Downtown Salt Lake City: Main Street — Three homeless men sit in the former business entrance to the Off-Broadway Theater and distribute rations of spice or possibly weed. In broad daylight on the busy thoroughfare, they roll joints and watch the passers-by. Around the corner, acrid plumes of blue smoke fill the air. The SLCPD, like most metro Police departments, have … [Read more...]
Homeless Policies in Salt Lake City: Paying off? Or an Endless Money Pit?
The homeless in Salt Lake City has always been on the periphery, but today they are camping right on Main Street impacting local business operations and causing blight, especially the area formerly occupied by Sam Weller’s Zion Bookstore. Utah Stories wrote in a previous article about the hardship of business owner Omar Mullahkhel, who has operated the Market on Main … [Read more...]
How Main Street is Being Traded for Wall Street
Ask anybody how they define their community and they will inevitably mention the local businesses: the local grocery store; the shoe repair shop; the hardware store; the watch repair shop, and of course restaurants, bars, and the local farmers markets. It’s cliche, but it’s true: locally-owned businesses are the backbone of communities and Main Street. In the past two … [Read more...]
Homeless in Sugar House
As apartment buildings rise and the shelters fill, the voices of the homeless on homeless policy. “I’ve given up on the homeless resource center,” said a man who we’ll call John. Now camping around Fairmont Park for the past few months, John added, “They say they want to help, but I showed up two minutes after eight o’clock and they took my room and kept all of my … [Read more...]
The Battle Over Utah’s Environment: Great Salt Lake Great No Longer?
Will the Great Salt Lake Become a Casualty of The Mega Drought? With impending population growth and the increasing scarcity of water, there is a battle brewing over Utah‘s environment and future. “The Mega Drought” is what some are calling this very dry 2021 water year in Utah and the entire Great Basin area. Lake Powell is at its lowest level since inception and the Great … [Read more...]
How the Coddling of American Minds is Destroying Free Speech & Public Discourse
**This story was edited 10/14/2021 to include some of the results of our Reddit forum experiment (see bottom) **This story was edited 10/13/2021 to include an example of bothsiderism, and to correct a few errors. Our founding fathers came from extremely diverse backgrounds, economies, and political beliefs, yet they were able to assemble a … [Read more...]
Living Without Cars in Moab, Utah
Moab's Millcreek Parkway: A Story for Locals Only While vacationing in Moab last month, we found another example of how Grand County residents take ownership of their community. Moabites pride themselves on thinking differently and living deliberately with the notion that closer contact with nature should not entail driving to a destination, but that nature should be … [Read more...]
Why Most Utahns No Longer Walk
We love our cars. We love driving them everywhere. We shuttle our kids around, pamper our cars with the best gasoline and fresh suds from the carwash — the Carnauba hot wax treatment. We drive to work and back, drive the kids to Jiu-Jitsu and dance lessons, drive to get out of the house, drive to the gym, and drive to visit “nature”. Nature has become something “out there”. … [Read more...]
Salt Lake City’s Inland Port: From Bad to Worse
Opinion Just twenty-five years ago Salt Lake City’s tech sector was a tiny piece of the economic picture of the region, Geneva’s plant in Vineyard, Utah was still producing thousands of tons of steel and Utah’s mining industries and toxic waste disposal were leading sectors of the economy. Back then an “inland port” offering more jobs, more traffic to Salt Lake City’s airport … [Read more...]
Flying for the First Time over Some of the Most Spectacular Scenery on Earth, Moab Utah
The sensation of taking off in a single-engine Cessna with our two kids — ages four and six — and watching their eyes become saucers while their jaws drop, naturally causes a parent to wonder: “Will they love this or hate it? Will they relax and have fun or will they remember this as agonizing child abuse?” I have no idea. It only takes a few minutes until the grip of fear … [Read more...]