A new forecast is predicting the population of Utah will grow by a half-million over the next nine years, which could exacerbate the state’s ongoing housing challenges.
According to a report from Brigham Young University’s Daily Universe, the forecast would put Utah’s population at more than 4 million people in 2033. The forecast, published by the Utah State and County Short-Term Planning Projection from the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, noted that Utah ranked 15th state in terms of inbound migration from California residents – out of the 41,700 people who relocated to Utah in 2022, roughly 18,700 came from California.
“There’s definitely a chunk of people moving into the state,” said Emily Harris, the senior demographer at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. “But the kind of caveat to that is that Californians are moving to a lot of places, and there are just a lot of Californians.”
Harris added that most of the newcomers to Utah enrich the state.
“The people that are moving into Utah are generally highly educated,” she said. “A lot of them have at least a bachelor’s degree, or they’re attending university. They’re more racially and ethnically diverse than the existing population here in Utah.”
But a major downside of the new arrivals is the absence of housing to accommodate an expanded population.
“All the growth that’s we’ve been having is jacking up the price of housing,” said Bill Peperone, the development services director for Provo City. “And wages aren’t keeping up with that increased real estate cost, and so that’s why we’ve got an affordable housing crisis.”
Peperone added the elevated cost of building materials is making new homeownership opportunities difficult to create. In Provo, rental units account for 60% of housing while 40% is owner occupied.
“For the last five or seven years in Provo, we’ve been approving about nine apartment units or townhouses for every single-family lot that gets approved,” Pepeone said. “So, we’re approving a lot more future rental units than owner-occupied.”
