SALT LAKE CITY — Governor Spencer Cox is asking Utahns to take a survey to help guide state leaders in making planning decisions to prepare for future growth.
"We’re hoping to get lots of input from people about the future of Utah," the governor said.
On Thursday, the governor announced the launch of the "Guiding Our Growth" survey. It will help advise policymakers from city halls to Capitol Hill on what their constituents want as they do planning.
Take the state's "Guiding Our Growth" survey here
"It will inform our budget recommendations to the legislature. It will inform policy decisions from the legislature as to where we’re going to invest, where we’re going to invest infrastructure, how we want to see that growth play out and hopefully we want it to be used by local officials as well," Gov. Cox told FOX 13 News. "We want to show this data to cities, city council members, planning commissions all across the state so they can take real information instead of kind of guessing what their people want the future of Utah to be."
The survey itself will be tailored to people's zip codes, so rural Utahns won't be asked to weigh in on skyscraper developments along the Wasatch Front. Utah is actually one of the more urban states in the country, said Utah League of Cities and Towns Executive Director Cameron Diehl.
"We have 255 cities and towns who are all in various growth stages. You have some who are doubling every year, you have others that really aren’t seeing any growth. What this survey will allow us to do is hear from residents directly about what they want their future to look like," he said.
The Governor's Office of Planning & Budget has already done some work, surveying Utahns to narrow themes of this latest round of questions.
"Housing affordability, water availability, transportation convenience and preservation of open space and recreational activities," said Linda Hanson, the state planning coordinator for the governor's office. "So the survey itself is organized around these four categories."
Right now, Utah has about 3.4 million people living here. But the University of Utah's Kem C. Gardner Institute estimates the population will grow to 5.5 million by 2060. A large portion of that will be migration from outside Utah.
"The Wasatch Front is experiencing a lot of growth. Southwestern Utah, a lot of growth," said Mallory Bateman, the director of demographic research at the institute. "Other parts of the state? Maybe varying levels of growth."
Gov. Cox said the more people who participate in the survey, the better the outcome for the state as a whole.
"I know what a lot of people want, they want us to not grow at all," he said. "I would love to be able to keep everything the same. But that’s not how it works. When you do well, when your state is successful, people want to live here."
The survey runs until August 31. Results will be made public by the end of the year.
