I Went To Utah To See What The Hype Was All About

you don't want my picture taken then don't lay on the street uh-oh Utah this kind of looks like a block in Los Angeles I'd heard about how the homeless problem is spread this far west and people were kind of right it's nothing like what they're seeing in California but it's a thing here and people around here are worried worried worried however I didn't come to Utah to bring you images of our country's Decline and I didn't take this Mountain West road trip to point out everything wrong with this country either if you've watched this channel long enough you know that I take these long Journeys where I go across different regions to show you what it's like to live there most of my viewers are realists who seem to enjoy watching bad things like stories on places that are struggling or dangerous or run by liberals but this this isn't going to be that kind of trip sorry to disappoint you sickos out there oh it'll be damn good and we're gonna see a lot of fascinating stuff but the thing is the Mountain West isn't bad compared to most of the places I've been this is going to be a different Tale it'll be one of change progress and a glimpse at the past I promise you'll like it I mean the Mountain West deserves to have its story told too and there's no better time to do it than in the summer time I spent the entire month of July here in 2023 right now we're starting in just about the center of it all this is Salt Lake City Utah a very interesting place indeed [Music] thank you welcome to the best place to live in the country everyone this is Utah hombre you're probably like Utah I know that's exactly what I thought too does it look good to you well it doesn't matter what you think the internet says this is the best place and that means it's a great place to begin a major road trip so where are we anyways Salt Lake City's up in the northern part of Utah right on the banks of the Great Salt Lake this is the capital of Utah to the North and South is a giant sprawl that goes 60 miles in both directions they call this the Wasatch Front because we're at the base of the Wasatch mountains and this place is booming 90 percent of Utah's population lives in this region of the state and every day 150 more people move here the biggest Utah boom since the original boom when the Mormons came in the 1850s if you didn't know it Utah's now the fastest growing state in the country I know right in this first stop we're gonna Marvel at the sprawl and try to understand why so many people are moving here and why this is now called the best place to live hint I don't really get it I mean it's better than California but as you probably know the west coast is struggling right now California Oregon and Washington just aren't good places to raise a family anymore they're expensive filled with crime and they're crowded and filled with homelessness there's parts of the West Coast seeing their populations shrink faster than ever and a lot of the families leaving liberal land or coming here to Utah because right now Utah doesn't have a lot of that stuff so why Utah well for one the economy here is doing very well there's a low unemployment rate and a budget surplus there's a lot of companies moving here to run their operations there's so many tech companies coming to Salt Lake City they now call it the Silicon slopes I saw all sorts of gleaming shiny new buildings up and down the entire Corridor when I drove around all these new companies coming in and look at the latest U.S news and World Report rankings Utah ranks high in health care the schools are good and the crime isn't too bad either the weather's nice there's bright sunshine and beautiful scenery I think there's more national parks than anywhere else except Alaska and California I still saw snow on the mountaintops when I landed here in late June I had heard that people complain about a pollution problem here but I didn't see much of that and there wasn't much wind blowing the hot days I was here the people here are into the outdoors and overall the population seems fit and healthy and in a good mood I spent enough time here to see that most people are Pleasant and courteous except for the drivers they might have the worst drivers in Salt Lake City than anywhere else I've seen except for Oakland but people come here from California and they're like wait we can leave our bikes unlocked you mean everything isn't behind plastic at the CVS Hey where's all the bums this is great but all that good is turning into kind of a bad it's changing fast here maybe too fast some people here feel Utah's in crisis mode you want to talk about growing pains the metro area here is on the brink of an affordable living crisis they just can't build homes fast enough and it's also very expensive here now the average cost of a home in Salt Lake City is 550 000 it's more expensive here than Austin Phoenix and Las Vegas and uh oh rumor is Salt Lake City's due for a housing correction and some say there might even be a housing price crash here good Lord that's far from where we were here 10 years ago I mean they're trying to keep up with demand a lot of the Wide Open Spaces that were desert or Farmland have been turned into densely packed communities Apartments townhouses condos strip malls there's a lot of farming towns with dirt roads and pickup trucks that are now being merged into organized communities with HOAs you got to make at least a hundred grand a year here as a family to afford it some people are having to rent their bedrooms out so they can make their mortgage payments that sucks and that's all new and that's because this area is not doing too bad in Salt Lake City even has billionaires in town now you see fancy cars on the