An Evolving Salt Lake City Hopes to Be ‘Just Like Austin’

Also seeding tech start-ups are Kimmy and Sergio Paluch, who based Beta Boom, which funds underrepresented tech entrepreneurs who lack easy accessibility to capital. Like many different latest arrivals, Ms. Paluch mentioned, she needed to be a part of the evolving metropolis however was additionally acutely conscious that the expansion had raised housing costs.

“We should all be thinking about ways to bring all of the population along,” she mentioned.

In the previous 5 years, housing costs in Utah have greater than doubled, in line with a research by the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute on the University of Utah. The median value is $534,000, in line with an evaluation by Redfin, the true property agency, properly above the $320,000 median in 2019. State knowledge additionally reveals a rise within the homeless inhabitants.

The mayor’s administration is engaged on proposals to guard inexpensive housing and create incentives for builders. The state, not like many others, doesn’t require builders to incorporate inexpensive housing of their initiatives. For now, Mayor Mendenhall mentioned, “growth is the best tool for us to work with.”

Despite the challenges raised by progress, Angela H. Brown, the manager editor of SLUG Magazine, which stands for Salt Lake UnderGround, mentioned town had been shedding its stodgy picture.

In the previous, “you had to look really hard to find the underground, the arts, the music,” mentioned Ms. Brown, who can also be the manager director of Craft Lake City, which organizes arts festivals within the metropolis. “But you do not have to go outside of our state to find incredible talent,” she added. “It is right here.”