Salt Lake City at a Glance
Quirky and cool, mountain and urban, reserved and progressive, Salt Lake City truly contains multitudes. The soaring peaks of the Wasatch have long attracted the world’s top skiers. And, the briny waters of the Great Salt Lake still transfix naturalists, artists and those seeking spiritual awakening with a day at the beach. But it was Mormons who first made this area into a modern city, and the transformations Salt Lake City has undergone since its early days tell a rich and complex story.
As a longstanding hub for trade, transportation and — especially — mining, Salt Lake City is often known as the Crossroads of the West. But Salt Lake is hardly a run-of-the-mill Gold Rush town. Mormons built the railroad here that eventually joined with California’s Union Pacific, and the area’s population and culture are still dominated by the Latter Day Saints (LDS) Church. Laid out according to a religious master plan, the city began with a population of just 149 Mormons — but that number has now swelled to a more diverse group of 209,593 in the city and more than 1.25 million in the metro area. The Church’s historic Temple Square still occupies an outsize space in the contemporary city, but Salt Lake is no longer the isolated outpost it was in the mid-1800s.
Salt Lake City’s natural wonders are one of the reasons the city continues to increase in popularity. Between 2010 and 2020, SLC grew by more than 13,000 people, but in the last four years alone, it added another 10,000. The proximity to the Great Salt Lake as well as the slopes of the Wasatch Mountains offers an undeniable appeal, but the affordability of the area – compared with popular cities in California, Nevada, Washington and Colorado — makes the city an easy sell for newcomers with real estate sticker shock.
The diverse job market in SLC makes it easier for nature lovers to afford those pricey lift tickets, too. The area’s mineral stores and infrastructural riches have kept early industries alive and kicking, but the capital city is also a hub for tourism, tech and manufacturing. Higher education plays a major factor in both the capital city’s resources and its vibe — the University of Utah and nearby Brigham Young keep this unusual city in the Beehive State abuzz.
If you’re interested in moving to Salt Lake City, Utah, delve into the advantages — and challenges — of making SLC your new home. Learn everything you want to know about SLC below, from the best places to ski to the most popular neighborhoods in town.
Advantages of Living in Salt Lake City
Breathtaking Scenery
When it comes to the great outdoors, the Beehive State is an embarrassment of riches. Residents of Salt Lake City have access to 13 national parks in Utah — from Arches to the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail — along with dozens of prime ski resorts and one of the most unique natural features on the planet — the Great Salt Lake.
This otherworldly wonder has captured the imaginations of explorers, naturalists and even artists. Sculptor Robert Smithson created his famous earthwork Spiral Jetty (1970) here, and its rocky frond furls out of the briny banks like an earthen punctuation mark. Swimming, sailing, kayaking and hiking are all popular activities in the lake itself.
Donner Hill is a pilgrimage you’ll want to make with a full complement of snacks and maps on hand. This storied site marks the spot where some of the ill-fated band of pioneers took the bad advice of one Lansford Hastings and wound up not on a promised shortcut but on an uncleared slope in the Wasatch, which then resigned them to a dehydrating trek across the desert, squandering precious weeks. It wasn’t until the group reached the Sierra Nevada that their trip would turn deadly, however. SLC is happy to claim only this relatively minor landmark on their journey.
But the Wasatch Mountains aren’t known for doom and gloom nearly as well as they are for zoom and vroom. The snowy slopes are prized by skiers and boarders heading to resorts like Snowbird and Deer Valley. But don’t discount the mountains in the summer, which is our favorite time to be on them. If your 1080° half-piping days are behind you, but you still want an adventure, you will love hiking and biking on these mountain trails. Utah is a mecca for mountain bikers, and cyclists will want to check out the trails at Solitude, Bonneville Shoreline and Bobsled, where rusted-out cars become launch pads for daredevil riders.
Ziplining is a fabulously low-impact, high-thrill activity where you can take in the mountain vistas from the air. On a similar note, kids will love careening down the Park City Mountain Coaster, which is open all year round.
If you’re just looking for a simple getaway, make a beeline to the area’s Really Good Lake — sorry, Jordanelle Reservoir, “great” was already taken. This freshwater, alpine oasis on the Provo River is surrounded by golf courses and resort villages, but you’ll love this state park for camping, hiking and beach reading, too.
Strong Job Market
Some cities have only one claim to fame, but Salt Lake City has never been like the others. As a major transportation hub built atop rich mineral stores at the base of the spectacular Wasatch peaks, this mountain town has an increasingly diverse industry base.
