Population Growth in Mountain West Cities and Suburbs, 2010-2020

COVID-19 altered population growth trends within large cities and the relative growth of cities and suburbs within the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. Brookings senior fellow William H. Frey suggests “that most big cities with populations exceeding 250,000 experienced lower population growth in the year the pandemic began than in the previous year.” This Fact Sheet examines annual growth rates within selected Mountain West metros and suburbs from 2010 and 2020

Automatic Voter Registration and Voter Turnout in Nevada Elections

For the first time in Nevada’s history, voters who are not registered as Democrats or Republicans (i.e., nonpartisans and minor party registrants) constitute a majority of active registered voters. In particular, the rapid growth in nonpartisan registrants corresponds with Nevada’s adoption of Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) in January 2020, resulting in the addition of more than 320,000 new voters to the electorate. This fact sheet summarizes voter registration and voter turnout statistics reported by the Nevada Secretary of State for elections since 2012

Public University and College Enrollment in the Mountain West, 2019-2021

On June 10, 2021, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released the Spring 2021 Current Term Enrollment Estimates (CTTE) report. The report provides estimated postsecondary enrollment numbers based on the Clearinghouse universe of institutions. The impact of COVID-19 related disruptions has caused higher education enrollment to fall to what the National Student Clearinghouse suggests are “new lows.” This fact sheet explores trends in higher education enrollment at Mountain West colleges during the 2020 and 2021 Spring semesters

COVID-19 Behind Bars in the Mountain West

Due to overcrowding, inadequate healthcare, systemic neglect, and violence in U.S. carceral (i.e. jails or prisons) and immigration detention centers, these facilities are a hot spot for the spread of COVID-19. In March 2020, the UCLA Law “Covid Behind Bars Data Project” began tracking official agency websites for self-reported data of COVID-19 across prisons, jails, and other detention facilities in the U.S. The number of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and tests performed from 50 state correctional agencies, the District of Columbia’s Department of Corrections, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and several county jail systems are explored in the original report. Due to inconsistencies in data reporting practices across agencies, efforts to collect and standardize COVID-19 data is challenging. This fact sheet explores the available COVID-19 data collected by the UCLA Law “Covid Behind Bars Data Project,” with a focus on agency data reporting and data quality

Safest Cities in the Mountain West

This fact sheet examines AdvisorSmith’s ranking list of the safest U.S. cities, drawing from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) dataset released in September 2021. Monthly crime data are presented for violent crimes (e.g. murder, rape, robbery, assault) and property crimes (e.g. burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft). Data for the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah are included