It is estimated that Utah’s population, which now sits just under three million people, will double by the year 2050. While a growing population signals continued economic growth, one Utah organization is planning for the challenges that it presents.
Betsy Byrne is lead planner with Envision Utah, an organization that has produced numerous future-planning projects across the state since the mid-90s; a lot of them focusing on urban communities. The organization’s new project, Your Utah Your Future, focuses statewide on 11 different issues that could cause trouble for a growing Utah, including air quality, water, energy and transportation. Byrne said the project also aims to represent the concerns rural communities in Utah, as well as urban.
“We’re doing this statewide visioning process. We’re looking at not just the urbanized regions where we did the original vision but we’re looking at the entire state, and trying to get people from all over the state to weigh in on how they want to grow,” Byrne said.
In order to make a long-term, data-driven initiative that prepares the state for higher population numbers, the team needs a lot of input from the people who already live here.
Envision Utah aims to attain this information through 50,000 survey entries from across the state. That is also where they have hit a snag. They have not received enough survey entries from the more rural communities in the state. For example, of the 19,000 surveys already submitted, only 300 have come from Cache County, which is just over 1 percent of the total responses.
Byrne said in order to get good data that represents all of Utah, more rural communities need to chime in.
“Sometimes the rural issues and concerns are different from the concerns and issues in the urbanized regions. The Wasatch Front and Logan may be really concerned about air quality,” Byrne said. “Maybe in other parts of the state the things that are more on their minds are agriculture or providing enough jobs for the people that live there. We want to hear from everyone in the state, what their concerns are and what they would like to see happen.”
For more information about Envision Utah, or to take the survey, visit their site here.