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ST. GEORGE — Utah is the fastest-growing state in the country, the 2020 Census found, and using data, researchers can point to who is coming to the Beehive State and why.
Turns out people between the ages of 18 and 30 are the most likely to move to Utah, said Emily Harris, a senior demographer at the University of Utah Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.
"There's just a lot of transitions in life going on which make it easier for (young) people to move, whether they're going to a college or graduating from college and trying to find a job," she said.
I think our ability to recreate is our No. 1 asset — and it's the reason why I moved back to Utah
–Chad Thomas
Ryan Knippel, of Las Vegas, moved to Salt Lake City to attend the University of Utah.
"When it was time to pick a college, I just knew that I had to get somewhere different," he said. "Vegas has no history, no culture; it just feels hollow."
"When I visited Salt Lake to tour the U., I was taken by the history, the lively counterculture, the sense of place," she continued. "I found my place in the city's vibrant queer community. For being such a large city, it really feels like everyone knows everyone."
Jake Lallatin came from a small town in Oregon and decided to move to Provo following a Latter-Day Saint mission in South Korea so he could attend Brigham Young University.
"If you look around in high school, after having been a good Mormon kid, you're like, 'ah, are you going to throw a party and offer me alcohol or something like that? Because I'm gonna say 'no,'" Lallatin joked about his move. After college, though, he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life, so he stayed in Utah, became a high school teacher and moved in with his college roommates.
A decade later, the roommates still share a home in Centerville and three of Lallatin's four younger siblings also moved to Utah to attend BYU — and ended up moving to his same neighborhood after graduation.
"It's much less like 'oh, I like Utah for its snow or for its culture' and much more like, 'my people are in this state. I think I'm gonna live here!" Lallatin said.
A recent Gardner Policy Institute report found fewer families have moved to Utah — and more young adults between the ages of 20 and 24 have — between 2018 and 2021. The uptick may be due to a decrease in migration to universities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, during a time where remote learning was common.
Harris noted Latter-Day Saint missionaries typically move out of the state or country before returning two years later, which contributes to migration patterns. And, U.S. Census data show 26.9% of people who moved to Utah were actually born in the state.
"I think our ability to recreate is our No. 1 asset — and it's the reason why I moved back to Utah," Chad Thomas, economic development director for the city of St. George, told KSL.com. "I was on the East Coast for a little bit, and we wanted to come back. We specifically identified a community that prioritizes outdoor recreation and neighborhood connectivity."
"Look at our parks, our trail system. I don't know another community in the United States that does that as well," he said.
Debbie Miller, a retiree in southern Utah, was born in Virginia and grew up living around the world since her father was in the military. He had family in both northern and southern Utah, whom she grew up visiting. But, her husband had never stayed in southern Utah before accompanying her to a family reunion.
"He just loved it — the beauty of the area and recreational possibilities," Miller said. "So, we said, 'when you retire, let's move' and when he did, we did."
People who move to Utah often have higher levels of educational attainment and are more racially diverse than Utah's homegrown population, said Mallory Bateman, director at the Gardner Policy Institute.
"We do get a lot of people coming in from other Western states — we do see a decent chunk of people from California," she said. "But, we also see big numbers coming from Idaho or Arizona, or even Texas."
Here's what's behind the exodus of Californians coming to Utah
Migration is now the primary driver of Utah's population growth, and California is the No. 1 state people are arriving from.Kathy Dunbar, who also retired in southern Utah, was born and raised in Canada and fell in love with a man named Ted, who was from northern Minnesota. When he moved to Austin, Texas, for work, they married and she joined him with a green card. When Austin's population grew quickly in the '80s and '90s, the couple looked for a smaller city to call home.
"We vacationed here for many, many, many years. This was our go-to place," Dunbar said of northern Utah. "We'd go skiing — Powder Mountain was one of our favorites. And so, that's always where we thought we would retire."
When Ted's sister was looking to move to Utah at the same time as them, however, the cold became a significant deterrent.
Then he did a 100-mile cycle race in St. George and both couples fell in love with the area and moved there.
"We don't like that it's growing so fast," Dunbar said of southern Utah. "But, so be it. I can't control that ... (and) I see the attraction."
Harris noted that although there is a large number of people moving to Utah, "Ultimately, most people don't move is the thing that people should remember. Or (they) don't cross state lines, or sometimes they don't even cross county lines."
"I've heard a lot of people who have moved to Utah from other places complain about people moving to Utah," Harris continued. "Utah is becoming more and more the kind of state that is going to have lots of different kinds of people because they're not just people that were born and raised in Utah."
