Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 3

[CountyLemonade]

Originally Posted by RC14

This cannot be true. There was a time when people use to heat their homes with coal and burn their garbage.

Considering that very few people inhabited the Salt Lake Valley before the mid-1800s, there certainly was a time when pollution was not associated with inverted air.

The feeling of helplessness that most people profess in the region's pollution problem is false. Fifty-seven percent of the pollution in the air comes from cars. Twenty-four from homes and businesses. Eleven from industry. It's impossible to wholly eliminate pollution. But when fifty-seven percent of it comes from automobiles, it'll sure be possible to reduce it.

[SLC Projects]

Originally Posted by CountyLemonade

Considering that very few people inhabited the Salt Lake Valley before the mid-1800s, there certainly was a time when pollution was not associated with inverted air.

The feeling of helplessness that most people profess in the region's pollution problem is false. Fifty-seven percent of the pollution in the air comes from cars. Twenty-four from homes and businesses. Eleven from industry. It's impossible to wholly eliminate pollution. But when fifty-seven percent of it comes from automobiles, it'll sure be possible to reduce it.

But until greedy big oil doesn't have all of us by the balls, we will all be stuck having to drive cars that are run by gasoline that pollutes. Meanwhile we have a lazy government that has been bought out by big oil, so they do nothing about it.

[slc801]

Originally Posted by Deek1978

What can be done about the inversion? It was here before people were. The Native Americans called these the "Smokey Valleys"...

Do you have anything to support that Native Americans used to call it "Smokey Valleys", such as a reference from a reliable website or book where you have read it. It sounds like to me a fabricated story that has been passed through the generations which places blame on some uncontrollable variable in order to expunge any responsibility of solving the problem. I find it similar to another excuse that I've recently seen on some news websites comment sections (KSL, the Trib) about how we can't do anything to prevent this pollution because its not from us, but China. I think that these excuses and fables are great in relieving the sense of burden felt in fixing the problem but do nothing to actually solve the problem. Now, if you can show me some proof, I'll eat my words about the story of "smokey valleys", but not about my frustration when it is used as an excuse for inaction.

[ToysNoiz]

Originally Posted by scottharding

And while Utah does all it can to make itself a destination for conventions, festivals, tourism, and commerce, Old Reliable is always there to pull the choke chain and keep us "peculiar." This just pisses me off.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57429543-78/utah-alcohol-church-liquor.html.csp

Say, what ever happened to "Separation of Church and State"? No dis on the LDS Church, but what the hell is with all of these statements being released on laws in Utah? Always gotta give their two cents on everything? I don't want to open another LDS discussion..... so whatever. I can't drink anyway.

[Future Mayor]

I love that this discussion come up every January, and there is always a few people on the forum that always say "It's a naturally occurring phenomenon and there is nothing that we can do about it" Yes the inversion is a naturally occurring phenomenon, but the pollution in it is all ours. As was pointed out, 57% of the unhealthy particles being trapped in the valley because of the inversion come from cars, that my fellow forumers IS something we can do something about. You say big oil has us by the "ball" but only if we let them.

There are other options out there; electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, low sulfur gasoline, bio-diesel, and CNG, not to mention Transit. All those are ways to reduce the amount of pollution that the naturally occurring inversion traps into our air.

Luckily I heard that there are several pieces of legislation that will be proposed at the State Capital this session, compared to last year when there were ZERO.

What I find ironic is that I dated a girl last year that is a reporter on one of the local stations and she is always complaining about how horrible the air is, and four stations are always doing live stories about how bad it is. The ironic part is, every time they do a live story, anywhere other than the studio, or outside their building, it requires their news trucks, most of the time suburbans, to run the entire time. I met her on a live shot last January when she was doing a story on the OR's extending their contract for a few more years and during the entire hour she was on site, for several news casts, the truck had to run. So while they are out there doing stories, they are only adding to the problem.

[Makid]

Originally Posted by ToysNoiz

Say, what ever happened to "Separation of Church and State"? No dis on the LDS Church, but what the hell is with all of these statements being released on laws in Utah? Always gotta give their two cents on everything? I don't want to open another LDS discussion..... so whatever. I can't drink anyway.

