How Denver's future policymakers learn from live reform

Cities across the country are under pressure to build more housing fast, and Denver is no exception.

The challenge: Colorado faces a shortage of more than 134,000 affordable and available homes, with low- and middle-income households feeling the strain.

• Evidence-based policymaking has never been more essential — and Denver is a particularly dynamic setting for this work.

What you need to know: The Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs at the University of Denver is nationally recognized for its master's programs and applied research — and its Denver setting serves as a living laboratory for housing and urban governance reform.

Ranked among the top international affairs schools globally, Korbel pairs national and global policy expertise with hands-on local engagement.

An expert take: "Denver is the perfect place to teach and learn about solutions to our country's affordable housing crisis," Teaching Assistant Professor Stefan Chavez-Norgaard says.

• The city has grappled with rapid population growth, rising costs and political pressure to increase supply, and that creates an environment where evidence matters.
• Students, he adds, have "a front-row seat as the region experiments with novel policies and approaches," according to Chavez-Norgaard.

An example: Chavez-Norgaard and collaborators helped develop a Denver-specific Housing Policy Simulator in partnership with Terner Labs to model how changes to local regulations affect housing production across the city under multiple economic conditions.

When researchers modeled what would happen if Denver eliminated minimum parking requirements for new apartment buildings, they found a consistent pattern: more homes get built.

• Across realistic scenarios, removing parking minimums increased projected multifamily housing production by about 8% — roughly 450 additional homes per year.
• In tougher economic conditions, when projects are harder to finance, the impact was even more noticeable: more than 460 additional units annually, or about a 12–13% increase compared to current rules.

The results: The modeling did not suggest parking reform alone would solve the housing shortage, but it offered city leaders a clearer view of tradeoffs before changing the law.

• Their rigorous modeling helped inform Denver's zoning and parking reform conversations and supported city agencies in evaluating tools that forecast housing production outcomes.

In other words: At Korbel, housing policy is not studied at a distance.

Undergraduate and graduate students are involved in applied policy research from day one — and their work does not stay inside academic journals.

• In the Graduate Housing Policy Lab, students partner directly with Denver's Affordable Housing Review Team. They analyze regulatory tools, evaluate tradeoffs and help shape recommendations grounded in simulation outputs.
• In undergraduate Urban Politics courses, students examine land use, housing and local governance, culminating in policy interventions designed around real constraints.
• Student research teams contribute to public-facing analysis that informs local and state-level reform conversations.

What this means: Students learn to test policy ideas before they're written into law — weighing tradeoffs, modeling impact and working directly with local agencies.

The takeaway: Korbel's research expands past theory into actionable change — and students are embedded in that work deeply from day one.

• Working alongside faculty and policymakers, students build data-driven models, manage competing priorities and communicate across public, private and nonprofit stakeholders.
• Their training prepares them to lead in complex policy environments far beyond just housing.

Learn how you can help shape actionable change in public policy and international affairs.