But in go-go America, these scientific truisms were no match for McMansion fantasies. As coastal folk headed to the Rocky Mountain frontier with visions of big-but-inexpensive castles far away from the inner city, the term “zoning” became an even more despised epithet than it already had been in cowboy country.
Rangeland and foothill frontiers subsequently became expansive low-density subdivisions, and carbon-belching SUVs chugged onto new roads being built farther and farther away from the urban core. That is, farther and farther into what the federal government calls the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) and what fire experts call the dangerous “red zone.”
The numbers are stark: According to The Denver Post, between 1990 and 2000, 40 percent of all homes built in the nation were built in the WUI — and “a Colorado State University analysis expects a 300 percent increase in WUI acreage in the next couple decades.”
In the last two decades in fire-scorched Colorado alone, I-News Network reports that “a quarter million people have moved into red zones,” meaning that today “one of every four Colorado homes is in a red zone.”
I had never heard of the wildland urban interface before. To put it in other terms, it sounds like many new homes are being built in exurban areas, the leading edges of metropolitan areas. There are advantages and disadvantages to this: the land is likely quite cheaper and people can have bigger pieces of property and newer homes. But, there are negative consequences such as having to drive further to get places and the environmental impact.
Here is more information on the wildland urban interface in Colorado from Colorado State University. And here is an interesting opinion piece in the Denver Post about how to improve the narratives about WUI fires.