From Deseret News archives:
Utahns, let's croon a Como kind of tune
Maybe you haven't been around long enough to remember the Perry Como reference. Or maybe you haven't been around long enough to remember Perry Como. He was a singer — a crooner, actually — with a relaxed style and a soothing voice that took him to the height of popularity in the 1940s and '50s.
Back in 1988, Los Angeles Times writer David Lamb wrote a front-page story that described Salt Lake City as, "A Perry Como kind of place, an America of the '50s holding out against the beat of heavy metal."
At the time, I had lived here only two years. I thought it was a fairly good description, and I didn't mind it at all. I sort of liked Perry Como.
But the general reaction in Utah couldn't have been worse if Lamb had decided to dump toxic waste on State Street. The Associated Press later reported Lamb as saying he was amazed by the angry phone calls he received from Utahns. He was accused of being out to get Mormons, of all things. A local television station apparently offered to set up a debate between him and the mayor.
As for the mayor, who at that time was Palmer DePaulis, he calmly observed once to a reporter at this paper, "We're the problem. We're obsessed with our own image."
You think?
Which is why it was interesting last week to read about how Utah's economy continues to sizzle. A report from the state Department of Workforce Services said the state's employment growth in June was 4.5 percent, which was far and away the highest in the nation. Arizona finished a distant second at 3.4 percent. Unemployment, meanwhile, was 2.6 percent here, compared to a national average of 4.5 percent.
And June was no anomaly. The report said Utah added 55,000 new jobs during the past year and shows no signs of slowing.
It's no secret that economies go in cycles. People shouldn't get too euphoric about good times or too depressed over bad times. But Utah's general upward swing has continued more or less since I moved here all those years ago.
That growth has come with accolades that sometimes are surprising. The publication "Fast Company," for instance, recently published its list of the "30 fastest cities in the world"; places, its Web site says, that are perfect "to transplant yourself and your business.
"From Chicago to Shanghai, we selected 30 urban centers that are shaping our future." Salt Lake City is on that list, under the subheading "Urban innovators," along with Curitiba, Brazil and Tallinn, Estonia. Utah's capital, the Web site said, has the "youngest urban citizenry in the United States" and a downtown that is being "radically" redesigned.
