Colorado is currently gripped by a political struggle between the governor plus the legislature in Denver and populous home-rule city governments, mainly on the Front Range. In the past few years, the legislature has been passing bills that applied to city government policies, which for many years had been the sole province of mayors and city councils. These new state laws have mainly provided for higher population densities in cities in hopes of generating more low-cost housing or affordable housing. What is home rule? How did it come about in Colorado? And why is the legislature suddenly challenging this long-established concept of urban government? In the late 1800s, the legislature mainly passed laws governing what happened in cities. That meant that the state representatives and state senators from the city were more powerful politically in city affairs than the mayor and the city council combined.…