Salt Lake City is like an oasis of semi-normality surrounded by a sea of white mormon suburban hell. If you live in Salt Lake city proper and not the surrounding suburbs it's actually not so bad, there are a lot of bars and restaurants and a few music venues in the city, and the west side has a fair amount of ethnic diversity. Contrary to popular perception it's not all just white mormons, the mormons are actually most concentrated in Utah county to the south. There's not a lot of crime and it's somewhat safe to walk around at night even in the poor parts of town. Salt Lake is also great for hiking and camping because it's right next to the mountains and southern Utah which is just a few hours away has a lot of national parks and beautiful red rock desert.
The downsides of Salt Lake besides the mormons are the inversion, Salt Lake is in a bowl surrounded by mountains so the air pollution gets trapped in the winter and it gets really bad, and as I hinted at before the city is racially and economically segregated, the west side is poor and more non-white while the east side is rich and predominately white. Also like every other city in the US Salt Lake is gentrifying and rent is getting really expensive here.
I cant agree more a lot of the problems In Salt Lake is its absolute refusal to building anything then other then low quality "luxary" apartments, it was also wild that during the pandemic starting year the state just did nothing about the flood of libs from California buying up everything even in places like Kearns and really all over jacking up property prices from a state at a time where California had a high covid infection rate, the hospital still has maxed out icu beds they are flying in people from Texas etc, Iv been thinking of moving from this place but idk
I went for a short time to visit some family. Seemed like a chill place.
But I would hate to live in SLC because its pretty much like any other American city where you have to go everywhere in a car. Walking wasn't much of an option with all the stroads around. They do seem to have a pretty good light rail system though.
I don't think you can ignore the mormons. That's the whole point of Salt Lake City.
I know there's a big stinky salty lake right next to the city, I forget what it's called tho
A few years ago I asked this very question of a Prof of mine (Mormon, BYU grad, lived in SLC for a few years). He said I'd love it and it's a great place even if you're not a mormon. The problem is finding a job, according to him. Because single Mormons from all over the country flock to SLC to find a spouse whether they have a good job lined up or not. So you have an oversupply in the labor market there.
