City population of Salt Lake City vs. Metro area - SLC is small (West Valley City: 2014)

[Champ le monstre du lac]

Salt Lake City in terms of city population is rather small (wiki states about 189,000 - Salt Lake City - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). By comparison the city of Albuquerque is more than double that population at 555,000 though it has less than 1 million in its metro area. For all intents and purposes, Salt Lake is exponentially larger than Albuquerque in terms of appearance, stature, infrastructure, and obviously a much larger metro area. Salt Lake City itself though seems to buck the trend of many other large western cities by annexing land even though development patterns are fairly similar to other western metro areas. It seems the suburbs make up more than the lions share of the metro population along the Wasatch Range.

It just seems unusual that the primary anchor city of the metro area doesn't even crack 200,000 and is still smaller than cities like Spokane and Boise. What's the story and history behind that? Maybe share some insight on the municipal developments in the metro area?

[Chango]

The Wasatch Front has always been a very suburban place, that's all. It's the local lifestyle preference.

There is a big cultural focus on families and those families tend to be larger than in most other places so it's only natural the majority tend to gravitate towards larger than average suburban single family houses with large yards... and until recently there has always been plenty of room and low enough prices to do it that way.

An interesting local fact: The population of SLC actually doubles every day from people who commute into work from the surrounding area!

[sharapata]

The answer is politics. Salt Lake City clearly never had an aggressive annexation agenda to expand its borders to the south and west. Or there was too much of a desire by these adjacent communities to retain local control, which appears to be the most likely answer. Interestingly, some of Utah's newest incorporated cities are in the vicinity of Salt Lake City. West Valley City, for example, is only 40 years old. Holladay and Taylorsville incorporated in the 90s, Cottonwood Heights in the 2000s and most recently Millcreek, incorporated in 2016. All of these areas could have been absorbed into Salt Lake City and, in fact, each one of these cities has historically had and continue to have Salt Lake City as the preferred city for addressing mail.

[berger12345]

Yeah salt lake proper is small, current population estimates do put it over 200,000. The estimated population from the census for 2019 was 200,567.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by berger12345

Yeah salt lake proper is small, current population estimates do put it over 200,000. The estimated population from the census for 2019 was 200,567.

True, but for all intents and purposes, that's really kind of misleading. You're driving along and you can go from Salt Lake City to East Millcreek to Holladay to Cottonwood Heights to Sandy to Draper and hardly be aware that you're not still in Salt Lake City.

[sharapata]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

True, but for all intents and purposes, that's really kind of misleading. You're driving along and you can go from Salt Lake City to East Millcreek to Holladay to Cottonwood Heights to Sandy to Draper and hardly be aware that you're not still in Salt Lake City.

I actually think there is a fairly good chance that either West Valley City or West Jordan or both cities could surpass Salt Lake City proper in the not too distant future. West Valley is already not that far behind SLC.

[berger12345]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

True, but for all intents and purposes, that's really kind of misleading. You're driving along and you can go from Salt Lake City to East Millcreek to Holladay to Cottonwood Heights to Sandy to Draper and hardly be aware that you're not still in Salt Lake City.

Agreed.

[SWFL_Native]

Please research MSA and CSA and you'll find that SLC is actually closer to Denver than you would think. I can provide the links if that would help?


Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by SWFL_Native

Please research MSA and CSA and you'll find that SLC is actually closer to Denver than you would think. I can provide the links if that would help?


Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site

Do you -- or does anybody who's posting here -- know why Provo is grouped together with Salt Lake City, but Ogden isn't? Provo and Ogden are roughly the same distance away from Salt Lake City, and there are as many small to medium-sized towns stretching between Ogden and Salt as there are between Provo and Salt Lake, with only a few miles between each town. People commute to both Provo and Ogden from Salt Lake City (and visa versa). It seems to me that the entire Wasatch Front is almost just one city with many, many neighborhoods and a few "downtown" areas.

[SWFL_Native]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

Do you -- or does anybody who's posting here -- know why Provo is grouped together with Salt Lake City, but Ogden isn't? Provo and Ogden are roughly the same distance away from Salt Lake City, and there are as many small to medium-sized towns stretching between Ogden and Salt as there are between Provo and Salt Lake, with only a few miles between each town. People commute to both Provo and Ogden from Salt Lake City (and visa versa). It seems to me that the entire Wasatch Front is almost just one city with many, many neighborhoods and a few "downtown" areas.

It is part of the CSA but not the MSA.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_L...ropolitan_area

The Salt Lake City metropolitan area is the metropolitan area centered on the city of Salt Lake City, Utah. The Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau currently define the Salt Lake City, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area as comprising two counties: Salt Lake and Tooele.[1] As of the 2010 census, the MSA had a population of 1,087,873. As of July 1, 2014 the U.S. Census Bureau's population estimates division placed the population at 1,153,340, an increase of 65,467 or 6.0 percent since April 2010; out of 381 total MSAs, the Census Bureau ranks it as the 48th largest MSA in the United States in 2014 and the 58th fastest growing since 2010.[2] The Salt Lake City Metropolitan Area and the Ogden-Clearfield Metropolitan Area were a single metropolitan area known as the Salt Lake City-Ogden Metropolitan Area until being separated in 2005.[3]
The metropolitan area is part of the Salt Lake City–Provo–Orem, UT Combined Statistical Area, which also includes the Ogden–Clearfield metropolitan area, the Provo–Orem metropolitan area, and the Heber City, Utah micropolitan area.

These are a few more links to compare Denver and SLC CSA with some nice demographic data.


https://censusreporter.org/profiles/...o-orem-ut-csa/


https://censusreporter.org/profiles/...co-metro-area/