Thanks Utah

[ERCougar]

I'm not a desert-type, but I love the Utah National Parks. I could never live there, as I like trees too much, but I love to visit. One of our favorite family vacations was a trip to Bryce with our kids a few years ago. Boulder and Escalante 2 years ago was also a great trip. Zions is next in a couple of years (hopefully).

Tell me when you visit ZION (just a little pet peeve...--the other is when people refer to it as Zi-Ahn.) By then I should know about every corner of this park and I can take you on some cool adventures there. Zion is incredibly diverse, with something for about everyone. Bryce isn't far off, although I don't know it nearly as well.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Utah is a role model to the nation for sustainable growth that lifts all boats.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...th.html?pg=all

Now comes another key to Utah's success: the ability to be inclusive despite changing demographics. Inclusion has emerged as an economic indicator, according to researchers measuring the impact of change on communities.

Areas with high levels of immigration typically have greater income disparity, researchers found, and the greater the wage gap, the less likely a region is to grow. But the Salt Lake area is among communities reaching across religious, social, racial and economic lines to generate shared knowledge and create growth across sectors.

"We tried to ask the question, 'Where are the places in the U.S. where over the last 30 years there's been an ability to achieve sustainable economic growth and also an ability to, in that process, lift all boats?'" Manuel Pastor, professor of sociology at the University of Southern California, said.


"It turns out that the Salt Lake metropolitan area is one of those places that's been able to do that - to do more inclusive growth."

In Salt Lake City, researchers measured economic growth by the change in the number of jobs available and how much income people made at those jobs. Inclusion was measured by the change in the ratio of households with incomes in the 80th percentile compared to those at the 20th percentile, and a change in the number of people in poverty.

During the past 30 years, the Salt Lake metropolitan area saw 52.8 percent fewer individuals living below the poverty line, compared to 33.7 fewer nationwide, according to the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at the University of Southern California, directed by Pastor. Research also showed a 16.5 percent increase in earnings in Salt Lake, versus 13 percent nationally.


The same researchers found a 125.7 percent increase in employment in Utah, while the rest of the country averaged 70.2 percent.

[Solon]

Utah is a role model to the nation for sustainable growth that lifts all boats.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...th.html?pg=all

http://www.economist.com/news/united...rved-busy-bees

Income inequality is lower in Utah than any other state, and a recent Harvard/Berkeley study found that economic mobility was higher in Salt Lake City than in any other big American city. “People here aren’t trying to be Donald Trump,” says Stephen Kroes, president of the Utah Foundation, a think-tank. Thanks partly to the Mormon influence, Utahns volunteer more than anyone else.

Even left-leaners can admire Utah's economy.

[Uncle Ted]

http://www.economist.com/news/united...rved-busy-bees



Even left-leaners can admire Utah's economy.

Being small and homogenous probably helps; but that is changing. Between 2000 and 2010 Utah’s Latino population grew three times quicker than the state overall. They are now 13% of Utahns, and some areas are majority-minority. Some of Utah’s schools are struggling to cope: the high-school graduation rate among minorities is dreadful. Skeletal education budgets do not help; per-pupil spending has been lower than in any other state since 1988, according to the Utah Foundation.


Utah’s sky-high birth rate helps explain that; it must find an extra $75m a year just to keep up with swelling school rolls. But in neighbouring Colorado and Nevada, both swing states with higher Latino concentrations, lawmakers have seriously debated raising taxes to fund schools. In one-party Utah, by contrast, politicians with ambition speak of taxes only when they want to lower them. (Earlier this year a Republican state senator violated that rule and found himself all over the front pages.)

Oh my... which republican state senator did the unthinkable?

[cougjunkie]

Utahns don't swear as much as others. People from Ohio on the other hand have potty mouths.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...#axzz2eP9wjj64

[YOhio]

Congratulations to Salt Lake City and her residents. You are the #1 Most Creative Mid-Sized City in the U.S. according to the real estate website Movoto. Here's the top four:

1. Salt Lake City, UT
2. Pasadena, CA
3. Richmond, VA
4. Dayton, OH

http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/t...es-in-america/

[New Mexican Disaster]

Congratulations to Salt Lake City and her residents. You are the #1 Most Creative Mid-Sized City in the U.S. according to the real estate website Movoto. Here's the top four:



http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/t...es-in-america/

Suck it, Dayton!

[YOhio]

Suck it, Dayton!

I agree. Dayton is still in time out for that bullshit they pulled one year ago today.

[TripletDaddy]

not surprised to see Texas completely absent from that Top 10 list.

[cougjunkie]

not surprised to see Texas completely absent from that Top 10 list.

You don't find steer horns and truck nutz creative?

[Sizzle]

not surprised to see Texas completely absent from that Top 10 list.

You shouldn't be. The list is mid-sized. Everyone knows that everything is bigger in Texas.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Utah eliminates homelessness.

http://www.nationswell.com/one-state...lessness-2015/

Utah has reduced its rate of chronic homelessness by 78 percent over the past eight years, moving 2000 people off the street and putting the state on track to eradicate homelessness altogether by 2015. How’d they do it? The state is giving away apartments, no strings attached. In 2005, Utah calculated the annual cost of E.R. visits and jail stays for an average homeless person was $16,670, while the cost of providing an apartment and social worker would be $11,000. Each participant works with a caseworker to become self-sufficient, but if they fail, they still get to keep their apartment.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Utah eliminates homelessness.

http://www.nationswell.com/one-state...lessness-2015/

Las Vegas is showing similar results for a lot less than that. Thank you Greyhound!

[Jeff Lebowski]

Las Vegas is showing similar results for a lot less than that. Thank you Greyhound!

You are probably shipping them to SLC.

[hostile]

You are probably shipping them to SLC.

Not sure about LV, but northern Nevada was sending them to Sacramento. You would think with all that money from gambling they could afford a few apartments.