The front page of the Sept. 29 Deseret News reported that the Utah Quality Growth Public Private Partnership is looking to Neal Peirce for advice on how Utah should manage its growth over the next 25 years. According to this report, Mr. Peirce said "it is increasingly difficult for Utah to maintain its homogeneity and still thrive economically." I disagree with his assessment on two grounds. First, Mr. Peirce obviously has no idea how diverse Utah really is.
While it does not have a large African American population, it has many Native Americans and Mexican Americans, as well as a large population whose ancestors emigrated from Asia and Polynesia. In addition, Mr. Peirce misses the fact that Utah annually sends tens of thousands of its young men and women to Europe, including Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, Polynesia and Latin America, for two years of immersion in the language and culture of those regions, many of whom return there to work in international businesses.The large LDS community in Tokyo is the example with which I am most familiar. What is more, many of the members of the LDS Church from those regions come to Utah for college and graduate studies, and some stay here to live. A foreign visitor thus has a high probability that she could find someone who speaks her language by simply strolling through the noontime food courts at Crossroads Mall or the ZCMI Center.
Within my law firm's Salt Lake office are people who have worked on every continent. My brother regularly conducts seminars in Singapore, Chile and Belgium. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal noted Utah's unique multilingualism, and its business potential, in a front page article last year. That is one of the reasons why Salt Lake is well-suited to host the 2002 Olympic Games.
Instead of turning its back on its history and culture, Utah should realize that its heritage has made it uniquely prepared to participate in the emerging global economy.
Raymond Swenson
Salt Lake City