Census survey shows Utahns marry younger, have more children

Utah does well with homeownership. It ranked No. 10 for the percent of housing units that are owner-occupied, 71.7 percent. It ranked No. 20 for the median value of owner-occupied homes, $218,700.

It ranked 24th in the nation for how much either homeowners or renters spend on housing each month — a median of $1,358 for home owners and $733 for renters.

Utahns are a mobile bunch. The survey said nearly one in five Utahns (18.2 percent) had moved to a new home or apartment in 2007. (Still, the survey said about two of every three Utahns are natives who were born in the state.)

Utahns don't spend as much time commuting to work as most Americans — just about 21.4 minutes, ranking 38th in the nation. The survey estimates that three of every four Utahns drive to work by themselves (ranking 35th in the nation), and just 2.4 percent commute using public transportation systems (ranking 19th in the nation).

The survey estimates that 90.2 percent of Utahns are white, the sixth highest such percentage in America. But Perlich warns that could be a bit deceiving, and that Utah is more diverse than that statistic may suggest.

"For example, if a person from Iraq comes to Utah as a refugee, they check off on the form that they are 'white' because there is no 'Middle Eastern' category. If you are from Bosnia or Serbia, you do the same. It is not the standard Hansen-Christiansen-Jensen whites that we have seen before. The state is now more complex," she said.

One of seven Utahns (13.9 percent) speak a language other than English at home (ranking 20th highest in the nation). The survey reports about 8.2 percent of Utahns were born in a foreign country — and of those, 45.4 percent were born in Mexico.

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