Here Are The 17 Most Underrated Things About Living In Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City is a great place to live! While Salt Lake City proper has about 200,000 residents, the Salt Lake Metropolitan Area (as defined by the U.S. Census), has over 1,150,000 – more than one-third of Utah’s population. As a result, there’s tons to see and do in Salt Lake. While we certainly have our issues (pollution, overcrowded roads, etc), there are many amazing benefits to living here – benefits we often take for granted. Here are 17 of those great things about Salt Lake City to remind you why we love it here!
When you live in Salt Lake, you can be at a ski resort, campground, or picnic area in about 30 minutes.
Salt Lake is a vibrant, diverse community. Salt Lake County is just 51.4 percent Mormon, which means that there’s religious diversity here. And Salt Lake City has been named one of the best cities for LGBT folks to call home. In addition, Salt Lake’s racial composition has fallen from 99% white (in the 1950s) to 75%. Many people from all backgrounds live here, which makes our city more diverse and interesting.
The League of American Bicyclists awarded Salt Lake City its "Silver Level Community" status in 2015, citing the city’s protected bike lanes and Green Bike program. If you want to commute to work or just travel to meet a friend for lunch on your bike, Salt Lake’s the place to do it.
If you love music, Salt Lake is a great city. From smaller concert venues like In The Venue, to the Vivint Smart Home Arena, we not only have a thriving local music scene, we host just about every big name in the music industry.
In the mood for a burger? How about Greek food? Italian, Mexican, Middle-Eastern, Thai, Vietnamese...the list goes on and on. Want to find lunch for $5? Or maybe you’d rather shell out the big bucks for some fancy, gourmet fare. You can enjoy all of that in Salt Lake. Our diversity lends to an absolutely amazing array of restaurants, cafes and hole-in-the-wall eateries.
And, we have a lot of team spirit. Real Salt Lake is popular with Utahns, and the Real players can often be spotted around the valley. Go up and say hello! You'll find that our Real guys are friendly and love to meet their fans.
Salt Lake's downtown has lots of nice little pubs and bars. Dick & Dixie's is Real Salt Lake's favorite.
When you live in Salt Lake, access to hiking trails is easy. This is the view from Ensign Peak, right above the State Capitol.
Salt Lake City ranks third in the nation for job market in 2016 according to WalletHub.com. Their factors for "job market" includes job opportunities, employment growth and the unemployment rate.
A wonderful blend of historic building and new construction make downtown Salt Lake City both beautiful and functional. Salt Lake City celebrates and honors its history, but it isn’t hopelessly stuck in the past.
SLC ranked in the top 10 for best cities for people with creative careers. That ranking is based on cost of living (we creative types tend to earn a lot less money than, say, engineers) and density of creative people (we work better when surrounded by other artists, writers, musicians, etc.).
Not only is the U a great school (its health sciences colleges and programs rank amongst the best in the nation, as does its Entertainment Arts & Engineering program and business school), but it also provides some wonderful perks to the community. We can cheer for the Utes football, basketball, gymnastics and other sports teams and we enjoy community education programs, too. In addition, the University of Utah draws people from all over the world to work in its many research programs.
We can use TRAX to come in from the suburbs to a Jazz game (avoiding annoying traffic), or ride in the Free Zone from the U of U to City Creek.
Salt Lake has many clean, safe parks for picnicking, playing and relaxing. This is Liberty Park, which offers large, shady trees and a charming little pond with geese and ducks.
We love to support local businesses and farmers. The Downtown SLC Farmers Market is full of fabulous vendors. It's a great way to spend a Saturday morning in the city.
Salt Lake has a wonderful mix of very old libraries (the Sprague branch opened in 1928) and newer facilities (the Marmalade branch just opened earlier this year). Our libraries offer great programs for adults and kids, the latest technology, media and, of course, books.
Utahns are friendly people, and those in Salt Lake are no exception! This is our wonderful Salt Lake County Mayor, Ben McAdams - the friendliest guy in the county!
Do you live in Salt Lake City? What’s your favorite thing about living there?
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