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Residents along the Wasatch Front seek the benefits of city living but also prefer neighborhoods of single-family homes and their own free parking, a new study has found.

While about one in five area residents wants to live downtown for an urban lifestyle — varied housing options, shorter commutes, proximity to shopping and cultural attractions — a third want those same advantages but in the suburbs.

The desire for parking in a private garage or driveway appears to trump other so-called "smart growth" choices, putting residents of the wider Salt Lake Valley at odds with urban land-use trends now gaining national popularity. Smart growth strategies include higher density development, reduced use of land and water, neighborhood designs that encourage walkability and access to public transit.

Yet, in other ways, the study published this week by researchers at the University of Utah and New York University also seems to buttress moves by a growing number of Utah cities to create transit-oriented town centers and redesigned suburban settings.

Residents "don't necessarily want the total urban experience but they do want to live closer to shopping and transit," said study co-author Reid Ewing, professor at the U.'s Department of City & Metropolitan Planning.

The findings were published online Monday in the journal Housing Policy Debate. They were based on polling of 1,227 households across Salt Lake, Utah, Davis and Weber counties, conducted in conjunction with a travel-pattern survey.

Ewing's co-authors were U. doctoral student Guang Tian and William Greene, professor of economics at NYU's Stern School of Business.

Ewing said researchers wanted to gauge residential sentiments toward smart growth in a politically conservative state where car-centered suburban sprawl tends to be viewed more positively.

The results come as Utah navigates the prospect of doubling its population by 2040, a scenario forcing debate about how municipal planning might better shape the state's future.

Several area cities have sought to create population clusters and higher-density housing in town centers, built around transit stations in hopes of reducing car usage and air pollution. West Valley City, Draper and South Jordan all have explored development of transit-focused residential and commercial centers.

"Now we have evidence that the public wants them," Ewing said.

The study also emerges amid a historic boom in multifamily-housing construction along the Wasatch Front as younger residents eschew traditional homeownership and mortgage debt in preference for rental apartments, town homes and condominiums.

Overall, respondents said they favored residential choices that put them close to work and amenities, on walkable streets and in proximity to public transit.

Not surprisingly, tastes differed for various demographic groups.

Young adults without children — including 20- and 30-somethings known as millennials— placed a higher premium on living less than three miles from their workplace. Families with kids tended to value neighborhoods of single-family homes, close to public transit. Retired residents, dubbed empty nesters, favored a mix of housing types.

But across all groups, respondents placed the highest value on having parking available in their own driveway or garage.

"We're pretty auto-centric," Ewing said, "but the importance of parking did surprise me."

The study is consistent with other surveys in recent years, planning officials said.

"We're finding people want places to be walkable and they want more transit and more housing options," said Ari Bruening, chief operating officer for the regional planning group Envision Utah. "But they also don't want to give up their cars."

Even with 20 percent of Wasatch Front residents desiring better access to public transit, "the availability of neighborhoods that allow that in Utah is well below demand," said Andrew Gruber, executive director of Wasatch Front Regional Council, another planning group.

"There is a fundamental mismatch," Gruber said, "as we think about the growth in population and our community designs."

Twitter: @Tony_Semerad