UT.

Cost Of Living For Older Adults (65+) In Mountain West Metropolitan Statistical Areas, 2024, Anirudh Polagani, Annie Vong, Mohit Pande, Olivia K. Cheche, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Demography

This fact sheet explores 2024 cost of living data for adults over the age of 65 in the largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) across five Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The data are sourced from the “Elder Index,” a dashboard that focuses on housing, healthcare, food, transportation, and miscellaneous expenses that collectively reflect the monthly expenses for those over the age of 65. This fact sheet focuses on five MSAs in the Mountain West: Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ; Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO; Las Vegas-Henderson- North Las Vegas, NV; Albuquerque, NM; and Salt Lake City-Murray, UT.

Urban Heat Islands In Mountain West Cities, 2024, Mia Tschan, Krish Sharma, Olivia K. Cheche, William E. Brown Jr.

Environment

This fact sheet presents data on Urban Heat Islands (UHIs) in six cities across five Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The data are derived from the 2024 Climate Central report, “Urban Heat Hot Spots in 65 Cities,” which includes data on how UHIs boost temperatures in 65 major cities across the United States. This fact sheet focuses on UHIs in six Mountain West cities: Albuquerque, NM; Denver, CO; Las Vegas, NV; Phoenix, AZ; Salt Lake City, UT; and Tucson, AZ.

Native American Tribes And Federal Grant Funding In The Mountain West, Fy2023-2025, Isabelle G. Graham, Maisoon Faris, Dre Boyd-Weatherly, Olivia K. Cheche, William E. Brown Jr.

Elections & Governance

This fact sheet presents state-level data on the impact of a federal government-wide funding freeze affecting Native American Tribes, focusing on the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The data are derived from the Brookings Institution’s “A federal grant freeze could disrupt over $24 billion to Native American communities and undermine US obligations to Tribes” brief, which reports data from USAspending. The original report provides data on the federal government’s obligations, outlays, and remaining balances owed to Native American Tribes for all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Public K-12 School Start Times In The Mountain West, 2020-2021, Olivia K. Cheche, William E. Brown Jr.

K-12 Education

This fact sheet presents data on public K-12 school start times in the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah as of the 2020-2021 school year. The data are derived from the “School start time: Average public K–12 school start time and percentage distribution of public school start time, by state: 2020–21” report originally published by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). This fact sheet highlights the average public K-12 school start times and distribution of public K-12 school start times for each Mountain West state.

Police Killings In The Mountain West, 2013-2023, Isabelle G. Graham, Olivia K. Cheche, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Criminal Justice

This fact sheet presents data on police killings between 2013 and 2023 for the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The Brookings Institution report, “The state of police reform: measuring progress in each state,” tracks the total number of killings by police and the number of killings by police per one million residents in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. This fact sheet reports data on the total number of people killed by police and the rate of police killings per capita for each Mountain West state.

Housing Crisis Outlook In Mountain West Metros, 2023, Kian Parikh, Yiselle Olivas Ruiz, Ivan Sun, Olivia K. Cheche, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Housing & Real Estate

This fact sheet presents 2023 data on housing market conditions in seven large metros across the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The Lending Tree report, “Portland, Ore., Has Worst Housing Crisis Outlook – Here’s Why,” includes data on the 100 largest metros in the U.S. This fact sheet focuses on housing crisis outlook data for Mountain West metros appearing among the largest 100 metros in the nation: Phoenix, AZ; Tucson, AZ; Colorado Springs, CO; Denver, CO; Las Vegas, NV; Albuquerque, NM; and Salt Lake City, UT.

Homelessness Increases In The Mountain West, 2015-2024, Krish Sharma, Sydney Mitchell, Mohit Pande, Olivia K. Cheche, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Demography

This fact sheet presents data on homelessness increases in the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah from 2015 to 2024. The data are derived from “Male homelessness in the United States,” a report by the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM). The original report includes data on the overall increase in homelessness in the United States from 2015 to 2024, as well as data on the increase in homelessness by gender.

Limited Supermarket Access Areas In The Mountain West, 2010-2020, Taylor Volk, Ivan Sun, Mohit Pande, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Health

This fact sheet presents data on limited supermarket access areas in the Mountain West from 2010 to 2020. The “Limited Supermarket Access Analysis” report, published by the Reinvestment Fund, offers data for populations that reside in Limited Supermarket Access (LSA) areas in U.S. states and in major U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) with a population of at least 1,000,000 people. This fact sheet presents both state-level and MSA-level data for the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.

Renter Households In Mountain West Metros, 2022, Sean Curry, Mohit Pande, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Housing & Real Estate

This fact sheet presents data from a Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) Harvard University report “America’s Rental Housing 2024,” which details the status of the rental market in the U.S. This fact sheet focuses on data for the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah including data on the demographics of renter households in Mountain West metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs).

