Most American communities owe their location and history to the accidents of geography, economics and transportation. Most grew in rather haphazard fashion. Salt Lake City and other Mormon pioneer towns were an exception. They were founded at sites carefully picked in advance and laid out in a deliberate grid style to meet principles that sought to mix the advantages of urban and rural living.
The approach was highly successful in the founding of more than 350 towns throughout the West in the 19th century. But more planning is going to have to be done to keep up with growth in those communities in the coming 21st century.Population studies released this week show that the number of people living along the Wasatch Front may reach 1.6 million by the year 2015, an increase of 500,000 residents, most of them adding to a suburban sprawl that will continue to erase boundaries between cities.
The study by the Wasatch Front Regional Council covered five counties: Salt Lake, Davis, Weber, Morgan and Tooele. More than 180,000 people will be added to Salt Lake County, outside of Salt Lake City; Davis County will grow by 106,000 and Weber County by 60,000. Salt Lake City will grow only by about 15,000 and will become relatively smaller compared to other communities.
The "hot spots" for growth are forecast as Layton, North Ogden, Sandy, Draper, Riverton, West Jordan and Bluffdale. Salt Lake Valley may become wall-to-wall people.
Such increases will put enormous pressure on roads, water supplies and other basic infrastructure and services. This calls for careful and early planning. For example, communities cannot wait until there is total traffic gridlock caused by another half-million people before agreeing to invest in alternative transportation systems.
A light rail system and expanded bus service will have to start replacing the family car for transportation. Otherwise, the cars for another half-million people will violate all air quality standards and turn the Wasatch Front into one long parking lot.
The coming suburban sprawl inevitably will alter the location of jobs, the availability of parks and green space and the need for police, libraries, water treatment plants, schools, snow removal and every other facet of civilized living.
All of this has to be planned for, financed and built, often well in advance. People who refuse to prepare for what comes later because they don't want to part with the money now are being shortsighted.
The pioneers laid out residential and business areas, surveyed roads and constructed water systems far beyond what they needed for themselves at the moment. They founded communities, got them going, moved and did it all over again. In their poverty they planned and started work on theaters, public buildings and magnificent religious edifices that many would never live to see finished. But they were building for the future.
What has happened to that attitude? In recent months there has been a pattern of rejection of public projects, complaints about the costs and lack of support for various public undertakings. There seems to be a feeling of, "Let's do the minimum possible." Where is the future going?
The kind of vision shown by the pioneers is still needed if Utah is to continue to grow and develop in a way that will make those 500,000 new Utahns - and subsequent generations - proud of what has been done.