Salt Lake MSA Development Thread

[Future Mayor]

Every population area in the country has at least a minor form of a regional government. Congress set up MPO, metropolitan planning organizations in 1962. This organization is responsible for regional planning efforts regarding roads and transit. No local agency gets federal funding without the approval of the MPO. The MPO in Salt Lake, Davis, and Weber counties is the Wasatch Front Regional council. Utah county is the Mountainland association of governments.

We did our capstone project this past semester on regionalism. There are huge obstacles the come into play when try to regionalism governments. Is is true the some services can be improved however some services can get worse. There is a major issue regarding what organizations do you combine, which need to stay the same, and a huge issue is how exactly are you going to get all the politicians the will be out of jobs to vote themselves out of office.

Some things just simple can't be combined. There also comes into play the if you create a regional planning organization without combining into one government organization. It's not fair for the regional planning organization to designate what types of things can be built were, without compensation. Regional planning can lead to taking issue, not only on the individual property owners but to the municipality that the property is located. This leads to the need for a tax sharing policy.

It can be done, but many of the area that have done it or are seriously discussing it are mid-west cities that are suffering from population loss. These cities end up competing for companies relocating simply within the region, which as a whole only benefits the company and nobody else. The company gets the tax break and there is a wash as far as the region goes.

I think there needs to be a voluntary council of majors in the valley, this is the first step in collaboration regarding economic development issues.

There are numerous cities that are the size of Salt Lake or larger that would do anything to be in the situation that the Wasatch Front is in. Meaning overall growing economy, population increase, housing value increase, booming commercial construction. Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Toledo, Akron/Canton. Any of these cities would love to have to deal with all those aforementioned issues.

I don't see Salt Lake County combining into one government anytime in the near future. While there are some issues, I really don't see the need. As long as the population and economy continue to grow ever city along the Wasatch will grow.