Recently released census data shows that four of the nation’s 10 fastest-growing counties are in Colorado. Douglas County’s population nearly tripled over the past 10 years, Elbert and Park counties’ more than doubled, and Eagle county grew 90 percent, which is pretty close to doubling. In addition, Colorado had four more counties in the top 20.

Most of Colorado’s growth has come in two regions: the Denver metro area, extending up and down the Front Range, and along the I-70 corridor. Southwestern Colorado has escaped the biggest bulge, and that’s a good thing because we are not yet comfortable with managing rapid growth. Make no mistake, though; it’s coming. Besides being one of the most beautiful places in the country and still having more jobs than qualified workers, much of Colorado — and certainly Montezuma County — offers a reasonable cost of living.

How will we deal with sprawl? How will we encourage infill and clustering? How will we provide infrastructure and the increased level of service that newcomers will expect?

On the Front Range, growth is occurring in concentric circles; there’s a substantial center to anchor it. Montezuma County doesn’t have that focus. The population of the rural areas of the county balances the four distinct communities, and despite some unique attempts to guide it, growth still operates by the scattershot approach.

At this juncture, it’s important to look at what we haven’t got. We don’t have multi-lane highways. We don’t have huge subdivisions in which the houses all look the same. That’s probably good. We also don’t have a county-wide plan for providing much of anything. One electric utility serves the entire county, and one county road department (CDOT notwithstanding), but that’s about as far as standardization goes. Montezuma County students attend school in three different districts. Water is provided by a variety of companies. Natural gas is only available in certain places. Telephone companies are patchworked across this corner of the state. So are cable television companies. Public transportation is nearly nonexistent. Law enforcement is shared by the tribe, federal personnel, the State Patrol, Montezuma County, a police department and a marshal’s office.

We have little control over what happens on public lands, and we are effectively boxed in by the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument and other BLM lands, the San Juan National Forest, Mesa Verde National Park and the Ute Mountain Ute reservation. For that reason, sensible management of that portion of the county that we can influence is even more imperative.

Change is coming, because there are real advantages to living in southwestern Colorado. Those who move in not only won’t share the traditions of those already here, they’re likely to not even understand them. They won’t understand the etiquette of fencelines and ditches, the rights-of-way along remote unpaved roads, or the cost of bringing services to distant homesteads never before wired for electricity and phone service. They won’t know whom to call to get what fixed, and they’ll never believe that in some instances, it just can’t be done.