Cities are not the enemy in our water crisis

A letter to the editor from Feb. 7 asked: “Where will we get the water that new homes and their residents require?” This question echoes a common objection to population growth but fundamentally misunderstands the scope and scale of water usage in Colorado. According to Colorado State’s Water Knowledge database, 86.7% of the state’s water withdrawals are for agriculture while municipal and industrial consumption makes up only 6.7% in 2015 (the most recently available statistics). Outdoor water use for landscaping is responsible for approximately half of this municipal consumption.

Multiple studies have found that single-family homes consume approximately twice as much water per capita as multifamily units, primarily because of landscaping. A 2006 EPA report “Protecting Water Resources with Higher-density Development” emphasizes that low-density development has higher impacts on watersheds than high-density development. A 2017 article by Elizabeth Wentz and her colleagues examines four metropolitan areas and concludes “older downtown areas show lower water use than newer suburban areas” and more affluent and older single-family residences also consume more water.

If you’re looking to find the villain behind Colorado’s very real water problems, it can be found on farms and suburbs, not in cities. Permitting multi-use in-fill development, expanding public transportation, and implementing high-efficiency standards for new construction are far better policies for balancing population growth and resource limitations than the status quo of plowing under acres of open space for car-centric, exurban single-family housing.

— Brian Keegan, Boulder