[edale]

I'd say the SLC region feels larger than 1.2 and smaller than 2.7 million. Maybe 1.7-2 million is what I'd say it feels like. Provo and Ogden feel like their own things, but almost all of the population of the state is clustered around the Salt Lake area because it's basically the only habitable part of the state, so they've somewhat grown together. The whole state of Utah only has 3.3 million people. If SLC is 2.7 million, that's 82% of the state living in one metro area!

Now, it's been a few years since I've been there, and I know there has been impressive growth, but when I'd visit SLC, it felt MUCH smaller than my hometown of Cincinnati. Outside of Downtown, I don't think there is/was even one true urban neighborhood, and even the downtown felt fairly small (probably in part due to the tremendously wide streets). There are some hallmarks of a larger city, especially the transportation in the region. The light rail is impressive, the airport is large (more due to tourism than local market though), and the freeway network seems pretty vast. But overall, the region seems largely devoid of the urban heft one would expect from a 2.7 million metro. Then again, I guess you could say the same about Phoenix, though it definitely felt much larger than SLC to me. Another comparison would be to Denver, which has 3.3 million in its CSA. To me, Denver feels like its in an entirely different urban weight class than SLC, not just slightly larger.