highway and bougie houses and everybody has to have ski passes I even heard there's a bunch of people getting plastic surgery now I know it all just doesn't feel very Utah anymore well as you can imagine long time Salt Lakers aren't too happy about this there's a lot of go back to California we're full floating around these days not too long ago the governor of Utah made a big speech and he said stay in California we can't take you in as refugees anymore that's funny I guess he's worried about the housing and water shortage in town I know about how much they dislike Californians here when I got the rental car I went to Starbucks to get a drink and then I was like you know what I'm gonna see what license plate I have on my car I didn't even check that I was like please tell me I don't have a California Plate please I'm marked oh no damn it I have the Scarlet Letter of license plates and I had an entire month of driving in anti-california land ahead of me this was going to be interesting actually I texted my buddy who lives in Montana and I told him about my license plates and he was like you're going to get a lot of middle fingers by the time you get up here God oh no it's getting keyed now everybody wants to know about the homeless problem here well it's a thing and it's getting worse long timers complain about how nice this city was and how the bums are moving in and ruining downtown well I've walked around downtown and yeah it's a thing on just about every block there's people laying around and wandering around on the sidewalks but it's nothing like what I saw in other cities out west most of the sidewalks downtown are very clean and poop free for now Salt Lake City does have that mini skid row on the edge of downtown that I showed you earlier that's pretty bad property crimes and drug use are exploding here Salt Lake City's headed for the top ten in some of these bad categories and a lot of that's because of the homeless problem that's coming in they've spent a lot of money and time trying to solve this but it's not going away there's more than 2 000 homeless people in this County now it's terrible and just six years ago the city announced hey we've eradicated the homeless problem see everyone what's so hard about it we did it why can't you at Salt Lake City's learning this problem is very hard to solve in fact it's becoming almost uncontrollable said One Salt Lake city councilman not too long ago I know right well Welcome to the Real World dude I ride by and I see people shooting up dogs smoking mat crack heroin um and going in and being drunk and going in into the resource center it's a resource center so if it's zero tolerance what is considered Zero Tolerance we turn around we turn her head and look the other way I talked to one homeless guy named Fred who was working on a plan to get off the streets cool guy he told me the shelters here aren't being managed correctly that didn't surprise me he also told me he knows for a fact that the shelters are reselling donations that people give them like if you drop off blankets and shoes and socks they'll resell them and make money instead of giving them to homeless people who does that Brett also tells me that most of the homeless addicts in Salt Lake City spent forty thousand a year on drugs and booze can you imagine he said that he was spending more than a hundred dollars a day to support his habit forty thousand dollars that's more than the average American makes Jesus 40 Grand we're spending 40 Grand on booze and drugs and delivered right how much do you think the average person on the street spends a year 40 Grand I mean if you were 40 Grand 50. they get that money just asking people asking people selling their debit cards selling their debit cards or they're selling their pills that they get down at the center I mean I have people come by all day off to sell me pills and I got seven years sobriety and I'm not giving up on it and all right stay strong I've been up I've been down I ran companies I've had two of my own businesses Ben now I'm slowly climbing back up and I think I told you I'm going to go truck driver school good for your mouth so young that's a big thing you know that's an LDS temple right there in the middle of downtown Salt Lake City in case you didn't know Mormons are a big deal on these parts this part of Utah's the Mormon capital of the world two and three people in this state are Mormon and right next door is another Temple not just any Temple that's the temple like their headquarters but it's under construction sadly they've already spent two years working on this remodel of this giant Temple downtown and they say it's gonna be three more years until it's done I asked a construction worker what was wrong with the original Temple and he said nothing yeah well I guess if you got the money you might as well spend it right here's what that giant Temple looks like when it's not under construction very impressive huh and no I don't know what goes on in there they won't let you and me in here's the part when I talk about politics so if you don't like it then fast forward about a minute or two of course when a lot of people move into an area it's going to change the Dynamics of the place the politics of Utah are being threatened with all the new growth this has been a very conservative state for a long time I mean two-thirds of Utah's Mormon and Mormons are the opposite of liberal I mean they won't even let you drink coffee much less smoke pot or talk about sex change in their schools well as you might think all these new people moving in or diluting that Mormon influence they're signs of liberal creeping in all the time now for the first time Salt Lake City is now less Mormon than Mormon and that just happened last