Homelessness In Mountain West Continuums Of Care (Coc), 2022-2023, Yvette Machado, Anna Vu, Annie Vong, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Demography

This fact sheet examines data on the number of homeless per 100,000 individuals and the number of unsheltered per 100,000 individuals in six Mountain West metropolitan areas in 2023. Six continuums of care (CoC) are identified in the Mountain West: the Albuquerque, NM CoC; the Las Vegas/Clark County, NV CoC; the Phoenix, Mesa/Maricopa County, AZ CoC; the Tucson/Pima County, AZ CoC; the Metropolitan Denver, CO CoC; and the Colorado Springs/El Paso County, CO CoC.

A Gis Analysis To Identify Historical, Contemporary, And Spatial Housing Discrimination In Denver, Colorado, Ian Sharkey

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

This study analyzes the relationship between housing discrimination and equity within the City of Denver. This study creates a discrimination index by combining (1) historical Discrimination, (2) contemporary segregation, and (3) housing inequity data into an index to compare the Denver Department of Health and the Environment (DDPHE) 2020 equity index using a local bivariate analysis. This study found a negative linear relationship between the created and Denver equity indexes. The variables used for the discrimination index can explain some of the relationships, but future studies should use more variables for a discrimination index.

Using Gis To Identify Barriers To Access On The Rtd W Line In Denver, Colorado, Tristan Johnson

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Denver, Colorado has a long history of public transportation usage beginning with horse-drawn streetcars in 1871. As the automobile began to flourish however, the use of public transportation has languished. In 2013, the W light rail line opened serving the West Denver area. As Denver has moved toward a more transit-oriented growth model, this rail line can create a more vibrant future. Using GIS, a better understanding of the barriers to access for light rail travel is obtained and considering key variables outputs are created to assist policy makers in utilizing the W line. By using GIS to address population …

Police Shootings In The Mountain West, 2015 - 2021, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, Madison Frazee-Bench, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Criminal Justice

The Washington Post publishes and regularly updates a dataset regarding the use of deadly force by police since 2015. This fact sheet extracts data for each state in the Mountain West (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah), and presents a regional perspective on the total number of individuals shot and killed by police, including demographic variables such as race, gender, and age. Two additional variables are included in this examination: the presence or absence of mental illness in the individual killed by police, and the presence or absence of a body-worn camera in incidents of deadly force by police.

Regulation Of Recreational Marijuana In Small Cities And Counties In Colorado, Katherine Nesse, Colin Victory

SPU Works

In November 2016 the number of states where recreational marijuana sales are legal increased to eight. Thousands of cities and counties are now on the front lines of regulating these new land uses. Local governments in Colorado, the first state to implement recreational marijuana legalization, are models for jurisdictions in other states. We study counties and municipalities in the eight micropolitan statistical areas in Colorado to learn how they regulate recreational marijuana businesses. We reviewed codes, ordinances, and other documents of 43 local governments and interviewed planners in a third of these jurisdictions. These places were purposefully selected and reflect …

The Impact Of Transit Oriented Development On The Travel Behaviors Of Workers In Denver, Colorado, Gregory J. Kwoka

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To combat unsustainable transportation systems characterized by reliance on petroleum, polluting emissions, traffic congestion and suburban sprawl, planners encourage mixed use, densely populated areas that provide individuals with opportunities to live, work, eat and shop without necessarily having to drive private automobiles to accommodate their needs. Despite these attempts, the frequency and duration of automobile trips has consistently increased in the United States throughout past decades. While many studies have focused on how residential proximity to transit influences travel behavior, the effect of workplace location has largely been ignored.

This paper asks, does working near a TOD influence the travel …

Slides: Air Monitoring And Litigation Update, John Jacus

Air Quality Impacts from Oil and Gas Development (January 27)

Presenter: John Jacus, Partner, Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP, reviews recent litigation aimed at oil and gas development activities with respect to air emissions impacts, and also several recent and ongoing studies and ambient monitoring efforts focused upon air emissions from oil and gas activities

23 slides

Urban Ambient Air Quality Trends, N. O. Gerald

Air Quality Protection in the West (November 27-28)

24 pages (includes illustrations and maps).

Innovative Transfer And Exchange Plans, Glenn E. Porzak

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

36 pages (includes maps).

Contains footnotes (page 32).

Voluntary Approaches To Basinwide Water Management, Neil S. Grigg

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

13 pages (includes illustration).

Contains references (page 11).

Interstate Transfers Of Water: Many A Slip ‘Twixt The Cup And The Lip, Howard Holme

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

44 pages (includes maps and tables).

Contains 6 pages of footnotes.

Engineering And Hydrologic Issues In Changing Water Uses, Leonard Rice

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

26 pages (includes maps, charts and illustrations).

Contains references (page 18).

Agenda: Colorado Water Issues And Options: The 90'S And Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use Of Colorado's Water Resources, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center, Colorado Water Resources Research Institute. Cooperative Extension Service

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

Presented by Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado School of Law and Cooperative Extension Service, Colorado Water Resources Research Institute, Colorado State University.

Conference organizers and/or speakers included University of Colorado School of Law professors Lawrence J. MacDonnell, David H. Getches and Stephen F. Williams.

The conference theme is "Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources." The purpose of the conference is to provide a forum for public discussion of Colorado's system of water law and administration and to make recommendations for future action.