With growth seemingly inevitable in Utah’s future, residents are urged to weigh in

After a decade of nation-leading population gains followed by a pandemic surge in folks moving here, Utah and its destiny as a growing state have never been clearer.

Gov. Spencer Cox urged residents Thursday to help prepare for a future of “more,” telling them to speak up about the urgent challenges posed in particular for housing and water supplies, transportation, open spaces and recreation access.

“Growth is neutral,” the Republican governor said at the event held in Red Butte Garden, overlooking the ever-filling bowl of the Salt Lake Valley. “It’s up to us to determine whether it’s good or whether it’s bad.”

[Recent polls show Utahns have become increasingly wary — and even negative — about growth. Read the story.]

In launching a new survey called “Guiding Our Growth,” Cox sought to amplify an ongoing statewide conversation about the public’s wants and best ideas as an increasingly urbanized population climbs from roughly 3.4 million now to a projected 5.5 million by 2060.

After a listening tour of Utah’s main regions, his administration is officially reaching wider for feedback with the interactive poll, at guidingourgrowth.utah.gov.

Only through informed planning, the governor and other officials said at Thursday’s survey launch, can the state preserve what its residents value most.

“We want to make sure,” Cox said, “that this is a place where our kids and grandkids can live the same types of amazing lives we have.”

Utahns can take the quick scenario-based survey — built and sponsored by Envision Utah and other regional planning agencies — through Aug. 31.

The polling effort also comes as public sentiment in Utah has begun to shift toward negative views of growth for the first time in almost three decades.

When collated and analyzed by year’s end, the results will inform growth-related issues in city halls and on Utah’s Capitol Hill: housing affordability, saving green spaces and recreational activities, along with convenience in transportation as well as water conservation amid an epic drought.

Fastest-growing, with more to come

Utah’s population leapt by a staggering 18.4% over the decade ending in 2020, the fastest in the country. Nearly 70% of its residents now live in urban areas. According to Mallory Bateman, Utah’s lead demographer with the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, research suggests most of the gains in coming years will be in existing population centers in Salt Lake, Davis, Utah, Weber, Washington and Cache counties.

Last year saw the largest one-year jump in population growth in Utah from people moving in, drawn in part by an economy that opened relatively early compared with other states as COVID-19 eased. And that population uptick due to in-migration, Bateman said, is now expected to be the norm through 2040.

The population is also expected to continue to grow relatively older and more diverse, she said, even as its average household size shrinks.

“With these insights,” said Bateman, “comes the opportunity to think about the future of Utah.”

In addition to informing public policy, officials sought to make a business case for forethought and vision in planning the state’s future, noting that hiking trails, affordable homes and smooth ways of getting around are key to recruiting talented workers.

“The things that make Utah the greatest state in the country also are the thing we have to preserve to ensure they’re here for decades to come,” said Steve Starks, CEO of the Larry H. Miller Co. “That doesn’t just happen. We can be acted upon — or we can choose to act.”

What are your ‘big ideas’?

The interactive survey does entertain no-growth options and restrictions on development, however unlikely those ideas are to be taken up in a state as politically conservative as Utah.

“The problem with those types of solutions,” Cox said in an interview, “is that they just make things more expensive and more impossible for anybody to live. However, we also have to be very smart about our growth, and there are certain limitations in some areas, water being one of the largest.”

The online poll offers short explanatory videos on the challenges it highlights and guides residents candidly through the trade-offs of various growth strategies, before prompting them to choose their preferred scenarios.

The second half lets participants select from lists of strategies dubbed “big ideas” that they might like to see explored in their own communities. There are three versions of the survey, too, adapted by ZIP code for those living in rapidly growing urban areas as well as for rural residents who either are or are not experiencing growth.

“We are sharing what the public has shared with us and soliciting input on that,” said Laura Hanson, state planning coordinator with the governor’s Office of Planning and Budget. “Our goal is not to replace local planning processes, but to support those processes with public information.”