year and walking around downtown I can tell you this city feels way more liberal than the stats say it is you may not know it but Salt Lake City was called the gayest city in the country by an online gay publication that's shocking isn't it that Salt Lake City is more gay than LA and San Francisco but it's true Salt Lake City is 54 percent gay JK it's like five percent but that's still really high and four of this City's seven council members are gay as of this writing and that is a majority or gay flags and gay friendly places than I think I've ever seen outside of California I knew it was gay friendly but I didn't expect that I think every bar and restaurant I went into had some sort of Gay Pride posted somewhere even the bathrooms are gender neutral kinda so while Utah as a whole is very conservative Salt Lake City proper is not that at all and it's getting more liberal every day here [Music] Salt Lake City might feel big but it's really just a mid-sized City I mean there's sprawl all over the place but Salt Lake City proper only has about 200 000 people here and there's not a lot of room to grow in the city limits unless you want to go up that's because of mountains and a big smelly Lake I'll tell you what there's construction everywhere here downtown all along the freeways out in The Burbs I mean that's a good sign I guess right there's plenty of jobs here and a lot more to do than you might expect parts of Salt Lake can feel fun depending on what you like to do there's a big art scene and lots of nature the food scene though it's pretty bad I wasn't impressed by the dining options at all sounds nice and clean and there aren't many bombs we saw people playing pickleball in a nice downtown court and there's this nice new fancy shopping mall downtown that's bum free no smashing grabs here huh you can't have nice stuff like this in California can ya it's like it's brand new I can see why people want to live here it's cheaper and cleaner and people are in a much better mood than the people in California are and I didn't really see any traffic here's that are local news traffic report LOL Emoji 10 minutes come on now [Music] this Friday morning there is no traffic okay so what about the neighborhoods the Northeast part of Salt Lake City is where all the rich people live areas like Arlington Hills and the Avenues over by the University of Utah or where the one percent are basically anything up against the hillsides is where the big fancy homes are I drove up there to see what all the fuss was about The Avenues is pretty nice it's all small antique looking homes where all the rich show-offs want to live nice areas though I have to say there really isn't anything affordable left in Salt Lake City there was one home for sale under 300K when I checked before I left one people man oh man of course you people are sick and you want to know what the bad hoods look like I know I get it well sorry to disappoint you but there really aren't any ghettos in Salt Lake City now there's some parts of town that are far more run down and dangerous than other parts but generally their hoods aren't scary I think the out of touch people here think they're bad but they are not bad I guess they do have a gripe though pockets of SLC are getting worse crimes going up a ton but they're still not in the top hundred in the country yet for the last minute we've been driving around in Poplar Grove it's a neighborhood that has a bad reputation the average home price in America is 350k and there's nothing in here under that so Utah's hoods are expensive everyone South Salt Lake and West Valley City or communities that everyone in Utah says are bad well here's what those places look like I just drove around a random Street in South Salt Lake to see what all the hype was about it's generally lower middle class I guess I spent an hour trying to find a really truly bad area here and this was the baddest I could find I know right West Valley City is another burb with a bad reputation here's what that looks like I think it's worse here than anywhere else in the area but still good for bad there's hardly anything here under four hundred thousand dollars in these hoods no wonder people here are struggling to keep themselves going huh everyone I can afford that we'll talk more about Utah's worst hoods in another video but good Lord Utah you guys sure do live in a damn bubble I tell you then we're gonna look at some of the suburbs of Salt Lake City really quickly so you get an idea on what it's like and I have to tell you all the stuff down south side in Mormon land is really really nice and clean as you leave Salt Lake City you come into what's called Utah Valley or Utah County down here south of Salt Lake the culture is far different than in Salt Lake City proper three quarters of the population down here speaks Mormon but in places like aurum and Provo it's closer to 90 percent now I'm gonna do a whole nother video on just the Mormons but here's a couple places I wanted to show you right now we're in Orem Utah now this probably wouldn't be a place for you to live if you're a real extrovert or you're not Mormon I mean they're nice people but your kids might have trouble making friends and you might have trouble making friends that looks very nice huh everyone homes in Orem are in the 500 000 range and down the road is Provo Utah this is where BYU is so it is Mormon here mister it's a little cheaper than Provo since there's some low-income student housing in the area but generally it too is very buttoned up and clean look at this downtown everyone Provo Utah has one of the neatest little downtowns I've been to and I didn't think I'd say that again not too many liberals down here but good people the Mormons are they're friendly