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Best Cities 2010: Salt Lake City, Utah
The talent pool is deep and costs are low in our number-five pick for Best Cities for the Next Decade.
From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, July 2010
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By Jenney Nalevanko
Two years ago, David Flynn owned a business that produced a hot memory drive and employed ten people. A California venture-capital firm tried to lure him to Silicon Valley, but he stayed put and raised $111 million from a host of other top venture firms. Now he employs 250 people who make those drives and is looking to hire more. “We’ve been rewarded for sticking to our guns,” says Flynn.
Talent is key to building a company, and CEO Flynn says that one of Salt Lake City’s secrets is Utah’s “very educated and deep talent pool.” Plus, it doesn’t hurt that “our offices are 15 minutes away from four ski resorts.”
In addition to the city’s strong venture-capital community, the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development offers loans, grants and training to budding businesses. And the Economic Development Corporation of Utah, a public/private organization, fosters Salt Lake City’s pro-business atmosphere by helping to attract new companies.
And you can’t beat the cost of living and doing business in Salt Lake City. Utah has relatively low wages, taxes and operating costs. In fact, the cost of doing business is the third-lowest in the western U.S. and 18th-lowest in the country.
Salt Lake City is home to the University of Utah, internationally recognized for its research in genetics and health sciences, and a hotbed of new-business creation. “The U” is ranked by one measure as first in the country (along with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in launching start-up companies from research-based inventions. “The universities here are more than ivory towers on a hill,” says Jonathan Johnson, president of Internet retailer Overstock.com, which is based in Salt Lake City. Johnson, who hires programmers, mathematicians and statisticians from Utah universities, says the local talent pool is noteworthy for its technical knowledge and outstanding work ethic.
The Salt Lake valley offers a variety of distinctive neighborhoods that boast walking-friendly centers. These hip, diverse districts provide easy access to locally owned retail shops, galleries, restaurants and coffee shops. With the help of the city’s wide, bike-friendly streets, the proximity to such amenities makes it easy to live quite comfortably in these neighborhoods without much need for a car. They provide a small-town feel within steps of the heart of the city.
For those who crave a busier setting, downtown living is about to get a lot more popular. In 2008, Salt Lake’s Downtown Alliance broke ground on the first phase of a revitalization project, City Creek Center, with an estimated price tag of $3 billion. Project leaders hope the City Creek Center will become a lively destination for visitors and residents alike, introducing space for 80 new retailers, a performing-arts theater, fine dining restaurants, and more than 800 residential units. The project also includes plans for a covered pedestrian bridge, joining both sides of Salt Lake City’s Main Street, where the city’s existing businesses will certainly benefit from the additional foot traffic.
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Reader Comments (6)
Posted by: Born in SLC at 07/29/2010 06:48:46 PM
Salt Lake - a great piece of geography, but if you are not mormon, count on sending your kids to private school, or having them socially marginalized by the predominant religion, which permeates the public schools. Sure wish that gold would have been found in the west before the mormons emigrated to Utah. It would have made Salt Lake so much better than Denver / Boulder, but Alas. It is getting better over the past years, and direction is good, but a steep mountain of ignorance to climb.
Posted by: Also born in Utah at 07/30/2010 12:25:32 PM
Funny, because I know a ton of people that have lived in Salt Lake and Utah for years, are not LDS, yet they absolutely love it. They love the family atmosphere, how it's a great place to raise their kids, and all that the city and state have to offer. The majority of the people that have a problem with living in Utah are typically the same people that complain about all things political, regardless of the topic, yet they seldom have a solution or are willing to work towards a solution of compromise. It wouldn't matter where they were, they just like to complain.
Posted by: SLC lover at 07/30/2010 02:05:57 PM
I don't know what you're talking about. Predominant religion? I know more people in this city who aren't Mormon than who are. I think SLC is less than 40% Mormon now. From what I've found there is plenty of diversity, culture, ethnicity, and religious tolerance in Salt Lake City, and there are several different churches and many people of many different faiths. I haven't found the public schools to be "socially marginalized" by Mormonism. The suburbs might be another story, but I've found that Salt Lake City proper is no different than any other major American city. Sure, SLC may have been a "Mormon haven" in the early and mid 20th Century, but more and more people who aren't Mormon have been moving in over the years, and those who are Mormon have all been moving to the suburbs. And even the suburbs are becoming less Mormon as well, with people from all over the place moving to Utah.
Posted by: I was born in Utah too at 08/05/2010 12:09:52 PM
I have lived in Utah the majority of my life. I have to agree with the OP because I have experience first-hand the marginalization that comes with not being LDS in this state. As a child, I had two different sets of families tell their children that we could not be friends simply because I was not LDS. And dating, forgetaboutit! In High School alot of my friends would join the LDS church, not because they believed in the principles of the religion, but purely for social reasons (and they would happily state so). The religion is hard to get away from in schools. I remember in both Jr High and High School, students would walk across the street with their pink & blue leather bound bibles to seminary. We won't even add race to the equation because that would complicate matters further. Now don't get me wrong there are some good LDS people out there but like with any culture/group there are quite a few ignorant people. Utah has it's pros and cons. It is okay to be a critical thinker and critique the place you live in.... here are some statistics: In 2000, Utah was 95% White (that's pretty damn white if you ask me), not much "diversity" there. In 2007, 34-41% of LDS lived in Salt Lake, While 58% of the state's population is LDS.
Posted by: dougrad at 08/06/2010 04:34:42 PM
what you failed to mention is that only 41 percent of that 58 percent are active Mormons. the 58 percent also includes people who grew up in and were baptized into Mormon households, but either don't go to church or don't believe the teachings anymore. and Utah may have been 95 white 10 years ago, but Hispanics now make up almost 15 percent of Utah's population for 2010, and the number of Hispanics moving in is growing all the time. surprisingly, Salt Lake right now is about 20 percent Hispanic. and of course, if you had visited Salt Lake within the last 10 years, you would now see residents of all races and from all different countries around the world. a lot of people moved here after Hurricane Katrina hit them, and there has been a huge influx of people who moved here from several different African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries. and of course, that brings a lot of different religions along with it. a lot has changed here in the past 10 years. Utah isn't the same place you grew up in anymore.
Posted by: Matthew Larson at 09/08/2010 03:30:46 PM
Salt Lake area is becoming a very diverse place. I lived there for 25 years and Orange County 8. I haven't notice a difference in the way people act towards me if I'm of the same faith or different. The mistake everyone makes when it comes to placing a sterotype it is all about what part of the city you live. Utah has some amazing communities that are full of mixed cultures like Park City, Midway and evern DayBreak a community in South Jordan that has people from all over the world. My group pf friends had different religious backgrounds and were there more LDS ones, of course. It did make any difference unless you don't like to have you children around kids that are generally more respectful and moral than the average teenagers. The weather is not bad in SLC either 8 months a year are cmfortable and only 2 are to cold for my liking but I can manage 8-10 weeks.