I think the statement by the LDS Church might be a test. Last year the LDS Church made a statement that they were open to changes to the liqour laws including the complete removal of the so called Zions curtain. The legislature did nothing and I think they may have actually tightened some of the laws.

I am hoping that the statement was done to see if the laws would be loosened a bit to at least what the LDS Church supported last session. If that would be possible, I think it would great for everyone.

[RC14]

Originally Posted by CountyLemonade

The feeling of helplessness that most people profess in the region's pollution problem is false. Fifty-seven percent of the pollution in the air comes from cars. Twenty-four from homes and businesses. Eleven from industry. It's impossible to wholly eliminate pollution. But when fifty-seven percent of it comes from automobiles, it'll sure be possible to reduce it.

I took the bus out to Wendover on Monday and the inversion was much worse out there than here in the valley. Granted, it did not have as much pollution. My point is, even if we do magically achieve the standard of eliminating or even significantly reducing pollution from cars to a level which no other America city seems to have achieved, people will still complain about our air quality.
I'm not saying we shouldn't try to improve it but complaining that our air quality makes the place look bad to visitors and expecting our government to solve the problem is an impossible standard.
The air quality here during the winter will always look worse than all but the most polluted cities.

[SLC Projects]

Originally Posted by Future Mayor

I love that this discussion come up every January, and there is always a few people on the forum that always say "It's a naturally occurring phenomenon and there is nothing that we can do about it" Yes the inversion is a naturally occurring phenomenon, but the pollution in it is all ours. As was pointed out, 57% of the unhealthy particles being trapped in the valley because of the inversion come from cars, that my fellow forumers IS something we can do something about. You say big oil has us by the "ball" but only if we let them.

There are other options out there; electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, low sulfur gasoline, bio-diesel, and CNG, not to mention Transit. All those are ways to reduce the amount of pollution that the naturally occurring inversion traps into our air.

Luckily I heard that there are several pieces of legislation that will be proposed at the State Capital this session, compared to last year when there were ZERO.

What I find ironic is that I dated a girl last year that is a reporter on one of the local stations and she is always complaining about how horrible the air is, and four stations are always doing live stories about how bad it is. The ironic part is, every time they do a live story, anywhere other than the studio, or outside their building, it requires their news trucks, most of the time suburbans, to run the entire time. I met her on a live shot last January when she was doing a story on the OR's extending their contract for a few more years and during the entire hour she was on site, for several news casts, the truck had to run. So while they are out there doing stories, they are only adding to the problem.

You make it sound more easy then what it really is. Most electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles start upwards to 30k+. Not really affordable for most middle class. If it was I would be driving one as well as everybody else. Issue is car companies are still making 99.9% of their vehicles that run on gas. There's a very few of these other cars that are out there and even few stations to go to.
It's much like when only the rich had DVD players when they first came out. Lets make them affordable so the middle and lower class can get out of being big oil's bitches as well.

[Boiseguy]

was recently in SLC, and the inversion was terrible, but we have a similar problem here in boise with inversions.(not quite as bad yet) It's pretty much going to happen wherever there's big mountains and deep valley's. Sometimes I wonder if these valley's of the interior west are really meant to have large population centers, at least in the form of current 20th century infrastructure. Really the only way I see the problem with cars being addressed is to stop building more multi-lane freeways, and make a stand in our state and local governments. If there is traffic congestion, we need to be saying public funds will go towards alternative modes of transportation (rail/bus) that are in the best interest of our valley in order to address the problem. to do otherwise is just compounding the problem and killing us all and we will not be putting public funds towards that. I'd be willing to bet that if people started sitting in traffic for 3-4 hours to get home vs 30 minutes on the train you'd start having some serious return on investment so much so that even employers would be willing to get on board. I always laugh when driving down the freeway here in boise or slc and I see the traffic notification boards read "improve air quality tomorrow by carpooling) and then 2 miles later seeing construction crews working on two more lanes of the freeway. It really comes down to forcing people to do it, not asking them nicely on a traffic board while contributing to the problem...

[jimmycdii]

For those that think the pollution in the inversion is unsolvable, here is an article about how Mexico City has dealt with the problem. They have similar conditions there and have sill made progress.