and they wave and the whole area looks so nice and clean and safe that's the Mormon way don't expect to be invited in for a drink but they're good neighbors I suppose sure beats a lot of the crummy areas I've seen in my life and I'm sure everybody appreciates how empty the roads are on Sunday look at that 10 53 a.m and no one's about but you guys need to watch my video that specifically talks about the Mormon Church in Utah you'll be shocked when you see how many LDS Churches were packed into this Valley like an obscene amount and then there's the lake now there is a big worry about this Lake let me tell you that right now the lake doesn't look too bad because they got a lot of rain and snow in the area last year but the year before it was bad it's like this all over the West Lakes and reservoirs are drying up because of a drought and because well millions of people are living in a damn desert I've heard that people are worried that if this Lake dried up there would be all sorts of noxious dirty clouds blowing around the area like arsenic or something that would suck this wouldn't be the best place to live if that happened would it I also heard they were talking about filling the lake up with concrete if it ever dried out that sounds lovely smells yuck but nobody swims in this Lake it smells bad and it's just gross I don't even know what fish you'd catch I try to walk down to it and stick a foot in but to get to it would have meant getting my feet muddy and stinky and I wasn't down with that this was only the first day on the trip could ruin my shoes on the first day right did you know there's a monster in that Lake it's called the North Shore monster are you serious that thing that looks like a kid drew it did you draw that Mappy I'm not mine it's real history says this mythical creature was spotted in 1877. and someone else saw a dolphin monster once well maybe if the lake dries up they'll finally find that mythical creature sorry everybody Matthew's apparently lost his mind what when I was out and about in Salt Lake City I did a lot I mean I was here for three damn days Utah is very proud of inventing fry sauce which is basically just mayo and ketchup mixed I know not very exciting they also love funeral potatoes that's because the Mormons eat that a lot so I went to Fat Jacks to try both I ordered the Mormon Burger yes that's a thing and it comes with fried funeral potatoes on top which I removed to sample them and they are um funeral potatoes the fry sauce is okay I guess it's not amazing or anything there's also artwork in the bathrooms here that's neat I guess it's so edgy Salt Lake so edgy hold on I'm gonna pee so I thought this was a real hoot so after the day I ate there I saw Fat Jacks promoting a Joseph Smith boner burger if that doesn't show you how much this area is lightened up about the Mormon thing oh my God Mormons also love their Jello I think Jello is the official state food it was even on the Olympic pin which is just random well sorry to disappoint you but I couldn't find anybody that actually served Jello and I tried I even asked a bunch of places if they had jello shots and nobody did I was like where's all the jello somebody told me he thinks Mormons eat so much Jello because they can hide booze in it since drinking's frowned upon and all is that what's happening with the jello is that why they like it so much Salt Lake City is a lot more hip than I thought it would be I saw some way cooler haircuts than I ever had one night I saw an Asian lady with a mullet I've never seen that before sorry Asian lady I even saw one of those I write poems on a typewriter guys the fashion here is kind of eh though I don't know if that's hip or just thirsty walking around one day downtown I saw a robot just kind of chilling out on a corner that's pretty hip and techy and cool I suppose I haven't seen that in a city I've visited before it just kind of went around in circle so I was sent to a Speak Easy called the bodega in downtown Salt Lake that was a real treat look at this Salt Lake let's find out oh it is yeah look at this place with their secret dark fancy drink thing going on I mean the menu was very impressive my drink had avocado creme here's how cool the place is that's their water dispenser and they have a lot of stuffed animals here for some reason like we're in Wyoming or something not yet people that State's coming up what are you doing Mr moose speaking of breweries I went to the Squatters Pub Brewery because you know Salt Lake City says it's a brewery town Utah has a bunch of strict drinking laws they've lightened up here a lot but it's still odd like no bar can serve beer that's over five percent and if you go to a restaurant you order a beer they'll give you one but if you want a second beer you have to order food first lame at the Salt Lake City airport I saw a beer called polygamy and they also have a vodka called Five Wives vodka my God see I told you they were chilling out on all the Mormon stuff [Music] one night downtown Salt Lake I went to Gracie's and listened to a band outside I got the baked potato wasn't very exciting but for the first time on the trip I saw a cowboy hat there you go ombre I'd see a lot more of that on this trip I just knew it if you know me you know I love me some Del Taco well the closest Del Taco to my house is in Atlanta so whenever I see one I stop and they are all over the Salt Lake City area so I had to stop and get some of that yum yum and Lori darling here we go oh press start I'm stand straight up [Applause] and guess what I went to a real PRCA root and toot and dirt in your Spurs Rodeo [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] dudes from All Over the Mountain West came down to Salt Lake City to try to win