Blog Posts
Insight: Summer 2021 in Utah: Tourism Up, Staffing Down
By: Jennifer Leaver Note: The opinions expressed are those of the author alone and do not reflect an institutional position of the Gardner Institute. We hope the opinions shared contribute to the marketplace of ideas and help people as they formulate their own INFORMED DECISIONS™. […]
Insight: The Ins and Outs of Utah’s Migrants
By: Emily Harris, Demographer I moved to Utah at the beginning of 2016 for many of the same reasons as others: I had a great job offer, the standard of living was decent, and the outdoor access was unmatched. I didn’t know it, but many other people were moving to Utah at the same time, and those numbers continued to climb. This latest migration report, Moving Past Net Migration: Demographic Characteristics of Utah’s Recent Migrants, does a deep dive into Utah’s in and out-migrants during the 2014-2018 period, when Utah was in the middle of the longest economic expansion in[...]
Insight: Utah’s Challenge
By: Phil Dean Note: The opinions expressed are those of the author alone and do not reflect an institutional position of the Gardner Institute. We hope the opinions shared contribute to the marketplace of ideas and help people as they formulate their own INFORMED DECISIONS™. Utah’s population and economy continue growing. This growth creates tremendous opportunities for Utahns. Growth also creates challenges. Some growth challenges stem from the interactions of topographical and other physical constraints with legacy transportation, land, air, and water use patterns. Other challenges arise because outdated systems poorly align with the modern economy. Yet transformational economic changes[...]
Insight: Diversity in Utah’s Health Care Workforce
By: Levi Pace and Laura Summers Note: The opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not reflect an institutional position of the Gardner Institute. We hope the opinions shared contribute to the marketplace of ideas and help people as they formulate their own INFORMED DECISIONS™. […]
Insight: Utah’s Households are Recovering from the Adverse Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19
By: Eric Albers and Hannah Keating Note: The opinions expressed are those of the author alone and do not reflect an institutional position of the Gardner Institute. We hope the opinions shared contribute to the marketplace of ideas and help people as they formulate their own INFORMED DECISIONS™. […]
Insight: Utah’s Recent Declining Fertility: Age Specific Explanations and Comparisons
By: Emily Harris Utah’s declining fertility rates have been a hot topic over the last few years, but in reality, Utah’s fertility has been in steady decline for decades. However, since the Great Recession in 2008, Utah’s fertility declined considerably, even knocking its national fertility ranking from 1st to 3rd. This has also resulted in an increasingly smaller gap between Utah’s total fertility rate and the nation’s. […]
Insight: Birds, Limes, and the Last-Mile Problem
By: Thomas Holst Note: The opinions expressed are those of the author alone and do not reflect an institutional position of the Gardner Institute. We hope the opinions shared contribute to the marketplace of ideas and help people as they formulate their own INFORMED DECISIONS™. Salt Lake City has always embraced innovative transportation planning. The city’s founders created a 130-foot-wide State Street, double the width of streets in Manhattan and San Francisco. More than a century later, FrontRunner, TRAX, the S-Line, and buses had pre-pandemic annual ridership of 44 million. FrontRunner will receive $350 million to add a second track[...]
Insight: A Note on Utah’s Vacant Housing Stock
By: Dejan Eskic Note: The opinions expressed are those of the author alone and do not reflect an institutional position of the Gardner Institute. We hope the opinions shared contribute to the marketplace of ideas and help people as they formulate their own INFORMED DECISIONS™. […]
Insight: Economic Development and the American Dream
By: Max Backlund Note: The opinions expressed are those of the author alone and do not reflect an institutional position of the Gardner Institute. We hope the opinions shared contribute to the marketplace of ideas and help people as they formulate their own INFORMED DECISIONS™. In simpler days, economic development meant adding new jobs and pursuing new tax revenue, but in recent years it has grown to incorporate goals like improving quality of life and upward mobility. For instance, the 2016 Strategic Plan for the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) included this mission statement: […]
Insight: Here’s why data and dialogue are the key to improving equity, diversity and inclusion
By: Natalie Gochnour Originally published in the Deseret News Note: The opinions expressed are those of the author alone and do not reflect an institutional position of the Gardner Institute. We hope the opinions shared contribute to the marketplace of ideas and help people as they formulate their own INFORMED DECISIONS™. Ninety minutes. That’s all it took. I gained a deeper understanding of how data informs an elected official’s thought process regarding racial and ethnic disparities in Utah. He, in turn, reviewed the data and considered how he might incorporate this data into policymaking. Both of us acknowledged the importance[...]