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Big boom in Utah 'burbs: 10 have doubled — or more — since 2000 Census

Interestingly enough, in all its years, Salt Lake City never has reached 200,000. As long as I can remember, and my memory goes back to the 1960s, its population has always been more or less in the 170,000 - 180,000s.

I would like to meet the 200,000 crazy people who want to live in Eagle Mountain. The place does not have enough water, and when gasoline prices hit and stay at 10 dollars a gallon, only the crazy will want to live out in the middle of highly dry, highly expensive nowhere.

I think the population of Salt Lake City never rises above 200,000 because you keep getting parts of the area that incorporate into their own townships. For example, there is absolutely no way to deliniate between Salt Lake, West Valley, South Jordan, Sandy, etc. yet they area ll listed separately here. If you say L.A., it generaly incluses a lot of greater L.A., so actually Greater Salt Lake has increased significantly, just not the Salt Lake on paper census, meaning the actual people who physically live inside the Salt Lake area.

I 100% agree with you on your evaluation of Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs. I agree for the reasons you mentioned, and then also because building towns in a water-hungry area like that and then wanting them to grow is just going to create a lot more water and einvironmental impact issues. The reason the rest of the wasatch front can handle a fair measure of growth is because it is stuck between the mountains and the lakes and get water from non-well sources, or from wells that have a substantial ability to renew themselves. If you start pulling water off the wells on the west side of Utah Lake too quickly, you will run out of water and find that you can't drill deep enough to reach the low water table. And then you end up not being able to support such a large population. Las Vegas is really going to have major issues in the future and Utah needs to recognize that and stay ahead in terms of low-impact housing, which the house in this picture certainly does nto represent.

That massive house there is such a waste of space and resources. These small communities that want to grow big should be required to do so in a resource friendly way. For example, Utah should set certain areas of the state that are in fragile environments (as in they dont' have enough water, they are close to wilderness areas, they don't have an easy way to get rid of their waste, etc.) and restrict growth to be eco-friendly. You can do simple things, such as require that a new house have no positive draw on the power grid (in other words, force them to include thermal heating, solar pnels, wind turbines, or whatever), thus decreasing their overall impact. Anyone who is building a house that massive is bound to have the money to better equip it. Alos, look at that green lawn, adn then look at the brown mountains out there west of Utah lake and tell me that they are not goign to have problems with 200,000 green-lawned houses. That is the most preposterous American pasttime to hold on to in the west. Forcethem to xerascape with natural vegetation adn then provide a city park.

It is nice to see that some other people have some great ideas. I really wish we could find more people in our state and municipal governments who would accewpt someo f these ideas. In the long run, forcing homeowners to equip their houses with some relatively inexpensive equipment ($20,000 in a $300,000 house is nothing) will make a huge difference in future growth. It is just so smart to do so and yet everyone talks about how that restricts their rights to do as they please. Wwll, wait until you don't have drinking water. They shuld set into law some kind of mandate that these comuniciteis have recycling centers for storm water and municipal waste water like they are starting to do in L.A. and other large water-hungry ities. Why not do it now when it is easier to mandate before anything is built then forcing them to do it later after everything is built?

There are products, although not inexpensive, that look exactly like lawns, feel a great deal like lawn when walking on it with bare feet and require absolutely NO WATER. It doesn't require asphalt basing to install it either, which would keep the heat reflection and keep the artificial grass cooler. One could also landscape part of the yard that way in a mini puting green.

I think the comments about water issues are pretty good. These kinds of towns/developments are so irresponsible. There needs to be legislation that places some control on this.

I assume that all who are posting and decrying the new homes that will use water for landscaping, etc. are living in homes that do not have lawns, that use solar panels, are carbon neutral, etc. Hope you don't fall off that high horse you're on, the landing could be rough.

I believe that Eagle Mountain is perfect for houses. There was no real value to the land before, not much farming going on there, just a dry ridge. I used to hunt in the area, pretty boring stuff. The biggest crime is putting houses on prime farm land in the valleys. I cringe each time a piece of farmland or an orchard is torn down for the sake of growth. Put all the houses on unfarmable land, leave the good land to produce for the people!

If Utah had a great climate that supported orange and palm trees it would look just like LA. Real progress. You even have our gangs and drug problems too. You've gone a long way Utah. Excuse me for not being impressed.

Throwingstones said "I assume that all who are posting and decrying the new homes that will use water for landscaping, etc. are living in homes that do not have lawns, that use solar panels, are carbon neutral, etc."

So your logic is; "don't make anybody do it on new housing until every last existing household does it!" Wow! That is really progressive. The world will quickly improve with your logic.

