Utah is growing much too fast, especially along the Wasatch Front from Brigham City to Payson. We no longer look like Los Angeles. We are Los Angeles. Unhealthy air. Bumper-to-bumper traffic. Lack of housing. Crumbling infrastructure. Overcrowded schools. Lack of access to and crowded recreational areas. Did I leave something out?
All together, it is called “quality of life” or, increasingly, in Utah, the lack thereof.
Yet the governor and the Legislature continue to give tax credits to companies wanting to locate here. Great, if they are willing to go to and grow in Delta, Fairview or Price.
And, the inland port will be a disaster. Simply more trucks, trains, planes and congestion and “stuff “ in our air.
“Follow the money,” we are told. Who among our developer legislators and their friends stands to make money off the inland port, or that curiously located new prison, freeing up incredibly valuable land in south Salt Lake County?
Why does Utah continue to encourage “economic development”? Because we need jobs for our children, I am told. Well, encourage those companies to locate in the rural areas and don’t encourage them if they won’t. Or, my fellow Utahns, have fewer children.
We are killing the goose that laid the golden egg. We have turned Utah from a place of beauty where everyone wanted to come to an overcrowded, congested, polluted place to be avoided. Not to mention our archaic liquor laws.
I am reminded of an Oregon slogan of years past: “Come and visit. But don’t stay.”
John Dwan, Holladay