With 843,300 jobs in the area in April 2024, three commercial industries dominated the SLC market: trade, transportation and utilities (161,400 employees); professional and business services (149,600); and education and health services (100,400). Fourth place was a four-way tie between leisure and hospitality; manufacturing; financial activities; and mining, logging and construction, each of which employed around 65,000 people, on average.
But the government had made a strong impression in this capital city, too. Nearly 121,000 jobs are bureaucratic in Salt Lake. Most industries experienced modest growth between April of 2023 and 2024, and none saw any meaningful contractions. This helped keep the city’s unemployment rate, which has held relatively steady over the past five months, at a mere 3.1% in May 2024.
Those looking to move to Salt Lake City for their career will find job opportunities at major employers, like Intermountain Health, Delta, University of Utah and Goldman Sachs as well as at smaller outfits like bioMérieux and Sarcos Robotics. The city has a well-educated workforce, too — 91.2% of residents have graduated from high school, and more than 50% have earned a college degree.
Affordable Cost of Living
Compared to other major Western metros, Salt Lake City offers a relatively affordable cost of living. The median home value in Salt Lake City may be more than $175,000 above the national average, but the $458,600 price tag seems tantalizing compared to prices in Seattle, San Francisco and Denver. Real estate costs in Salt Lake City are most comparable to Reno’s, but renters still pay less in SLC. The median gross rent in the Utah state capital is $1,254 per month, lower than even the U.S. average.
Diverse Neighborhoods
Between the Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch Mountain slopes, the Salt Lake City area has quite a large footprint. The city alone encompasses 110 square miles, and this makes for distinct and diverse neighborhoods from the city core to nearby cities like Provo and Park City.
Downtown Salt Lake City is the center of the action for visitors and residents alike. Charming (and delicious) boulangeries like Eva’s Bakery and Passion Flour elevate the city scene, where something fun always seems to be happening. On the weekends, the Saturday Farmer’s Market in Pioneer Park brings all good things to light, even in winter, when the Urban Food Connections of Utah moves the food stores indoors. Count on these vendors for everything from tart cherries to fresh pasta and kombucha. Many of the city’s biggest cultural attractions are located downtown, too, including the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, the Discovery Gateway Children’s Museum and the Delta Center, where the Utah Jazz plays. In the evenings, you can catch performances by the Utah Symphony, Utah Opera and Utah Ballet.
Salt Lake’s Central City neighborhood includes the downtown core and areas to the east and south. One of the greatest public treasures in this sprawling district is Liberty Park, which converted a former farm and grist mill into a 110-acre greenspace with playgrounds, bocce ball courts, a swimming pool and even an aviary. Live music fans can see up-and-comers at the Urban Lounge, while film buffs will find the next stars of the silver screen at the Tower Theatre, which showcases some of Sundance’s premiers. When you just need a little retail therapy — but also want a more elevated experience than an ordinary mall — the Historic Trolley Square will hook you up. Art galleries, clothing retailers, fitness studios and a movie theater make this an all-day (and night) destination.
The Utah State Capitol building and Temple Square are the unsurprising anchors of the Avenues/Capitol district, but there’s more than the state government and the LDS going on in this trendy area of SLC. This neighborhood abuts the foothills of the Wasatch, so there’s easy access to the Terrace Hill Trailhead, the Ensign Peka Trailhead and the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, which you can hike or bike as far south as the Utah Lake and as far north as the Idaho border. Before you head out, fuel up at the Honest Eatery on Regent Street, where their power toasts and smoothies will sustain you on a long mountain trek.
Another favorite mountain-adjacent hood is the University/Foothill district. This college town in the heart of the city is where you’ll find most of the students from the U residing, and thanks to them, there are a lot of fun (and affordable) places to grab a bite. The University campus also has several prominent cultural attractions — the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, the Natural History Museum of Utah and the Fort Douglas Military Museum — along with major athletic venues like the Huntsmen Center and the Rice-Eccles Stadium. Foothill and the nearby Sunnyside area are coveted residential districts, so if you’re looking for a near-town area with quiet streets and kid-friendly spots like the Hogle Zoo, this side of SLC may be for you.
The Sugar House neighborhood is one of our favorite residential districts. Friendly and open, we love the easygoing atmosphere, which is complemented by homey eateries like the Dodo and fun Thai and Vietnamese joints like Sara Thai and Little Saigon, which has a fantastic lemongrass tofu sandwich. The neighborhood’s central greenspace, Sugar House Park, has beautiful trails with public art, a community garden plot and cool playgrounds, to boot. In the nearby shopping district known as the Commons, you can pay a visit to the public library and pick up all your provisions for the week.