a buckle and some pretty lady's heart I don't even know what to say why do you like Rodeo technology something to do and it's a good time love the people love the Horsemanship what's your name Howard hutches where are you from Springville Utah great times I'll show a lot more of this radio in another video being quarters I stayed at the awesome Peary hotel right in downtown neat Place awesome staff I highly recommend it and one bonus it's haunted people see weird shapes and one time a lady got locked in her bathroom not fun the hotel guy told me that there's a door in the basement that he says always slams shut on him when he goes down there in the middle of the night so I had to go down there in the middle of the night see that stick around at the end of the video to see what happened Utah who the thunk that Utah would ever be our country's MVP huh but it is you can see why it's so popular and why people are raving about it most of the people here are nice and kind and many are welcoming and generous it's still way cheaper than California and it's way safer here than most other places I've been but boys this place changing fast it's like a cheap Colorado now and all the growth it's brought in all the problems that Utah had been immune to you know crime drugs smog expensive homelessness I like it here I don't love it here but it's not a bad place to be it's way more liberal here than I thought it would be and this place has loosened up let me tell you but outside of Boston this might be my favorite liberal City I've been to that's the steak grows and has home prices Skyrocket and crime goes up and pollution increases they're gonna have to figure out how to manage all that they're already complaining about dirty air and hardly any of La has even got here yet they already think the homeless problem is bad and they don't even have tent cities yet wait till the junkies take over then you're big time Utah will Utah get ruined probably us Americans have a way of doing that to our new toys no I hope not we need some good left in this country right this was just the first stop on a journey that would take 32 days and cross into seven different states out this way it was actually pretty nice to take a break from the ghettos of this country for a while I know bad stuff is what you people want to see but this was an amazing trip and you should watch every second of it so uh Sam I wanted to talk to you about Salt Lake City you're uh fairly new to the area which is the kind of the perspective that I wanted to get um I spent three or four days in Salt Lake City and you know I like it um I don't love Salt Lake City I grew up in Southern California it kind of reminds me a little bit of that um without a lot of the bad stuff that Southern California has I can I can see why people want to move there I get it um it's not as cheap as it once was and I think that that is sort of a bad thing in terms of I mean everybody was like oh my God it's warm kind of and it's cheap and it's you know there's no bums everywhere and now it's not cheap and there's bums moving in yeah how do people feel about how Salt Lake City's kind of growing and changing I guess it just depends on who you ask so for some people I guess some demographics and portions of Utah uh they feel it's positive and other people feel it's very negative so there's a divided opinion about it I think what are what are some of the let's talk good first um what are some of the positives about Salt Lake City and Utah in general that that you and and others have seen uh I think people are excited about the increased diversity uh just not just ethnic diversity but but also uh cultural activity wise uh different events that are able to come through so the Salt Lake City area is is less Mormon it's it's much more liberal overall and so yeah I think people like that liberal ideals uh I think they like having a city center to where they have a lot of different events and activities to go to and to enjoy um and so for that demographic of people that that that progressiveness is something that people really Embrace um you know I so I guess it just depends on who you are and the cons of course is on the opposite end of that where people feel like maybe some values uh that they they hold dear are slipping and uh uh that the city's going downhill whereas other people see it as a progressive move and nature of it um for me one thing I like about Salt Lake City is the abundance of parks everywhere and so there's a lot of public parks uh public transportation's pretty good um there's uh tons of like uh options for bike riding or doing something alternative in that way which is pretty Progressive that's pretty good um so I like those things personally yeah when you mentioned the the people who don't like to change and and their value are you referring to the Mormon population that it's kind of like we're losing our grip on the politics of Salt Lake City and the ways the cities run with all these new people coming in I'm guessing uh yes the large portion of that would be Mormons I mean there's other religious groups who who would side with the Mormons on the Progressive equation or politically uh but but yes the Mormons themselves uh even from an organizational level uh sometimes I see stuff pop up now that I'm in Utah I'm part of a ex-mormon Reddit group I'm not ex-mormon but I just watch what comes through and uh yeah there's Bishops pushing people to go vote uh telling them what to vote for and so uh I think the church is getting very involved in the politics uh of of you know voting uh and controlling the political Spectrum I guess as much as they can in this state and so they do have concerns and they are encouraging their members uh uh to go out and vote and