ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the operation of that system and the human values it seeks to reflect. Land use authority in Colorado is exercised largely by local governments. While their authority is essentially that delegated by the State, that delegation has been a broad one in the land use area. The setting of jurisdictional limits of authority, like the decisions to which these limits will lead, thus involves trade-offs. The primary effect of growth identified in Chapter Four was change in the nature of the community. A rural society is different from an urban one. Land use policy, responsibility for which resides at the local level, strongly influences this growth. Food, fuel, and shelter needs present society with difficult choices. Conditions of the watershed's natural system, together with the supply and demand factors of the economic system, have combined historically to yield the present mix of land use on the watershed, a mix clearly dominated by agriculture.
