Dear HCN,
Greg Hanscom did an
admirable and objective job describing Utah’s growing pains and the
relative contributions from the 2002 Olympics (HCN, 3/16/98). The
only component missing was the reality that more than two-thirds of
the growth in Utah comes from within the state due to our
propensity for large families. With the highest birthrate in the
country and the local desire to stay in Zion, population pressure
from the Olympics and immigration pales in
comparison.
The games have served as a scapegoat
for our recent growth and development problems but have also
initiated some progressive and cosmopolitan planning. Utah is using
the Olympics limelight to federally fund a light-rail project that
local voters refused to fund, and to completely rebuild a
dilapidated I-15 that has been ignored for years because of the
local share of the cost. Utah consistently spends more federal
dollars than it collects, largely because of the low taxable
incomes and large system stresses produced by large families. Mike
Leavitt, the last of the mythical independent Western cowboy
governors and the leader of the national states’ rights movement,
is promising an “adequate” Olympics unless the feds step in with
more money for venues, trains, roads, airports, the environment and
all the involved private interests.
Meanwhile,
the draconian legislature has refused planning and open-space
referendums and has made it difficult for cities to coordinate
growth and make development pay for itself. The governor wants to
build highways, “and lots of them,” and he is currently planning
his own personal “Legacy Highway” through wetlands and
neighborhoods. Exponential procreation is the problem, urban sprawl
is the result, funded, of course, by the rest of the country, in
the name of international sport – a two-week-long, $3 billion blip
on Utah’s horizon.
Matt
Lindon
Park City,
Utah
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A rising population is the real onslaught.
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