St. George • Gov. Spencer Cox’s formula for solving Utah’s water, housing, air pollution woes and the Great Salt Lake can be summed up in two words: stay weird.
Speaking to southern Utah businesses and political leaders at the 28th annual What’s Up Down South Economic Summit in St. George on Thursday, Cox touted Utah as a weird outlier where, in contrast to most other states, people still unite to solve problems and the American dream lives on.
“We’re just different; we’re just unique,” Cox told the crowd. “We’ve been the butt of the joke for more than a century. There’s even a Broadway musical [”The Book of Mormon”] making fun of the predominant faith here. … But we just kind of rolled with it because, you know, we embrace our weirdness.”
As a result of Utah’s weirdness and ability to work together and care for each other, Cox added, Utahns across the state believe that they can shore up the state’s water supply, ease the housing crunch and clean the air. They don’t buy into the zero-sum thinking that prevails elsewhere — the idea that “if someone else wins, I lose … We are a win-win state,” he said.
The governor praised the Washington County Water Conservancy District, in particular, for formulating a 20-year plan this year that calls for generating another combined 47,000 acre-feet of water per year through a variety of measures including conservation, building a regional reuse system and construction of additional reservoirs.
Cox further pledged the state’s support in helping the district ensure that there is enough water for the St. George metro area, one of the fastest-growing in the nation, to keep on growing.
“We are going to make sure that you do not run out of water,” he said, adding Utah will not buy into the scarcity mindset — a perceived choice between the environment or human beings — that has clouded others’ thinking concerning growth and prosperity.
“People today truly believe that their kids and grandkids are going to be worse off than they are,” the governor continued. “That may be true everywhere else, but that is not true here in the state of Utah because we can work together to solve these biggest problems.”
Turning his attention to the housing shortage, Cox characterized the crisis plaguing the nation as a matter of supply and demand and vowed Utah will find a way to build an additional 35,000 starter homes over the next five years to help more Utahns realize the American dream of homeownership.
“We can be the first state in the United States to figure this out,” the governor said. “We can build, we must build, and we will because it’s not a zero-sum game, and we can do this right.”
Cox also decried the naysayers who spread doom and gloom. He said he visited 29 Utah high schools and was dismayed by students’ pessimism and how oblivious they were to the great things happening in Utah and across the nation.
“I heard the Great Salt Lake was going to dry up in five years,” he said. “I assure you it is not. We are going to save the Great Salt Lake.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Great Salt Lake Marina, on Friday, December 29, 2023.
As for air quality, the governor noted the air along the Wasatch Front is 40% cleaner than it was 15 years ago, which he attributed to the miracle of innovation.
While touting Utah’s unique ability to tackle pressing problems, Cox was short on specifics or solutions. Instead, he pointed to the recent rankings to bolster his argument about Utah’s weird ability to succeed where other states struggle or fail.
For example, he talked up Utah’s top ranking by “U.S. News & World Report” for having the nation’s best economy and being the best place to live. He also alluded to a 2024 Archbridge Institute survey that ranked Utah the top state in the country for upward mobility. In other words, the governor said, Utahns born in poverty don’t have to stay in poverty.
Cox painted a picture of researchers from Harvard University and other places descending on the state in droves to study Utah’s outlier or “weird” status to determine the secret of the state’s success and urged summit-goers to “preserve that weirdness” of caring about their communities and neighbors, regardless of their political affiliation.
“We can be an example to the rest of the country,” the governor said. “I started with how weird we are. I hope I’ve made the case that it is a good kind of weird.”
