Reviewing Salt Lake City

Well, people really enjoyed the last one on Detroit, so here's my review of Salt Lake City. For those just joining, in 2022 I got a fully remote job and traveled to multiple cities for two weeks a piece to see what it would be like to live in them before making a move in 2023.

--Salt Lake City

The best thing about Salt Lake City (SLC) is that it’s just like California but better. The worst thing about SLC is that it’s just like California but better. Overall I really liked SLC, it’s in my top two cities I’m considering, and I’d strongly recommend it for anybody looking to get out of California without losing all the good bits.

So, let’s start with the obvious concern, which is the Mormons. Lots of people think of SLC as a Mormon town and, whatever their feelings on Mormons, are very worried about fitting in to a very distinctive culture. This is not a concern because SLC is full of Californians and all the Mormons have been priced out to Provo. This isn’t California like, oh there’s a Whole Foods in SLC, it’s like your Uber driver is a gay purple-manicured Brony. You might see a couple Mormon wards/churches and I’m sure there’s still a few but the number of Pride flags and BLM/Science signs in front of every other house let’s you know this is California turf. If nothing else, I met and talked with >30 people in SLC and if any of them were Mormon, they kept it on the down-low.

Which leads to this whole vibe of SLC being just a better California. There’s no homeless, because the Mormons are really good at taking care of that. There’s a lot of healthy food, including, yes, Whole Foods. There’re enough income taxes to support public services but you’ll still save a nice chunk of money every month. The people are generally liberal but not aggressively woke, probably because of the sea of red around it. And while it’s hard to beat the Bay for weather, SLC comes close and is genuinely gorgeous. Traffic is not great but it’s nothing like 580. Housing is $600-$800k, which is not great but, ya know, great by California standards. In general, while SLC has two big advantages I’ll get to a moment, the general vibe is that everything in SLC is like California, just 20%-50% better.

So, the first big advantage is the outdoors. Yes, Park City is right there if you want to ski, but the big appeal is hiking. And you may not be a hiker, I’m not, but it makes a difference when there are premium, Tahoe-level trails a 5–10-minute drive from your house. No joke, you just drive up to someone’s house, take the trail next to it, and you’re hiking Mt. Zion. It is utterly fantastic and unique. I genuinely don’t think you can get better, more convenient hikes in the Western US and the 5-minute drive means that they’re nothing special, you can just go after work or before breakfast on a weekend. It’s like London and theater, you might not come to SLC a hiking buff, but you will when it’s this good and more convenient than the grocery store.

The other one is the people. I clicked with every single person at every single meetup I went to in SLC and some of them blew me away. I went to about 6 different meetups in my time there and they were all either “fun” or “really, really good”. People are universally nice, considerate, and again, like, Blue but not jerk Blue. If you’ve loved, say, sci-fi or philosophy discussions but you hate the woke stuff, this is like returning to the best parts of the 90s and you won’t realize how delightful and liberating it is until you experience it. I wish I could analyze it more but I genuinely don’t know what caused it; I’m just honestly reporting that I genuinely liked everyone I met in SLC.

So what’s wrong with SLC and keeps it from being the automatic winner? Well, two things. First, it’s not an indoors town. There were some cool buildings and there’s like a big mall downtown which is kinda nice but there’s no urban core and all the indoor stuff felt like an afterthought. Second, if you have fundamental problems in California, SLC doesn’t fix them, it just ameliorates them. SLC really isn’t distinctive enough from California to make sense; if you like California you should either stay or have bought in SLC 10 years ago, it’s just not that much cheaper. Also, there’s this ugly sword of Damocles hanging over it. The Bay Area was much, much nicer 20 years ago and, as someone looking to get out of California, there’s this horrific dread that all of the worst parts of the Bay Area and California culture will arrive within the next 20 years. Heck, in terms of housing costs, you can already see the damage Californians have caused and I’m skeptical the situation is stable.

But, at least over the next 10 years, I think SLC is one of the best cities in the US and is an absolute joy. The people are genuinely fantastic, the natural beauty is top tier and absurdly convenient, and its biggest drawbacks are that it doesn’t literally do everything right and feels too much like CA which, for all its faults, still gets a ton of fundamental things right.

If you liked that, you can check out my review of Detroit here:

Reviewing Detroit

Next week, Las Vegas

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/open-thread-262/comment/12543301