vote specifically for church-picked candidates yeah I've talked to a lot of people and I'm doing a whole video a separate video just on the Mormon influence in the area um I didn't really talk about the Mormon culture too much in this video I will in in the next video but from what I gather um there's a there's a the church is concerned about the loss of membership and kind of being out of touch with the current reality of the world and so they're um trying to actively do what they can to keep their numbers up while 16 to 19 year old kids don't really care about uh religion much less you know hardcore conservative Mormon values they're like what's wrong with tattoos I just want pink hair like I want to be gay maybe um and so I you know that's something I'm going to get into another in another video um I I did though Wonder do you think what's the vibe there um is Utah ever going to be blue I know that Salt Lake City is very Progressive a lot more liberal than I thought it was going to be for a very hardcore Red State but it's hard for me to Envision Utah being so hardcore Republican when the biggest area and the center of the state is so blue do people think Utah could switch and become like a Democrat State one day uh I I don't know um I mean we've seen States split before like Florida or other states that that have flipped and maybe Utah could progressively become a swing state if more people came in I don't think without more people migrating to Utah that's that's going to be a quick change uh I think the LDS church for a lot of its younger demographics Millennials and and younger uh kind of burnt a lot of bridges and a lot of those individuals uh left the church or have left the church they definitely uh they they go swing red to blue uh so they end up embracing more liberal ideals kind of a I guess as a Rebellion as a reaction to the church you know and I've seen that a lot uh so it's possible in the younger Generations that a lot of the the raised LDS you know individuals Millennials and on that they'll shift I don't know but I think it would take a lot just for the current population to to turn into a swing state I I don't know yeah I mean most of the suburbs are still pretty hardcore conservative I drove I drove the whole Wasatch Front the the north suburbs like Ogden and Logan all the way down past Prova Orem like yeah pretty much the end and that's all very nice and prim and proper Mormon land where it's so clean and safe and um yeah Ogden's about the the you've got Ogden is known as like one of the rougher places less LDS I've lived there uh it's not bad even even for all of that and Ogden's not as rough as it used to be now you go down to West Valley City some of those areas those are known uh down there that part uh but as soon as you get below that done towards Provo anything else uh Lehigh um or um all of that area is extremely LDS Sandy's extremely LDS midvale's extremely LDS I mean there's little spots that are a little less so but they're small yeah yeah I saw and I'm going to show this in another video I was I drive around there'd be there'd be Mormon churches on both sides of the uh on the intersection one on one corner one on the other and then in the distance you can see Temple I mean it's just like an obscene amount of churches in some of these neighborhoods and I'm like good for you guys for having such a stronghold but man like how many people crazier those churches each of those buildings that you saw they'll have two three four wards that attend so that church is has three to four different congregations that that that attend every Sunday and so one congregation comes and attends and leaves and the next one with the new bishop comes of tins and leaves and they they just use so it is it's it's even more dense than than a single Church would be elsewhere where you just have that one population that comes two times on Sunday so yeah it's it's crazy those two churches on both sides will both have multiple services with multiple congregations every Sunday you mentioned uh West Valley City so I went to West Valley City went to South Salt Lake um I was told those are the worst places in Salt Lake City and perhaps the worst places in Utah and it was kind of laughable how nice those areas were compared to what most people would consider about I mean I drove around for an hour trying to find a really a street that was photographically evident of how bad what you all think is bad and I'm like come on Utah like this is all you got here you're in a little bubble if you think this is bad yes a lot a lot I agree with you I've lived in different places you you know I've lived in the Southeast for a number of years where I grew up which I told you was you know Wyoming County West Virginia I was born in McDowell County West Virginia so that that's just abject poverty everywhere and and drugs everywhere and violence everywhere and so I I grew up seeing violence in my neighborhood you know on a pretty regular basis people yeah you know everything from murders to you know drug deals just openly done in front of my house and uh so and then I've lived in Orlando Florida you know and that has some hoods and some rough areas in the greater Orlando area for sure and then I move here and it's nice and then I live in one of the nicest towns like if you look in the top 10 list of even Utah I live like pretty high up on that top 10 list so I feel like I'm living in Mayberry now compared to where I was at but the cost of living is pretty rough so I think that's one of the reasons a lot of people flocked to the Utah area because they're like oh my God this is all really super nice and it's affordable and it's still within a short plane ride to home but the affordable part is no longer