The problem is that I don't think there's a compelling case to be made that the people who happen to live in Boulder at this exact moment in time are more deserving of the right to live there than anybody else in the United States. Other people want to live in Boulder for the same reasons you do. If enough other people want that, then it's going to grow.
Interestingly, the modern liberal position seems to be that everyone is welcome here, just, you know, not actually here here. Somewhere else, here. Not where I live, here. We talk about this in terms of immigration, but my experience is that, in actual practice, people don't even want Ohioans to move to their town.
> my experience is that, in actual practice, people don't even want Ohioans to move to their town.
Hm, most of the people I know who live in the "coastal elite" cities did not grow up in those same cities; they grew up in places like Ohio.
(Which, again, is fine if Boulder wants to be a steady size forever - make sure enough people are moving out to bigger towns to cancel out population growth, by making sure they don't have too many job opportunities locally.)
> Hm, most of the people I know who live in the "coastal elite" cities did not grow up in those same cities; they grew up in places like Ohio.
Yes, and generally speaking, if they liked Ohio, they would've stayed there, because you can still make a very nice living as a coder in middle America. That means they're going to be even more upset about Ohioans closing in, because they'll feel like the culture they left behind is sneaking back up on them.
Speaking personally, I live in NYC because I wanted to experience that, not because I don’t like home. I’m not a big fan of the kind of transplant who does nothing but trash where they’re from. There’s something distasteful and uncouth about it.
Interestingly, the modern liberal position seems to be that everyone is welcome here, just, you know, not actually here here. Somewhere else, here. Not where I live, here. We talk about this in terms of immigration, but my experience is that, in actual practice, people don't even want Ohioans to move to their town.