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Demographics of Broomfield, CO
Affluence Level in Broomfield, CO
An upper-middle-class area. Household wealth, education levels, and homeownership run ahead of national benchmarks.
People of Broomfield, CO
The people of Broomfield, Colorado today number 75,110, forming a predominantly white (73.2%), highly educated (58.6% college degree) suburban population with a modest but growing Hispanic (13.8%) and East/Southeast Asian (4.2%) presence. The city is notably less diverse than neighboring Denver or Aurora, with a foreign-born share of just 4.6% — roughly half the national average. Broomfield’s identity is shaped by its planned-growth origins, its role as a bedroom community for Denver-Boulder tech and aerospace workers, and a population that skews toward families and professionals seeking newer housing stock and top-ranked schools.
How the city was settled and grew
Broomfield was not a pioneer-era settlement. Its first permanent residents arrived in the 1880s as farmers and railroad workers, drawn by the Colorado & Southern Railway line that cut through the area. The original core, now known as Old Town Broomfield, grew around the depot and grain elevators, with a population of a few hundred by 1900. These early residents were overwhelmingly white, native-born, and of Northern European descent — primarily farmers from the Midwest and Great Plains. The city remained a tiny agricultural crossroads until the post-World War II era, when the federal government’s expansion of the Denver-Boulder Turnpike (U.S. 36) in the 1950s made the area accessible to commuters. The first significant suburban wave arrived in the 1960s and 1970s, settling in neighborhoods like Greenbriar and Lac Amora, which were built as affordable starter-home subdivisions for young families working at nearby Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant and the growing IBM campus in Boulder.
Modern era (post-1965)
The 1965 Hart-Cellar Act had little immediate effect on Broomfield’s demographics; the city remained overwhelmingly white through the 1980s. The real demographic shift began in the 1990s and accelerated after 2000, driven by two forces: the build-out of master-planned communities and the expansion of the Denver-Boulder tech corridor. The Anthem development (opened 1999) and Broadlands (opened 2000) attracted a wave of domestic in-migrants from California, Texas, and the Midwest — professionals in software, aerospace, and bioscience who were drawn by new homes and the highly rated Boulder Valley School District. These neighborhoods remain the whitest and most affluent parts of the city, with median household incomes above $120,000. Meanwhile, the Hispanic population grew from roughly 5% in 1990 to 13.8% today, concentrated in older, more affordable areas like Northmoor and the Baseline corridor near U.S. 287. This growth came primarily from domestic migration of second- and third-generation Hispanic families from southern Colorado and New Mexico, not recent immigration. The East/Southeast Asian population (4.2%) and Indian-subcontinent population (2.5%) are newer, arriving mainly after 2010 as tech and engineering firms like Vail Resorts, Ball Aerospace, and Level 3 Communications expanded their Broomfield campuses. These groups are dispersed across newer subdivisions but show a slight concentration in Willow Run and McKay Landing, where homes built after 2015 have attracted dual-income professional families.
The future
Broomfield’s population is projected to grow to roughly 85,000–90,000 by 2035, driven by infill development along the U.S. 36 corridor and the build-out of the Flatiron Crossing area. The city is not homogenizing — it is slowly diversifying, but from a very white base. The Hispanic share is likely to rise to 16–18% by 2040, driven by natural increase and continued domestic migration from the Southwest, not by international immigration. The East/Southeast Asian and Indian populations will grow modestly as tech employment expands, but Broomfield lacks the ethnic enclave infrastructure — no Chinatown, no Little India — that anchors larger immigrant communities in Denver and Aurora. The foreign-born share will likely remain below 8% even in optimistic scenarios. The city is not tribalizing into distinct ethnic enclaves; instead, it is following a pattern of assimilation where newer non-white residents are dispersing across the same master-planned neighborhoods as white professionals. The main demographic divide is not race but housing vintage: older neighborhoods like Old Town and Northmoor are becoming more Hispanic and lower-income, while newer subdivisions remain whiter and wealthier.
For someone moving in now, Broomfield offers a stable, family-oriented suburban environment with excellent schools and low crime, but little racial or economic diversity. The city is becoming slightly more varied over time, but it will remain a predominantly white, college-educated, high-income community for at least the next decade. New residents should expect a place where the population is growing slowly, the schools are a major draw, and the social fabric is built around neighborhood associations, youth sports, and the Flatiron Crossing mall — not around ethnic or cultural institutions.
* Values derived from national, state, county, city and local statistics and may differ in a specific area. Last updated: 2026-04-25T04:19:47.000Z
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