Heber City, Utah, and Kihei, Hawaii, have something in common.
Both are among America's 50 "Hottest Little Boomtowns," according to the April issue of Money magazine, which also includes the Tooele-Grantsville area in its roster of the country's most robust small cities.Those that made the cut were characterized as one of four kinds of communities: "Computer-age company towns" that host light manufacturing; military "guns-and-butter" burgs built around still-thriving military bases; "resort-town neighbors" that have blossomed near better-known places.
Heber City and Tooele-Grantsville fit the remaining category - "bedroom communities in the sticks" - a label that didn't go over well in either locale.
"I don't like that terminology," said Dean Johnson, a chamber of commerce leader in Tooele.
"I don't like the term `sticks' " agreed Bob Mathis, the planner for Wasatch County, where Heber City is the seat.
Neither questioned the magazine's conclusion, however, that the still-pastoral communities are well-situated within a short commute of a vibrant job market, namely the Wasatch Front.
Both fall under the heading of "exurbs," a relatively new but increasingly used demographic term for towns not too far removed from the city.
Heber City and Tooele-Grantsville aren't to be confused, however, with exurbs that lack a town center and a sense of community. The Money story took pains to note another variety of exurb, with a bustling Main Street and a close-knit feel where "your great-grandma might feel at home," a description that fits either place.
"If a person was to come here thinking they would find the wine-and-cheese crowd, perhaps they should look elsewhere," said Mathis, who conceded nonetheless that the Heber Valley is poised to lose some of its charm.
"The next 20 years is what's going to make the difference," said Mathis, noting a now-tireless and increasingly successful push by developers to market the Heber Valley to people who have jobs in Provo, about a half-hour away, and Salt Lake City, a 40-minute commute from the area.
The same thing is happening in Tooele County.
"Many are choosing to leave Salt Lake to escape the congestion and what they perceive as the violence, and in the process have discovered our biggest secret," said Scott Muir, the county's director of economic development, noting Tooele is behind the Oquirrh Mountains but only a half-hour from downtown Salt Lake City.
Purported prosperity aside, neither place is without its problems, and both are struggling to strike a better balance between tax producers and service users.
Robyn Pearson, hired by Wasatch County some weeks ago to lure industry to the Heber Valley, said several high-technology companies have unpublicized plans to move to Heber City's uncrowded industrial park.
"They're seeing the value of the valley," said Pearson, who added the Information Age and the trend to telecommute is having its impact too. "These kinds of valleys are appealing to folks like that, especially if they have recreation on their minds - snowmobiling, skiing, mountain biking, those Generation X kinds of things."
Johnson, who heads a retail development committee for the Tooele chamber, said his town has the same worries as Heber: "A lot of people who are moving here aren't working here . . . if they work in Salt Lake their tendency is to spend dollars in Salt Lake."
Tooele, then, must do two things, said Johnson: Attract employers and expand a retail base that is still small, despite Wal-Mart's decision a few years ago to open its first Utah store on the town's main drag. Though you can purchase a new car or a sack of groceries, lots of other things are hard to come by.
"I can't buy a business suit here," said Johnson.
The magazine made its selections on a handful of criteria, limiting them to towns with 10,000 to 50,000 people, above-median incomes and relatively young families. It also picked fast-growing areas. Tooele County's population in the 1990s has increased by 10 percent, to 29,263. Wasatch County's has grown by 16.5 percent, to 11,757.