Family-Friendly Environments
If you’re moving to Salt Lake City, you should be prepared for lots of visits from extended family and friends. But you’ll be in luck in this cool capital town. Salt Lake City has plenty of cultural attractions to keep your whole crew entertained (and out of your hair).
Many visitors to SLC bypass the slopes in favor of the city’s cultural sites. The Historic Temple Square is the city’s most-visited destination, and it’s where you can visit the opulent Salt Lake Temple, the Tabernacle and its 11,623-pipe organ and the Beehive House. This iconic residence where Joseph F. Smith and Brigham Young once lived was built spaciously for a reason. Mr. Young needed the extra room to accommodate his dozens of wives and 56 children. (That’s more than one birthday party a week!) The Family History Library on site draws religious and secular pilgrims alike — anyone with an interest in their genealogy will find an astounding wealth of information here. Maybe more than you’d ever like (or need) to know about your past.
SLC isn’t LDS all the time, though, and there are plenty of family-friendly attractions of the non-religious variety here. The Hogle Zoo and Loveland Living Planet Aquarium are stand-outs, but the Natural History Museum is astonishing. Arachnophiles will want to be sure to attend the institution’s Spider Festival, which celebrates all small things creepy and crawly.
Cinephiles need no introduction to the Salt Lake area, not with the Sundance Film Festival in Park City. Now in its 43rd year, this brainchild of Robert Redford still debuts some of the most powerful and original creations in moving pictures, and its made SLC an international creative epicenter.
In downtown Salt Lake, the Utah Arts Festival has also made a name for itself, drawing loyal crowds each year to see original works by nearly 200 artists while enjoying live performances and great food.
When you need a more activity-intense diversion but don’t want to bother with bug spray or snow boots, pay a visit to the Utah Olympic Park, where you can travel at breakneck speeds on the summer bobsled, test your nerves on a 50-mph extreme tubing course or throw all sanity to the wind and do the zipline drop tower, where you’ll voluntarily step off of a nice, steady platform into a 65-foot freefall.
Disadvantages of Moving to Salt Lake City
Air Quality Challenges
One of the biggest negatives about living in Salt Lake City is the poor air quality. The mountain range that provides such glorious views and copious tourist dollars also traps pollutants in the western valley. This has led the American Lung Association (ALA) to rank Salt Lake’s air quality as one of the worst in the nation, putting it on the dreaded list of Most Polluted Cities.
In addition to industrial pollutants, the other environmental culprits come from things we all rely on – our cars, heating and cooling our houses, dry cleaning chemicals and even household cleaners. In addition to implementing policies mandated by the Clean Air Act, learn what measures Salt Lake City is taking to clean up the air in this gorgeous region of the country.
Seasonal Weather Extremes
Not nearly as dry as its arid neighbors to the west, Salt Lake City has four true seasons. But watch out for the extremes. You’ll need to prepare for some intense temperatures in winter, summer and, sometimes, in the middle of an ordinary spring day.
Because Salt Lake is at the base of some of the world’s snowiest, most impressive peaks, it’s often shielded from the most impressive weather fronts that deliver powder to happy skiers in the Wasatch. But it’s not a snow-free environment, to be sure. Salt Lake City sees an average of 52 inches of snow each year from October to late April, with the heaviest accumulations — 10-plus inches per month — occurring from December to February. During the winter, temperatures range between the mid-20s F and the low 40s F, but the lowest the mercury ever dropped in Salt Lake was in 1949 when the -22°F air sent shivers across the Great Salt Lake.
Salt Lake’s unpredictability sets it apart. The 19 F-degree October day in 2020 shocked even the saltiest Salt Lakers, shattering a 142-year-old record for the coldest 10/26 day. Conversely, temperatures have soared to 107 F in June, July and even September in recent years, but it seems you’re just as likely to see startling cold days as hot ones in the summertime. The average low in June is a nippy 48 F, but the city’s seen temps as low as 41 F that month, and lows in the low 50s are common in July and August. On average, summer temps fluctuate between the mid-60s F and the mid-90s F, so layering is essential.
Temperatures in the mountains will be significantly cooler in any season than in town, so hiking (and resort spas) can provide a great escape from the worst of summer’s heat.
Tips for Relocating to Salt Lake City
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