Also, we could make a huge dent in the inversion simply by stopping our subsidies to low density suburbs. We frequently build or upgrade roads/highways to low density (or in some cases, no density) places. Just stopping this would reduce incentives for driving AND save tax payers money. Mortgage laws and policies are another way we incentivize car-centric design; it's nearly impossible to get a mortgage in downtown Salt Lake, but easy in the suburbs. This is due to both private bank policies, as well as federal insurance guidelines.

I could go on and on, but basically we're paying more and more money to build the types of places that create more pollution. We could adopt a completely passive approach, choosing to do nothing but cut funding for these types of things, and our air would at least stop getting worse. Over time we'd also probably see more efficient housing (small/more urban=cheaper to build than unsubsidized sprawl) which would further help.

All of which is to say there are many, many ways we can fix this.

[RC14]

Originally Posted by jimmycdii

For those that think the pollution in the inversion is unsolvable, here is an article about how Mexico City has dealt with the problem. They have similar conditions there and have sill made progress.

Also, we could make a huge dent in the inversion simply by stopping our subsidies to low density suburbs. We frequently build or upgrade roads/highways to low density (or in some cases, no density) places. Just stopping this would reduce incentives for driving AND save tax payers money. Mortgage laws and policies are another way we incentivize car-centric design; it's nearly impossible to get a mortgage in downtown Salt Lake, but easy in the suburbs. This is due to both private bank policies, as well as federal insurance guidelines.

I could go on and on, but basically we're paying more and more money to build the types of places that create more pollution. We could adopt a completely passive approach, choosing to do nothing but cut funding for these types of things, and our air would at least stop getting worse. Over time we'd also probably see more efficient housing (small/more urban=cheaper to build than unsubsidized sprawl) which would further help.

All of which is to say there are many, many ways we can fix this.

I am all for ending subsidies for building in the burbs. However, they are a problem that comes mostly from the federal level so again, I don't think it is fair to blame our legislature for them. Although I agree, if we want to end suburban sprawl ending the subsidies is the way to do it.

Regarding Mexico city, they started out from a much worse spot than we did. Mexico City is catching up to the rest of the developed world when it comes to pollution. The equivalent would be the distance we have come from the old days I talked about earlier to now, not from now to a fairy land where we have no pollution.

[Comrade]

Here is a map that really puts into perspective Utah's population growth - much of it remains internal.



http://www.businessinsider.com/2013-moving-map-2014-1

Utah is the worst performing western state in terms of outside population growth.

It ranks 6th in the top 'outbound' states. That means more people are moving out than in. It's an odd anomaly when you factor in our huge population growth and the fact every state around us is growing through outsiders and we seem to be losing people.

So, who's leaving Utah and why?

*this is not an entirely scientific study, as it uses data from a moving company - but it's interesting nonetheless.

[SLC Projects]

I think a lot of it has too do with plenty of kids finishing school, but yet we don't have enough high tech jobs here so they look else where. We have plenty of entery level jobs such as fast food and retails, but we need more high tech jobs.

[RC14]

Originally Posted by SLC Projects

I think a lot of it has too do with plenty of kids finishing school, but yet we don't have enough high tech jobs here so they look else where. We have plenty of entery level jobs such as fast food and retails, but we need more high tech jobs.

This was my thought as well. John Huntsman made a big deal about that when he was governor.

[jtrent77]

Originally Posted by SLC Projects

I think a lot of it has too do with plenty of kids finishing school, but yet we don't have enough high tech jobs here so they look else where. We have plenty of entery level jobs such as fast food and retails, but we need more high tech jobs.

You think that kids finishing school have enough stuff to hire United Van lines? In my experience the people moving after school use a U-haul at best, and more often than not, the back of their car. I think if anything this shows that people moving to Utah don't use United Van Lines.

[delts145]

Originally Posted by jtrent77

You think that kids finishing school have enough stuff to hire United Van lines? In my experience the people moving after school use a U-haul at best, and more often than not, the back of their car. I think if anything this shows that people moving to Utah don't use United Van Lines.

