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SALT LAKE CITY — With Utah facing major economic and demographic shifts in coming decades, the state's future economic prosperity relies in part on businesses in the state — small and large, rural and urban — rowing in the same direction.
That's the premise behind a newly announced economic vision spearheaded by the Salt Lake Chamber, which seeks to align the private sector behind solutions to some of the most critical issues facing the state — including housing affordability, transportation and growth.
The initiative, called Utah Rising: A Free Enterprise Vision for Utah's Economy, comes nearly 20 years after a similar effort focused on Salt Lake City, but expands the scope to businesses across the state.
"You can look out the windows of this room today and see how (Salt Lake City) has risen and how it continues to rise," Derek Miller, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber, said during a press conference downtown on Tuesday. "Now, we face a situation where this is about more than just downtown rising or one single city rising. We have seen growth across our entire state over the last 20 years and that's why we are calling this a vision for Utah rising, and Utah Rising will ensure that Utah's economy and its people prosper far into the future."
Miller referenced a Wall Street Journal report published Monday that named Salt Lake City as the country's hottest job market in 2023 and said, "I think the same could be said for the entire state of Utah." Through the Utah Rising initiative, Miller hopes the current "era of prosperity" will continue.
Utah on Tuesday was also named the state with the best economic outlook by the American Legislative Exchange Council for the 17th consecutive year.
The chamber has its eyes on several key aspirations over the next decade. It hopes to play an instrumental role in bringing the Olympic Games back to the Beehive State in 2034, as well as bringing major league baseball and hockey teams to the capital city.
"All of those things individually are amazing, but when we do it in a collective way, in a coordinated way, what we say about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts will certainly be true," Miller said.
How business shapes policy
The chamber identified several challenges and opportunities for the state to address going forward, one of which is the need for additional transportation to meet the growing population.
Natalie Gochnour, director of the University of Utah's Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, said innovation in transportation and transit is where the business community can play an important role. Although the state oversees public transit, she said much of the demand for services such as FrontRunner or expanded TRAX service came after the private sector identified a need and proposed solutions.
"It's usually not government saying, 'We've got to do this,'" she said. "It's usually the business owners that need it for the free flow of traffic and work and all those sorts of things."
Miller said policymakers are already recognizing the need for more transit in the state, and said Stuart Adams, the Republican president of the state Senate, is one of the top officials who recognize a need for high-speed rail along the Wasatch Front.
"That's the game changer," Miller said. "But his point is so well taken, which is: As long as you can get from point A to point B in a car in half the time than you can get through mass transit, then we're never going to fix our congestion problem."
Gochnour said there is a realization from some that the existing transportation corridors in urban Utah are already "built out," which is leading to a greater openness to mass transit.
"We have a state agency in the Utah Department of Transportation that's always been about highways, now has transit as part of their mission," she said. "That's a huge shift in our state, and it's because we're recognizing that the corridors for highways expansion are gone and we are densifying. Transit is the future."
Optimism for AI's impacts on business
Perhaps no technology presents greater potential while posing immense risk to business than artificial intelligence. While many are worried about the potential for mass layoffs as artificial intelligence models continue to improve, Spencer P. Eccles, the chairman of the Utah Rising Steering Committee, said industry has always had to adapt to stay competitive, and he thinks the new technology will largely increase the efficiency and productivity of workers.
"In certain segments (layoffs) could happen, right? But at the same time ... it will create new industries, things we can't even imagine," he said. "Maybe the job doesn't go away, maybe it just makes it more efficient. So I see AI as something that is here, and the key is, how do we harness that?"
"I'm very optimistic," he added, "and I'm especially bullish on Utah. The reason is, because the way we have grown in the past, we have worked together and that enables us to do it in a way that's for the better good."
What's next?
The Utah Rising initiative has been in the works behind the scenes since last summer, and hosted the second meeting of its technical committee on Monday. The steering committee will meet over the summer and launch the formal vision later this fall, Miller said.
"I never want to say it's the end because I think of this in terms of what I call a ... two-year, 10-year plan, meaning it looks out 10 years," he said. "So I expect that every couple of years the plan will need to be updated, but we'll continue to look out for ... 10-year period."
