Boulder has a population of ~100,000. I don't oppose the Google office, but their workforce will grow to represent 1-2% of the city's populace. That isn't a "drop in the bucket."
Sure - I'm advocating that more cities should grow to the point that it is a drop in the bucket, by inviting not only Google but other companies and not treating any of them as special.
Or, sure, they can decide that being a 100K-person town is what they want their city to be, and use zoning to actively resist any single employer having over 1K people in the town. But this isn't a Google-specific problem, and if you try to address it with Google-specific solutions (either "Take special measures to invite Google because they'll bring in high-paying jobs" or "Take special measures to exclude Google because they'll destroy your city"), you'll be in trouble when some other, possibly non-tech, employer comes along in the future.
Boulder doesn't exist on an island. Many people commute to Boulder from Denver, the L-towns(Longmont, Lousiville, Lafayette), and even Fort Collins. So the population of the region is more like 700k
60k commute to Boulder every day. I think Boulder should enact policies to enable these people to live in the city if they choose. The current situation seems to go against the spirit of the greenbelt. If you allow sprawl to happen outside the greenbelt (through slow growth policies), then what is the point?
