In your view, is Salt Lake a city of 1.2 million or 2.7 million?

[locolife]

Originally Posted by SLCHenry

I'm pretty sure Logan isn't in the CSA. Id say the real last towns that have a large enough population to measure are Bringham City and Santa Quin which is also a 1hr and 45-minute drive.

You're correct, the CSA consists of SLC, Provo and Orem MSAs. Logan sits in it's own separate MSA.

[BnaBreaker]

To me SLC is the hub and largest city of a region featuring several fairly sizable cities, sort of like a lesser version of the Raleigh-Durham area.

[rds70]

I hate to say it, but SLC feels like a fairly small city. I don't think that is a bad thing, just my perception.

I was just there last weekend for a ski trip, and it doesn't seem like it has changed all that much since I lived there in the early 2000's.

I did like the more dense feel of downtown. The new buildings on State Street definitely make it appear more urban. But, I did a walk around downtown between 3:30 and 5:00 on Friday, and it felt dead (and the weather was decent, even after the big snowstorm).

I did enjoy dinner at Eva, it was very busy. Also went to Ivy & Varley - not so good, but also busy. The SunTrapp was the opposite - pretty dead even at 11pm (I know it was closed for a while with an ownership dispute, that may be a lingering issue).

Here are a few photos of State and Main Streets looking very empty:

[llamaorama]

I have never been to Salt Lake City, but in my mind it has always been a "major" city.

[dimondpark]

Salt Lake City proper is one thing, but when I think of the Salt Lake Area, I think of everything from Logan to Nephi, even though it's not really a Metro or CSA, but because I have relatives all over there literally from Logan to Nephi, it just sort of exists as a single geography in my mind.

[Innsertnamehere]

I'm far from an expert but looking at SLC metro area, I would probably include everything from Odgen to Payson or Santaquin as a part of the metro area.

I always thought of SLC as more than 1.2 million - more like 2-3.

It's much like how the US Census Bureau splits up a lot of major metro areas in their MSA measurements. LA & the Inland Empire, SF & San Jose, SLC, etc.

[urban_encounter]

1.2 million. To be honest, I was shocked it hosted the NBA All Star game because of the NBA’s requirement for high end hotel rooms. I hadn’t realized it was a ‘destination’ city.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by urban_encounter

1.2 million. To be honest, I was shocked it hosted the NBA All Star game because of the NBA’s requirement for high end hotel rooms. I hadn’t realized it was a ‘destination’ city.

30 minutes from premier skiiing areas, there are plenty of high end hotels nearby

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by urban_encounter

1.2 million. To be honest, I was shocked it hosted the NBA All Star game because of the NBA’s requirement for high end hotel rooms. I hadn’t realized it was a ‘destination’ city.

For a while it seemed like they preferred either cities in the medium-large to large range or tourist meccas like Vegas and New Orleans. But they've been skewing away from that model lately. Last year Cleveland hosted and next year Indianapolis. So that will be three consecutive years of the NBA All Star host city being in a medium sized city.

[IluvATX]

I always thought it was about 1.5-1.7 million. Maybe 2.7 million if you include all the people transitting through the airport on any given day.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Obadno

30 minutes from premier skiiing areas, there are plenty of high end hotels nearby

SLC also built out lots of decent hotel rooms for the 2002 winter Olympic games.

As for the population of the SLC area, it's the usual forum dilemma--which measure to pick? CSA, MSA, urbanized area, etc.? And, as usual, that dilemma is twinned with the "feels like" approach, in which people attempt to explain that their feelings about a place are a suitable objective measure of that place.

[R1070]

It looks like the central city of a metro around 1.2 million.

[Comrade]

Salt Lake definitely feels closer to an area of 2.7 million than it does 1.2 million. I would absolutely lump Salt Lake in with Portland, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, San Antonio and Columbus - cities that have a bigger metro population but a similar CSA population.

Really, it's probably somewhere in the middle. Not to derail this into a city vs city thread but the reality is that Providence, Rhode Island has a bigger metro population than Salt Lake and I am skeptical anyone would realistically say Providence is a larger city than Salt Lake.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Comrade

Salt Lake definitely feels closer to an area of 2.7 million than it does 1.2 million. I would absolutely lump Salt Lake in with Portland, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, San Antonio and Columbus - cities that have a bigger metro population but a similar CSA population.

Really, it's probably somewhere in the middle. Not to derail this into a city vs city thread but the reality is that Providence, Rhode Island has a bigger metro population than Salt Lake and I am skeptical anyone would realistically say Providence is a larger city than Salt Lake.

I think Providence feels like a larger city than SLC. Again, outside of Downtown, SLC doesn't have any neighborhood that even feels or looks urban. It has the urban core of a small city, and the suburbs of a larger one. Though it's admittedly urbanizing fast and making tremendous progress on that front.

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by edale

I think Providence feels like a larger city than SLC. Again, outside of Downtown, SLC doesn't have any neighborhood that even feels or looks urban. It has the urban core of a small city, and the suburbs of a larger one. Though it's admittedly urbanizing fast and making tremendous progress on that front.

Providence is a much older city than Salt Lake. But I didn't ask if Providence felt more urban - I asked if it felt bigger and I don't think your point was very well made.

As for Salt Lake not having neighborhoods that feel or look urban - what are you basing this on? Yes, Salt Lake lacks neighborhoods that you'd see back east but by that standard, pretty much any major western city wouldn't fit your definition of urban.

I guess I'm just confused by what standards you're using to describe things n your post. It seems kind of all over the place.

In terms of urban neighborhoods, I feel these are plenty urban and feel big enough:

The Avenues:









Marmalade Hill/Capitol Hill):









That's not even getting into Central City.

I don't know - not the most urban but it just seems ridiculous to say the city doesn't have any neighborhoods that feel or look urban - unless you're using a very simplistic definition of high-rises = urban but that would be a really silly point to make on a forum like this.

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by Comrade

Not to derail this into a city vs city thread but the reality is that Providence, Rhode Island has a bigger metro population than Salt Lake and I am skeptical anyone would realistically say Providence is a larger city than Salt Lake.

At street level, Providence feels way more urban than Salt Lake City. It's basically a baby version of Boston and New England's #2 city. Northeast cities are just built differently. SLC doesn't hold up and should not be compared to that region under any circumstances. Even much smaller cities like Harrisburg and Portland smash SLC at street level.

For Providence, sure, there are less highrises overall, but it's so much denser and expansive beyond the immediate downtown. See link for a short drone video showing off the density.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt1ylWDxRso

[craigs]

Salt Lake City's urban area is 1,178,533 people, and Providence's urban area is 1,285,806. Providence is a more populous city by that objective metric. How big people feel cities are, or their personal definitions of urbanity, don't provide any objective measure of a city's population.

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by craigs

Salt Lake City's urban area is 1,178,533 people, and Providence's urban area is 1,285,806. Providence is a more populous city by that objective metric. How big people feel cities are, or their personal definitions of urbanity, don't provide any objective measure of a city's population.

Going by actual CITY, Providence has 189k population in 20.6 square miles, while SLC has 200k population in 110.8 square miles. So over 5x the land area for about 6% more population.

Providence metro is listed as over 1.6 million. Here it's 38th nationally vs 46th for SLC. Providence metro accomplishes this in 1636 square miles of land, compared to SLC's 9975 square miles of land.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrop...atistical_area

I only went to SLC once, back in 1998, and to be fair I have followed its construction and recognize it has come leaps and bounds by then. If you asked me this question back in 1998 I would have said it feels like a city of about 50,000. It was actually an additionally huge disappointment in person because I had been rooting hard for the Jazz those years, especially John Stockton, but they couldn't solve the riddle that was Michael Jordan. My first thought when I was there was how does this city have a pro sports team?

[craigs]

Originally Posted by DZH22

Going by actual CITY, Providence has 189k population in 20.6 square miles, while SLC has 200k population in 110.8 square miles. So over 5x the land area for about 6% more population.

Providence metro is listed as over 1.6 million. Here it's 38th nationally vs 46th for SLC. Providence metro accomplishes this in 1636 square miles of land, compared to SLC's 9975 square miles of land.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrop...atistical_area

I only went to SLC once, back in 1998, and to be fair I have followed its construction and recognize it has come leaps and bounds by then. If you asked me this question back in 1998 I would have said it feels like a city of about 50,000. It was actually an additionally huge disappointment in person because I had been rooting hard for the Jazz those years, especially John Stockton, but they couldn't solve the riddle that was Michael Jordan. My first thought when I was there was how does this city have a pro sports team?

Here is the list of United States urban areas, and here is how urban areas are defined:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

An urban area is defined by the Census Bureau as a contiguous set of census blocks that are "densely developed residential, commercial, and other nonresidential areas".

Urban areas consist of a densely-settled urban core, plus surrounding developed areas that meet certain density criteria. Since urban areas are composed of census blocks and not cities, counties, or county-equivalents, urban area boundaries may consist of partial areas of these political units.

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by craigs

Here is the list of United States urban areas, and here is how urban areas are defined:

It's interesting that out west, urban areas don't have to actually be urban to count. Been clicking down street view in downtown SLC and even that's like an overgrown suburb. Waltham MA has a ton of office parks and a population of 64,015, so I'm going to say in my view SLC strikes me as a city of about 64,000. Final answer.