it's like more than 500 grand for a house in Utah and it's because no it's not that nice of a house for half a million dollars are people are people like oh god um we're gonna have to leave do you hear of anybody that just can't afford it that's just gonna bail after only being there for a little bit yeah yeah definitely definitely I I mean I personally consider it all the time uh I mean it's when you're allocating 30 to 40 000 of your income every year to to just having a a roof over your head and then trying to deal with bills and any other portion of life and then with the other things with inflation the cost of Transportation going up everything else fuel costs are relatively high in Utah compared to surrounding states yeah uh yeah yeah I think about moving all the time I mean and then where I live you know in the summer you've got to deal with the summer stuff but in the winter you also have to think about uh Snow Control so you know living here you know it's I've lived here and done it with a snow shovel for a couple years I want a snow blower so bad I had 17 feet of snowfall so it's it's even just an investment of time it's an investment of equipment for snow blowers uh then uh you know you buy a small snow blower and depending on where you live it might work but but then you have to buy you know like a thousand dollar snow blower and then you have to have a vehicle capable and then you have to worry about what tires to buy and changing those out several times a year so the the overall cost even I feel like on the list doesn't truly appreciate the the overall cost of living here and properly living here so yeah think about moving up other people or moving thinking about moving uh everybody I know pretty much is struggling God and and a lot of the people I've talked to um they have regular good jobs you know they're not like part of the job they will here the job market pays very well here comparatively to other places yeah yeah and and they still are kind of like struggling to um and the problem is a lot of people move their um from Southern California or the west coast and they're like okay we can settle here we have three kids that this is very much better than where we left in Oakland or whatever um and then they're like you know five years later um my kids aren't going to be able to afford a house here like they're they're not going to be able to live next to us so I think a lot of families are worried that um in 10 years 15 years like they're like we're gonna have to move away or our kids are gonna leave if we don't you know figure this out everybody's like there's an older population kind of in the neighborhood where I live now and uh I've gotten to talk to a lot of them uh be friends with a few of them uh because I'm retired military myself so I have a little extra time and uh so uh I've noticed that none of the kids live in the state and couldn't afford to live in the state and those older folks are struggling to just they own the house their parents own the house that they own now so this house has been you know in their family for Generations and they can't they're struggling to even pay the property tax now they own the house outright but now they're paying you know a thousand dollars plus several thousand dollars uh uh uh a a month basically in property tax just because uh you know an acre of land can go for more than a million dollars just just for grass or trees or whatever well over a million dollars just for an acre yeah with nothing on it unimproved yeah like yeah you know yeah making 15 an hour doesn't even provide you a place to live here you're gonna have to have multiple people uh younger people all have roommates they're all trying to rent rooms for about eight hundred dollars a month for a room in somebody's house a lot of people that's also what they're doing so they can afford their life they're renting out rooms in their house and that's all over here all over that so that's I think a how dire the situation is if that makes sense so I see that and I see more people on the street but there's still a coping mechanism in the middle there of renting rooms bending together to to afford an apartment roommates uh I I have you know people that I know friends that I know that live with the parents still um yeah like uh making six figures here is still a recipe to struggle yeah I've yeah I've heard you got to make at least 100 Grand just to keep yourself normal um and then that's not the reason that a lot of people move to that area they move there for a better life where they could kind of you know and it is still believe me much better than Southern California and it's beautiful here too I mean you can't deny Utah is a beautiful state very diverse from the southern end to the Northern end and then even east to west it's it's so The Great Outdoors uh a lot of outdoor recreation is available in the state the relative safety there are good paying jobs and the job market and a lot of things about the city is still growing so you've got the growth of the city yeah yeah it's just positives but it's still uh you know it's you I guess you gotta take a cautious approach a little bit to moving here I would encourage people because it is hard if you you end up on the lower end of that like then you just appear to struggle and that's not really fun it's been called the best place to live in the country Utah and Salt Lake City metro do you feel like you live in the best place in the country right now Nick that's a hard question I've lived in a lot of different places I definitely feel like the town that I live in is the safest nicest town that I have ever lived in and I think you would be challenged to find another town like the one I live in anywhere in Utah in Salt