But the first steps employed by Envision Utah in dealing with these issues were to recognize community values, develop a vision of how people want to improve the quality of their lives, and then work out strategies to make it happen.
On Thursday, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said Envision Utah's concepts have become a national model. In Utah, the strategies are helping accommodate growth that's the equivalent of adding an Ogden City to the state each year.
"The key is to coordinate city, county and state [actions] with public and private sectors," Huntsman said at a coalition breakfast in Salt Lake City.
Huntsman, a former chairman of the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, spoke of the need to manage growth globally and regionally. Some six decades ago, New York City was the world's only megacity, with more than 10 million inhabitants. Today, the planet has 20 megacities and another 480 municipalities with more than 1 million residents each.
Within the 10-county Greater Wasatch Area, growth by 2020 is projected to increase at twice the national rate. A 2005 report by Envision Utah showed the need for regional cooperation in managing that growth.
For example, concerted efforts must be made to deal with transportation since the number of workers across the Wasatch Front with commutes of at least 45 minutes has increased by 83 percent, from nearly 52,000 to 95,000 during the past decade. In that same period, the number of non-residents commuting into Salt Lake County has increased by 80 percent, from 41,000 to 73,000.
Envision Utah executive director Alan Matheson said the cost of haphazard growth is high. It increases the tax burden for communities called upon to build uncoordinated infrastructures. It causes added health-care costs for people made sick by dirty air. It hampers economic development.
Ordinary people, not experts, are coming up with the best coping strategies, said 30-year planner John A. Fregonese. In fact, he said, a strategy that can improve as little as 2 percent of a region's development can bring in 90 percent of the benefits that improve the quality of life.
Planning is even more critical now because of lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and other storms that devastated parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, said Envision Utah's founding chairman, Robert Grow. Strategies now must include disaster preparedness in which families and local governments may be the only help available.
In Utah, besides the threat of earthquakes, floods, fires, massive snowstorms and power outages, the state also must be prepared to accommodate evacuees from other regions. For instance, if only 3 percent of California's population fled to Utah after a major disaster, the state would have to deal with 1 million more people overnight.
Despite the successes Envision Utah can claim here and in other states, breakfast attendee Gary Uresk, the Woods Cross City administrator, said more must be done. "We're dealing with decades of development and business-as-usual sentiments," he said. "This is going to take a long, long time."
dawn@sltrib.com