LOL, You hit the nail right on the head Jtrent. That's a pretty incomplete study when you consider the actual REAL numbers, not numbers from a company most Utah natives would never use. Okay, so remember the latest hard copy census stats show Utah is the third fastest growing State in the nation, and yes, we know most of that is internal. However, the hard stats also show that Utah is #13 in actual numeric growth, not just the percentage. So in other words, Utah has a good retention rate. Sure, States like California, Florida, Texas with their huge populations added a larger numeric total. However, experts concluded that Utah was especially impressive, considering the bulk of high population States(particularly the Midwest and Northeast) ranking lower in their added population numbers than Utah, yet which currently have much larger populations to glean growth from. There is no way that out of 50 States Utah would be #13 in population numbers added, if it weren't retaining a large number of it's natives once they enter the job market. Utah's trending as a regional hub for tech, manufacturing and distribution expansion serving the Intermountain and West Coast States, point to a ranking in the top ten of total numeric numbers added come this next decade. That to me is very impressive, considering Utah has roughly three million to spring board from.

There can never be enough high tech jobs these days in any State. However, IMO, Utah is doing a much better job of keeping up with tech additions and expansions than most States. How many articles have we posted on this forum in the past few years touting that fact.

[UV4EVER]

Originally Posted by Comrade Reynolds

Here is a map that really puts into perspective Utah's population growth - much of it remains internal.



http://www.businessinsider.com/2013-moving-map-2014-1

Utah is the worst performing western state in terms of outside population growth.

It ranks 6th in the top 'outbound' states. That means more people are moving out than in. It's an odd anomaly when you factor in our huge population growth and the fact every state around us is growing through outsiders and we seem to be losing people.

So, who's leaving Utah and why?

*this is not an entirely scientific study, as it uses data from a moving company - but it's interesting nonetheless.

Sorry Comrade but what you should really be looking at are these numbers from the Census Bureau:

http://www.census.gov/popest/data/state/totals/2013/index.html

More people are moving into Utah than out.

[Comrade]

I can buy more people are moving into Utah than out - but it's probably well below the total of most of the other fastest growing states. You can dismiss this study, but even the state demographer said most of the growth is driven, largely, by the birth rate:

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/ce...8dddcc8-b692-5973-8bcf-da7a4e77165e.html

She estimates the state added about 10,000 people due to migration - which is dramatically lower than what it used to be (25,000 to 30,000 each year).

So, Utah continues to see a bulk of its growth through localized means. To contrast, Colorado, between 2009 and 2010, saw 200,000 people move into the state:

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18121789

Obviously, Colorado will have a bigger number, because it's a bigger state, but Denver, which is smaller than the state of Utah by a large amount (Denver's population is 634,265) saw an increase of 21,436 new residents from other states - about 10,000 more people than the entire state (pop. 2,900,872) saw last year. That's a huge contrast which further proves the point - Salt Lake, and Utah, lags behind in outsiders moving into the state.

Which, to many, will be a good thing. Of course, when a bulk of your population growth comes from people who haven't even learned to walk yet, well...

[UTPlanner]

Thanks for the map Comrade. I always find demographics interesting.

I thought people may be interested. I heard that Boyer was in the office this week to discuss their project on State Street. If you drive by the site, the parking garage in the middle of the block is moving along rather quickly. That parking is sufficienct to provide parking for their new building, 102 South 200 East and the multi-family residential building on 200 East. That residential building will be built by Cowboy Partners and it looks to be 6 stories.

[Twothirty8]

Originally Posted by SLC Projects

You make it sound more easy then what it really is. Most electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles start upwards to 30k+. Not really affordable for most middle class. If it was I would be driving one as well as everybody else. Issue is car companies are still making 99.9% of their vehicles that run on gas. There's a very few of these other cars that are out there and even few stations to go to.
It's much like when only the rich had DVD players when they first came out. Lets make them affordable so the middle and lower class can get out of being big oil's bitches as well.

I must say, at least people are talking about it, but actions need to be taken. I think the bicycle needs to be our main focus. This would lead to healthier air quality and people. We need loads more bike lanes, loads more GreenBikes and locations, everyone that can needs to have a bike - so our government and local companies should figure something out and get every ass that can on a bike seat, even in the winter, especially in the winter. I used to live in Amsterdam and love love love their bike culture, it's so much fun! I know we aren't European by any stretch of the word, but we can take their genius ideas and make them our own.

Also, just came upon this article on Bipartisan Group Pushes Utah Clean Air Bills. Ever bit helps.