Second of all, if ou read the above comments, they mention in several places that those particular cities(eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs) and other like cities are in desert or near-desert locations and can't support the development in the future. If you live in an area with plenty of non-carbon using power sources and with a lot of water, by all means, don't restrict it. But those and most places in Utah are in very poor water situations.

Finally, yes, I do live in a 900 sq. foot apartment (by choice, even though my 70K salary could buy me one of those bi houses), I recycle,I use water-saving methods, I try and do all fo whatI said above. No grass here!

Utah is desert, tell me where does the valley have an abundance of water?

As for gas prices... live in a rural area anywhere eles in the country and you'll find others pay and pay big gas prices because they travel so far daily to work because they want to live in the country.... away from the city... Not everyone can or wants to live in the city for convience.

Growth in Utah and the rest of the nation has come to a screeching halt and total economic collapse is just around the corner.

The biggest restriction to growth in Utah is our water resources and it befuddles me why our water resources departments haven't been screaming about excessive and unregulated growth that they can't support. Many cities forget that we are a desert climate where water is scarce. Cities force farmers out of business because they use too much water and land to grow our food. There is more to be made in taxing homes than feeding the people from farm lands.

Developers though wave money in front of the noses of city managers with lots of promises and money in tax revenues. Utah's economy is not so rosy and it can all come down faster than it went up and cities should not be making promises it cannot keep.

While this irresponsible development goes on we keep hearing cries to cut water use, gas use, and other uses of resources, just to sustain and put up more houses and businesses to strain our resources even more. Growth is killing us and our resources.

The reality is there isn't enough water...and these communities think that simply because they exist that they are going to build bridges across Utah lake causing massive environmental,wildlife habitat and water quality concerns. They have blindly created problems such as traffic bottlenecks because they had no forsight to better look ahead, and then expect other Taxpayers to foot the bill to resolve the problems that they created in the first place. Talk about Disfunctional and total Lack of Responcive governing. Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs will long be a pain in Utah and Salt Lake Counties butts. Just what we need more urban Sprawl... More L.A. like blight with all the other anti social problems that comes with it.

There are so many of you that think that the problems are the developing cities problems to not use resources so you can continue to use resources the same as you have in the past. If you are going to impose restrictions on them then they should be imposed on all. Why don't all of you communists retrofit your houses with all of the suggestions that you want to impose on others. It is your civic duty to lead the way or shut up. Oh, by the way, I'm a contractor and I'd love to do the work for you. I'm a equal oportunity contractor. I work for anyone regardless of your political views or stupid ideas.

Unless we FORCE people, which is the way we're going, but not the way we should be progressing. If we allow the market to operate efficiently without excess government intervention, it will inevitably dictate what should occur naturally. Forcing this or that is so wrong I don't know where to start.

Although it is important to manage water and waste resources with areas of strong population growth, keep in mind that in most areas only 7% of all water use is from municipal (residential) users. Agriculture uses the most water (around 60%) and should be the area of focus for water conservation considering much of that water is wasted through evapo-transpiration. Why focus on trying to drop total water usage in the municipal sector by a percent or two when we can drop the total water usage by 10-15% from improving agriculture water management? Some ways to lower water usage for agriculture include watering at night and drip irrigation.

Salt Lake County should be incorporated as one city. And for my hometown, it has grown from about 5,000 to over 28,000. Amazing. But even more so it has been eclipsed by smaller towns. Ah, progress. Actually, I was very happy living in the area of 17th South and 21st East in SLC, close in but a nice neighborhood. City living can be good, and McMansions are more of a burden than they are worth.

Those green lawns sure look nice, but...
having a green lawn uses 10X the amount of water the ordinary household uses to live on (eating, drinking, showering, etc.)

Grass is used to stop erosion because it absorbes so much more water than any other plants species.

Ask a civil engineer why grass is planted along leavies and dikes.

BTW, I have a 3/4 acre lot, some in grass - but mostly landscaped using natural plants native to our area and enviroment.

I see the SLC liberal crowd still has enough time on it's hands to again be critical of the Lake Mountain area. To a certain extent I have to agree with "Throwing Stones". I really don't see much conservation going on in SLC. I, on the other hand and many of my neighbors, have built conservation into our homes. My solar thermal systems, various electircal conservation method keep my energy comsumption down to minimum. Although I have a much larger yard my lawn is probably smaller than the traditional city lawns and through water conservation techniques I am sure I use much less water that most of the "Protect the Enviroment gang". Oh for commuting...my car gets 45 MPG and I take a UTA van to work. And I am not that unusual for an EM resident.
My Point is before you start making these statements about how much energy is wasted in the suburbs actually check it out. You guys remind me of Al Gore bemoaning global warming while fly around in his jet and living in his energy hog house. By the way, I didn't have to rip up an orchard to build.