Go figure: On the day when Salt Lake City is lauded as an anti-sprawl champion, Salt Lake County building permit figures show the cities surrounding Utah's capital are sprawling out in record numbers.

New data from Salt Lake County show unprecedented growth reaching to the outermost regions of the county. Preliminary estimates for housing permits show record-breaking numbers for the county with a projected 6,984 housing permits issued throughout the valley this year-to-date, a nearly 5 percent increase since 2000.

Herriman — the furthermost spot west and south of Salt Lake City's downtown — saw the most housing growth. The now-sprawling community, once full of open fields and cow pastures, was followed closely by other suburban cities like West Jordan, South Jordan, Riverton and Draper. Collectively, they are five of the six Salt Lake County municipalities that are farthest from downtown.

All the sprawl makes some wonder what Salt Lake City's anti-sprawl efforts mean in a county that seems bent on stretching its borders to the limit.

"You have good things happening in one area, and then you have the worst kind of sprawl you can get in the Herriman area, which is so far away and causes people to drive so far for every errand," Sierra Club regional representative Marc Heileson said. "Instead of tearing up farmland for automobile-dependent sprawl, let's infill the places we have downtown and revitalize them."

It was a Sierra Club report released Wednesday that touted Salt Lake City's work to curb sprawl by promoting transit and urban redevelopment

The report, "Building Better: A Guide to America's Best New Development Projects," lauds a dozen cities, from San Mateo, Calif., to Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass., for their urban development efforts.

Salt Lake City's way of handling development, by filling in existing empty spaces within the city, "provides a choice" for people in deciding where to locate, Heileson said.

And some are making that choice.

Salt Lake City was sixth on the list for most permits with 489, and Francis Lilly, research analyst at the University of Utah's Bureau of Economic and Business Research, said most of that is infill development. Total permits for additions and renovations in the city racked up a value of over $186.1 million so far this year, an unprecedented 168.7 percent increase from the same time last year.

The Sierra Club report praised the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is investing some $500 million in downtown redevelopment, as well as the Utah Transit Authority's TRAX light-rail line and city officials like Mayor Rocky Anderson and the Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency.