6 Downsides To Living In Salt Lake City, Utah (Consider These If Moving To Utah)

In today's article, I'm giving you six reasons why you actually might not want to move here to Utah.

That's right, guys. In today's article, I'm going to be giving you a few different reasons as to why you might not actually want to move here. I know that I make things seem way awesome living here in Utah, but there are some downsides to being here, and I want to help inform you of what those are. So I'm not going to give you any pros here in this article. I'm just going to give you some of the negatives, some of the downsides to living here, and then you can decide at that point whether or not it's a big factor for you in your decision to possibly move here to Salt Lake City.

If after you've finished the article, you've decided, well, those things really aren't too bad, and the good things really outweigh the bad things, then I need you to get in touch with me, call me, text me, email me, get a hold of me any way you need to so we can have a chat about the type of home and lifestyle that you're looking to have when you make your move here to Salt Lake. I've had people reaching out from literally all around the world who are moving right here to Utah, and I absolutely love it when you guys reach out. So make sure you do that if you do decide that you're going to make a move here. And before we jump into the article, please make sure to bookmark this blog website and share it with your friends and family who might be interested in moving here along the Wasatch Front.

It's important for me because it helps me grow the website, and helps me know what type of content you guys like to see. And it also helps you because you get up-to-date information about what it's like living here, and you also get notified when I release these new articles. So make sure to bookmark this blog website, so you get notified when those new articles come out.

No.1 Lack of Pro-Sports Team.

Let's jump into it. All right, so the first thing I want to cover on our list here is that, unfortunately, we don't have a ton of major professional League sports teams. Yes, we do have the Utah Jazz, and they're great. They've had a couple of good runs over the past few years.

And we do have Real Salt Lake who has also had some really good runs. But we don't have a professional team for football, and we don't have a professional baseball team or a professional hockey team. So these things are lacking here in Salt Lake. Unfortunately, there's just not quite the market for it yet. I don't think our population is big enough, and the demand isn't there either.

So I do see these things coming in the future. Who knows when that will be. I mean, it could be years. It could be decades. I don't know when that will be, but unfortunately, we don't have those sports teams for that.

We don't have the professional level. We do have the minor league teams, of course, for those different sports. But right now, as far as professional sports go, we've got the Jazz and Real Salt Lake. So we're kind of lacking in that field. And that also kind of leads me into number two on our list.

No.2 Less Major Conventions.

The second Con here is that we're not the first pick for any type of major convention. We're not the first pick for any type of major concert or any other event like that. I mean, yes, we do have the Sundance Film Festival, and we do have Silicon Slopes, which brings a couple of tech and business events here into the city. We do have kind of your general conventions, like gun shows or outdoor shows or things like that that will go on at some of the convention centers that we have here. But to be honest with you, we're not the first pick for a lot of those major events.

There are a lot of events that when their organizers are putting it together, they don't say we would love to go to Salt Lake City. We're just kind of far down on the list. It's not the most desirable place, I think probably because of population and just we don't have a great name for that type of thing yet. I think that there is a market for it here, and it would actually be really helpful for the economy. It's just getting those organizers to bring it in.

Same thing with concerts, right? When artists decide to go on tour, they want to go to the big cities. They want to go to Los Angeles or New York or Miami or Seattle or whatever. Salt Lake, yes, we do get picked. We are on the tour list very often, but we're not the first option when it comes to those things.

So you're going to be a little bit lacking there. We do still have those conventions and events, but we just don't get as many options as you would in other big cities. So this may be a trade-off. Of course, if you live in those other big cities that I just named, you're going to get all of the other negatives that come with living in that city for the trade-off of having more options when it comes to those conventions. But it is what it is.

And unfortunately, we're a little bit lacking there. And that's something that I've always kind of wish we had a little bit more access to those types of things.

No.3 The Nightlife.

Number three on our list is something that I hear all the time from people coming from out of state. A lot of people vacation here, but in Salt Lake City, most people coming here either have family here. They're here for a work trip or they're here for skiing.

Those three things are what bring people here to Salt Lake City. But the thing that I always hear is missing is some type of nightlife. They say, yeah, it's great to go for a work event, but there's no nightlife. There's nothing to do after the fact. It's pretty lacking in that sense, and I would tend to agree.

I mean, I lived here, I've grown up here, so I haven't known what it's like to live in any other major city. But as far as our nightlife, if you want to go out to a bar or restaurant or anything like that, it's not quite as great as you'd find in other major cities. Downtown Salt Lake has primarily been a business sector, and that's just about it. In fact, the housing units in downtown Salt Lake have almost doubled over just the last 20 years. And so it's now transitioning into being a place where people actually want to live and they actually want to have a lifestyle in the downtown, the big city lifestyle.

And that's changing now, but it just wasn't that way 20 years ago. And so there wasn't a lot of that infrastructure for the actual nightlife. Part of it was built into the city at that point. So it is coming around. There are restaurants there.

