Smog-clogged Salt Lake Valley here we come, Logan
Besides a fine campus, a stunning mountain backdrop and a blessed lack of pollution problems like those plaguing the Salt Lake Valley, USU students also enjoy Cache Valley’s rural atmosphere, threaded by the Bear River as it winds its way southward to the Great Salt Lake.
Small businesses owned by people you know on a first-name basis line our streets, and productive farmlands stretch to the Wellsville Mountains. I often picture Cache Valley as a pre-boom version of our counterparts to the south, and wonder if our leaders will have the wisdom and foresight to preserve the open spaces, quality of life and rural atmosphere that separates Cache Valley from the human torture chamber of pollution, asphalt, road rage, unused sidewalks, six-lane highways, faceless neighbors and premature lung diseases that we call the Salt Lake Valley.
Lately, I have become discouraged. The other day, as I distributed environmental literature to local businesses in my own small effort to make a difference, I visited Pet Kingdom, the small pet shop near 400 N. and 100 East next to Einstein’s. I asked the owner whether she knew that a Petsmart, that bastion of low prices and quality to match, was being erected elsewhere in town. Very much so, she replied.
I cannot picture this business, or Noah’s Ark, our other Logan pet store, surviving the presence of an undercutting corporate behemoth.
And, of course, it will be a great aesthetic compliment to the Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Everything-Mart, and other big box stores in the northerly areas of Logan. What’s better, the parking lots the size of football fields will compliment nicely the SUVs being driven there by shoppers from large houses perched on our foothills.
Isn’t this what zoning is for? Isn’t Mayor Doug Thompson supposed to watch out for us? Unfortunately, it may be the case that the almighty dollar is fixed squarely in the sights of our elected officials.
Hardly a week goes by without a quote from some Logan or Cache County official declaring that, gosh dang it, one of these days we’re gonna get all that commercial revenue that those Salt Lake folks are getting.
I’m sure we’re just thrilled at the prospect. Meanwhile, the Salt Lake City council is infuriated that Mayor Rocky Anderson would actually put his foot down against a giant development dubbed the “sprawl mall” originally envisioned near a future Legacy Highway interchange, and West Valley City is now salivating at the prospect of being second in line for another gargantuan concrete monument to add to its extensive collection of eyesores.
Part of the problem is that Utah’s sales tax revenue is divided based in part by where it was generated. For example, if Logan businesses generate 5 percent of Utah’s sales tax revenue, it gets more than if they generated only 3 percent.
This has created a rabbit race among Utah’s towns to attract more businesses, beat the competition in landing superstores and avoid any semblance of regional cooperation.
Those of you in natural resource majors will recognize a “tragedy of the commons” template here. This perverse incentive has led, time and time again, to the demolition of communities, the loss of rural charm and the domination of commerce by nameless, faceless corporations with elaborate marketing techniques designed to cultivate mega-consumers with reliably unrestrained wallets.
Utah’s population is projected to hit 5 million by 2050, and our present growth pains will seem pale by comparison.
But there is hope. Envision Utah, a non-profit think tank, has developed a “toolbox” for towns to use in growth management, including model zoning ordinances, conservation agreements with landowners and pro-active transportation planning centered around people, not cars.
Even the hopelessly recalcitrant Utah Legislature passed the “Quality Growth Act” not long ago, setting aside money to assist towns with open space preservation and planning. Non-governmental groups, such as the Nature Conservancy are demonstrating through action that voluntary, win-win arrangements for open space are possible with adequate funding. Voters in Salt Lake, Weber and Davis Counties recently passed a quarter-cent sales tax referendum to fund mass transit in their area, and its effects will reach for decades into the future.
But this is just scratching the surface. USU students, as the next generation, will inherit the places shaped by today’s decisions.
Get politically involved.
Show up at a rezoning hearing.
Defend the places and people that make your neighborhood special to you, whichever it may be, because don’t look now, but I think a Target is on the way.
Jim Steitz is a junior majoring in environmental studies. Comments may be e-mailed to sl8mh@cc.usu.edu.