Lake City I think uh yeah that's one of the better cities in the U.S in some ways but if nightlife or other things are really your thing it's a struggle I I really don't care about that but that's a complaint that some people have uh things close really early during the week you know you try to go pick up food for your pet after like seven and Petco is like done shut down we're going home and so everything restaurants closed down early so it's a little bit quirky for you know other places might have an advantage there I really don't know like uh nowhere you're completely safe not even here you know crimes happen in Utah they happen in Salt Lake City uh how does somebody say you know best for who for what person for what interest uh so I mean obviously I'm thinking about moving again uh so I'm hoping still to find a better place for my overall equation but I I don't know is it it's it's safe it's beautiful it's clean you know I I'm not going to complain I guess so I don't know how to answer your question Nick yeah yeah I mean it's it's still to be determined yeah I you know I think there's there's a few other cities that kind of remind me of Salt Lake City that I've been to um that are like at that perfect point maybe have um Omaha Nebraska Raleigh North Carolina um Boise up in Idaho they're all I've been through Omaha both of those are similar yeah yeah I wouldn't have put up there until you said it but yes in Raleigh North Carolina very much so yeah I would see that as well they want you sober they want you so you're not being a menace to society and taking 80 000 pounds down the highway when you could kill multiple people so they want that out of you and I mean that's my plan for me and this little guy here Charlie to go cross country and see different parts and I don't want to give up on people so what I'll do is uh I always tell people I appreciate the food more than the money and I appreciate the camaraderie people stop and recognize that I'm a human being that you know I'm just not some piece of wood on the side of the street I'm pressing with feelings and to recognize that I mean this gentleman here took time out of his day to get to know me and I mean that means a lot to me and like I said I'm gonna when I start driving truck I will do peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I will do water and if I see somebody on the side of the road wherever in whatever City I'm in oh get out and give them food give them water and give them a blessing you have a venmo or a um cash app or PayPal or anything that people could donate to because a lot of people might see it you have a way that anyone could donate I don't I try again venmo but my phone was used before okay all right so I mean I don't have nothing I mean uh just like I I tell people recognize a person always weigh on the same side of caution I mean they want to help somebody a big thing during the winter and it's soft gloves like hand warmers hats things that they can really use especially the socks because your feet get wet during the winter time and once your feet get wet and get a chance to hyper turn me ascending so I mean and I did a thing one year for a community outreach and I said to people I said donate a blanket you save somebody's life tonight you know and colder weather will be coming and I don't know where where people see this but always remember that blanket will save somebody's life you know they may use it for one night but that one night May save a life and the kindness that you show by donating blankets socks a hat people remember that and people that come along and meet me Persian you know you know it's not so much as about the money as is about the kindness so the guy that works at the hotel told me that the door at the end of the hallway slams shut on him a lot so I got left he said it's the door right past the fitness center by the elevator that door apparently this door slams shut or that door oh is this the haunted room this doesn't feel haunted or does it or is it this door oh which door slams if that door slams I swear to God this is actually creepy dang it I really wish maybe I need to leave it open okay I work here don't slam door sign so ghosts just never appear to me maybe it's that door [Music] that doesn't count if there's a ghostly on that door are you looking to move and need advice I do Consulting that's right I'll sit down and talk about where the next perfect place for you and your family should be I do it all the time together let's find you a new home that's safe and checks all your boxes and I can also help you find your new house too email me and I'll work with you on not just helping you figure out where to move but I can help you find your perfect home too that's right I know awesome reliable agents all over the country and I'd love to connect you to somebody who can help you search for that perfect home hey guys if you learned something new about America or what it's like to live in America great you should think about subscribing and turning on your notifications you can also click one of these videos or playlists for more this is a manager this has been a Corner House Entertainment production

Channel: Nick Johnson

Views: 226,101

Keywords: utah, mountain west, road trip, salt lake city, mormons, provo, orem, byu, sandy, why is everyone moving to utah, utah real estate, utah realtor, salt lake city homes for sale, salt lake city real estate, moving to utah, moving to salt lake city, traveling to utah, road trip to utah, mountain west road trip, homelessness, utah crime, utah cost of living, lds churches, utah culture, whats it like in utah, should i move to utah

Id: aPp42MHD5ZI

Length: 63min 38sec (3818 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 08 2023