The new pioneers of sprawl

Larimer County is a study in contrasts. Situated on Colorado's northern edge, it's the bridge between urban Boulder and the plains of Wyoming, between arid grasslands to the east and the 14,000-foot razor peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park to the west.

It's close enough to Denver to be within commuting distance, but far enough that pristine tracts of wide open space persist, and fifth-generation farmers and ranchers still work on the land.

So it's not surprising that Larimer County is a prime battleground in one of Colorado's - and the nation's - most recent growth concerns: rural sprawl.

Sprawl, of course, is hardly a new issue for Colorado, a state whose population is growing faster than that of Bangladesh. But the focus is usually on dense subdivisions and the endless expanse of malls that creep over hills along the interstates.

Now, as more and more of the West's open space is carved up and converted into 35-acre "ranchettes" - the lower limit for avoiding subdivision restrictions in Colorado - some worry that the trend of exurban growth, while more subtle, could cause lasting damage to a countryside and culture that's already disappearing.

"This is the unknown threat to Colorado's landscape," says Will Coyne, a land-use expert at the Environment Colorado. "The focus on growth has been around urban and suburban growth, while we're watching millions of acres be consumed by ranchettes."

Beyond environmental effects, the slow shift of telecommuters and retirees into rural areas populated by ranchers and farmers is a demographic transformation that's creating tension, straining local economies, and fueling a culture clash.

In 2000, nearly 2.5 million acres of Colorado's land was exurban development (parcels of 1.7 to 40 acres), according to David Theobald, a research scientist at Colorado State University's Natural Resource Ecology lab. By 2030, he calculates, that will more than double. "Rural sprawl has a larger footprint - between five and 10 times the amount of land as urban and suburban development - throughout the West," he says.

That footprint is a big reason that exurban development has people worried despite its seeming innocuousness compared with a densely populated subdivision.

To urbanites, 35 acres can seem enormous, and the herds of elk and antelope that still wander across properties can make the wilds seem undisturbed. But on a landscape scale, 35 acres is tiny: As far as the wildlife and plants are concerned, it might as well be a subdivision, according to Rick Knight, a wildlife conservation professor at Colorado State University. The properties are often overgrazed and more homes are threatened by wildfires. When Professor Knight compared biodiversity on ranchlands, protected lands, and exurban developments, the exurban sections - populated by dogs and cats in addition to more people - were by far the worst.

"It had the weediest flora, and the birds and carnivores you'd find in a suburban development," he says. Native songbirds like towhees or vesper sparrows are replaced by robins and magpies, and predators like badgers and bobcats start to disappear.

Those mules, mountain lions, and black bears that homeowners glimpse from their porches often aren't signs of an unharmed landscape, he continues, but anomalies of species slowly leaving an area. "We can understand how someone going in with a chainsaw and clearcutting a hillside affects the ecological community," Knight says. "but we can't seem to understand our own human impacts."

Such concerns, says Martha Pagliotti, put blame in the wrong place. She and her husband retired to their ranchette, in a development of 35-acre properties about 20 minutes outside Fort Collins, three years ago. They'd finally been chased from the home near Arvada, Colo., that they'd lived in and loved for 33 years; so many houses were going up that they could no longer see the mountains, or the stars at night.

"They've let this state be beyond ruined," Mrs. Pagliotti says. "Don't tell me I changed Colorado because I have 35 acres of land. I'm trying to live within the land of the Colorado I love."

Bonner Peak Ranch, where the Pagliottis moved, is a picturesque area of some 80 properties on the edge of the foothills, with log cabins and stately homes nestled among rugged ridges. Most homes blend into the pinyon-tufted hills. The other day, says Pagliotti, she saw 27 deer on her lawn.

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