This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Here's a peek into Utah's future:
An eager, young computer programmer spreads his long days between college classes in Ogden and a promising job near Salt Lake City International Airport. Stressed enough by the load, he turns to fast trains.
For Cody Hodson, tomorrow arrived this spring with FrontRunner commuter trains. His options while studying at Weber State University and working at L-3 Communications are a testament to Utah's smart-growth movement, but national metropolitan experts say it's just a baby step compared to what the Wasatch Front will need to stay economically competitive.
"It's more relaxing," Hodson said while riding FrontRunner for 38 miles from work to Ogden on Thursday. "I don't have to worry about traffic jams."
Today the train only goes so far - Salt Lake City to Ogden - and it doesn't go nearly as fast as those in European and Asian productivity centers. Experts warn that without a massive new building program, the West and America will suffer.
The Salt Lake region and the other burgeoning "megapolitan" areas of the Intermountain West need renewed federal cooperation to build more such connections, the Washington-based Brookings Institution finds in its latest metropolitan study, "Mountain Megas: America's Newest Metropolitan Places and a Federal Partnership to Help Them Prosper."
If Congress continues to shrink from infrastructure spending and to insist its money go mostly to roads, Brookings scholars predict Utah could sprawl in ways that choke productivity. The Salt Lake region must keep up with 1.5 million newcomers over 30 years.
The region may underachieve unless it grows sustainably and inclusively in its new ethnic diversity, building a stronger middle class.
Brookings praises Wasatch Front cities for working together to build transit and sensible housing and shopping clusters, but says the Intermountain West needs help.
"The region has more to lose or gain than any other," principal author and Brookings metropolitan studies fellow Mark Muro said. Older, established American cities got their federal infrastructure boost while the getting was good, and now the interior West is brimming with prospect and need.
The report argues that the five urban conglomerations in the nation's fastest-booming regions need a clear vision to keep people moving seamlessly, innovating around universities and integrating international immigrants, nearly 200,000 of them to Utah since 1990. It finds similar scenarios in all five: greater Salt Lake, from Logan to Santaquin; Las Vegas; Phoenix-Tucson; Albuquerque-Santa Fe; and the Colorado Front Range. Utah's environment and quality of life excel, the authors say, while its low wages and productivity, despite an escalating cost of living, remain cause for concern.
University of Utah demographer Pamela Perlich said Utah's depressed wage average - $16,800 per person in 2005, compared with $19,000 nationwide - is misleading. It's weighed down by Utah's large families and high participation by teens in the work force.
Brookings calls on Congress to help states educate and assimilate immigrants and to offer infrastructure dollars without strings attached.
Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said the report should stimulate a national discussion.
"Our infrastructure is hammered," Huntsman said, addressing nationwide needs. "You look at the Eisenhower interstate system: It was done in the post-World War II era for all the right reasons and we've done little to it since."
Other nations, including China, have high-speed rail connections that Utah and the West should copy, he said. High-speed rail should connect Utah's universities and technology businesses the way it links Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University with the National Institutes of Health, experts say.
"It's not like this is pie-in-the-sky technology," Huntsman said. "This is being deployed in what we've traditionally considered underdeveloped countries."
Brookings fellow Robert Lang said the nation is facing a "Sputnik moment" when it realizes it's falling behind and invests.
On the whole, though, the report paints a future of opportunity for Utah, acknowledging its technological and medical industries and an expanding rail system that founding Envision Utah board member Robert Grow said looks "extraordinarily brilliant now that gas is $4 a gallon."
"Our biggest challenge is to continue to fund and build the right infrastructure, and to build great communities that are good places to raise a family," Grow said.
Encouraging words
* Western metros are fast adding transit links and capacity.
* Western metros offer unusually enticing natural surroundings.
* Groups like Envision Utah lead the nation in charting growth ideals.
Discouraging trends
* Federal infrastructure spending lags at a crucial time for the West.
* Congress isn't helping states assimilate immigrants.
* Utah's wages trail other Western metros, while its costs don't.
Online
* See the "Mountain Megas" report at http://www.brookings.edu/