We're expatriates of Salt Lake City. Before my husband and I had children, gentrification of a declining neighborhood in Salt Lake seemed like a grand idea. For the better part of five years, we poured our hearts, souls and most of our taxable income into a house that was nearly 100 years old. I wax sentimental whenever I think about that house. It makes me sad when I drive by it and it appears that it is not receiving the same degree of tender loving care that we gave it.

I wish I had the same affection for the neighborhood. There were two homicides on our street while we lived there. One night, there was a crack bust in the rental units across the street. A few times, we found drug paraphernalia on our lawn, and once our house was burglarized.

When we bought the house, we understood that the neighborhood was a mixed bag. As first homes go, there are few homes I've visited since that had as much charm. It produced a healthy windfall when we decided to sell it and move outside the city. The good outweighed the bad, by far.

As much as my husband and I enjoyed living so close to work, we knew as soon as our first child neared school age that we wouldn't be in our starter home for the long haul. It's one thing to handle the challenges of urban living as an adult, but we couldn't ask the same of our children. With a child about to enter kindergarten and another on the way, we decided we had to move. The decision was largely driven by the quality of the public schools in our area.

In the city, even with two incomes, we were soon priced out of neighborhoods with the best schools. There were probably a few homes we could have afforded, but they were too small for our needs (which was another reason for the move) or they required substantial amounts of work. Our search area expanded by default.

We landed in the suburbs where there are excellent schools and we could buy a lot more house for the money. Most important, our neighborhood is safe.

The trade-off has been giving up a five-minute commute for a 20-minute drive each way. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but when we made the decision to move, the pieces didn't fall together as we had envisioned. The good schools that happened to be in a neighborhood we could afford weren't in Salt Lake City proper.

So I've become one of the "unwashed heathens" I've heard talk of in recent weeks. The difference is, I commute into the city from the south instead of the north. Like my friends from Davis County, I'm using city resources while I work, although some of that is offset by the sales tax I pay when I shop or eat here.

But unlike my friends to the north, the un-welcome mat has not been unfurled to my ilk by Salt Lake's mayor. At least not recently. I seem to remember the mayor floating the idea of a "commuter tax" during his first state-of-the-city speech. In other words, the city would tax businesses for every employee who didn't live within the city boundaries. It was a political no-starter.