There are breweries and pubs and different things to do that you can go out and have a great time at night, but it is lagging behind a lot of other major cities.

No.4 Public Transportation.

Number four on our list is going to be important, especially if you're coming from a bigger city than Salt Lake City. Unfortunately, our public transportation system here is not very good. I mean, they're trying to make it better. It has gotten a lot better in just the last ten to 15 years.

But public transportation here is not that great, to be honest with you, unless you're in the downtown area or you're near the main corridor of I 15, public transportation is really hard to use. Most times, it's just not time-efficient and it's just expensive to use, which makes it just not cost-effective to actually do it. By the time you actually drive to the bus stop or drive to the tracks line, park your car and then get onto the public transportation, by the time you have all the stops and get to where you're actually going, and then from there into the office or there into whatever you're trying to do, a lot of times it's just not cost-effective and it's not time effective. So public transportation here, it's getting better, but it's definitely not the best. And in addition to that, because there are not a ton of people who use the public transportation, relatively speaking, they don't come often enough.

If you're waiting for a bus, you might be waiting 15 to 20 minutes for that next bus. So if you miss it, you're going to be way behind schedule, which makes it hard. So the routes don't run often enough. There are too many stops. It's not cost-effective.

It's not time effective. And if you're coming from a big city like, let's say Los Angeles or the Bay Area or Boston or New York or an area that's really well established, it's going to be way different if you're trying to use public transportation here. So just be aware of that.

No. 5 Far from other Major Cities.

All right, number five on our list is really important because here in Salt Lake City, we're pretty spread out.

We're kind of out here in the middle of nowhere. We're in the desert, and there's not really much around. Once you get outside of the city, the next biggest city close to us is Boise, Idaho. And that's about four to 5 hours away, depending on how fast you drive to get out of Utah. And I mean, it's Boise.

There's not a ton to do it there either. It's going to be a very similar field to here in Salt Lake. So after that, you've really got like Las Vegas, which is about 6 hours. So that makes for a great weekend trip, 6 hours. You can drive down on a Friday, spend the weekend there, and then drive back Monday.

That's a great option. But if you're trying to get like other major cities, it's kind of difficult to do. You've got Denver, Colorado, which is about 9 hours, give or take, and then you've got Phoenix or anywhere in California within about ten to 12 hours, depending on where you're going. And it's kind of funny because it's close enough that you can actually drive there in one day. You can spend one day of travel to get to, let's say, California, and then you can spend the weekend there, but then you're going to spend a whole day getting back.

So it's just close enough that you can do it, but it's far enough that it makes it kind of difficult to get away for just a weekend or just a short trip. So you just have to take this into account. And that's why a lot of people here locally are going to spend their time in the mountains. It's going to be an hour's drive to do just about any outdoor activity that you want. Like I've said before reading this article, you can do literally any outdoor activity you want within an hour's drive.

You've got tons of national parks within about four to 6 hours away. So there's definitely a lot to do. But if you're trying to get to other major cities, we are kind of out here all alone. And number six, the last thing that I want to talk about here in this article for a negative to living in Salt Lake City is that we don't have great East-West access here in the city. When you're looking at a map of Salt Lake City, you can see that you've got I 15 which runs right down the middle and provides pretty good access.

You also have i-215, which is on the east side, and then you've got Bangladesh Highway And then the mountain view corridor that runs along the Western side of the county. So these major highways do provide good north and south access. But unfortunately, when you're going East to West, there's not a ton of great access. I mean, you've got i-80, which is about 2100 south, give or take. I know it kind of varies Depending on where you are.

And then you've got i-215, which runs at about 6400 south, and then other than that, you've got Bangerter Highway, which is out at like 137 south. So you've got those three roads, but if you're living, let's say in South Jordan or Daybreak, It's not very convenient. If you're trying to get across the Valley And get over to Sandy or Draper, you have to take small city streets which are generally only two lanes each way. And so it makes it really difficult. It increases the amount of traffic that we have and you get a lot of congestion and it just really increases the travel times that you're going to look at.

So if you're thinking about making that move and you want to live in a place that has good, Easy access for work or for recreation, you want to make sure that you take this into account and live somewhere either close to i-215 or close to i-80 or close to Bangerter Highway if you see yourself going east to west on a regular basis. So, guys, that wraps up our article here. If you liked this blog, make sure to bookmark it on your web browser. I tried to give you an honest approach to some of the negative sides of living here in Salt Lake City. Also make sure to call me, text me, or email me if you're thinking about making a move here to salt Lake city.

Despite these negatives that I just gave you, I love it when you guys reach out and I'd love to help you make your transition here to Utah. Last but not least, make sure to bookmark it on your web browser if you haven't already done so, I'd love for you to get updates on when I released these new articles and until next time. Bye.

Cody Steck, Realtor
Real Broker, LLC
801- 244- 2297
Cody@fastutahhomes.com