
How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive - DiabloD3
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-28/how-utah-keeps-the-american-dream-alive
======
thedevil
I'm from Utah. I moved to Seattle, then San Francisco. When I had a kid, I
moved back to Utah.

One thing I noticed is that Utah is almost all middle class. Some have more
money, some have less, but most of them are middle class.

It's relatively easy to go from poor to rich if you're really middle class. I
mean that if your parents are well educated but a high school teacher and a
stay-at-home-mom in a middle class neighborhood, you're​ poor but you can
become a medical doctor almost as easily as a rich kid.

It's not so easy to become a doctor if you're raised by your high school drop
out grandma because your mom's working and your dad's missing and the adults
around you are unemployed, going to prison, or working at fast food
restaurants. If you can lift up people in situations like that, I'd be much
more impressed.

I think the Mormon welfare system is very impressive (and I do recommend that
progressives take a look at it) and Utah government is vastly better than
California's. But I think the lack of a real lower and upper class would make
mobility look artificially better.

~~~
DanBC
> If you can lift up people in situations like that, I'd be much more
> impressed.

> But I think the lack of a real lower and upper class would make mobility
> look artificially better.

I'm a bit confused. Aren't these contradictory? By not having poverty haven't
they achieved the raising people out of poverty bit already?

~~~
skywhopper
The thing is, Utah has never had a truly poor population. They aren't raising
people out of poverty, but it's growing fast and most of the people who move
there are relatively rich compared to the general population.

But also, Utah has the fifth richest bottom quartile of any state, about 40%
higher than North Carolina's. So yes, it's much much easier to move from that
to the top quartile than in most states.

~~~
ythn
> The thing is, Utah has never had a truly poor population.

What about when the first destitute pioneers arrived and found a desert?

~~~
duskwuff
It's not really meaningful to describe people as "rich" or "poor" in the
absence of an economy.

~~~
tp3z4u
Where people are involved there is no such thing as an absence of economy.

------
itchyjunk
When I was first about to move to Utah, few years ago, lot of people asked me
"why?" and told me a lot about a lot of things. Of course, I didn't even know
who the Mormons were (I am not from USA originally). Most of what I heard was
wrong. I've met Mormons who have asked me where I am from and not only know
where that country is but spoke to me in my NATIVE tougue. I was very
impressed.

The key word in the article is the Mormon Church and its not an exaggeration.
They do a lot in a lot of different areas (as if helping is ingrained in their
blood). I am not sure why Utah has such an odd reputation outside of the
state. But I am sure its something to do with the history that I haven' cared
to look too deeply into.

The downside of SLC is the smog though. You can feel the burn in your eyes
some days. Also, the housing market seems to be booming here. I have seen so
many housing complex start and finish and sell all the new houses in the last
few years its amazing. I am not convinced it's planned out as best as it can
be, though. SLC could do with more parks and trees inserted in some places.

~~~
arconis987
I grew up Mormon in Utah and I love the Mormons in my life. Every leader in
local congregations is an unpaid volunteer. Everyone in the congregation has a
responsibility to carry out in the community (sunday school teacher, youth
mentor, clerk to track finances, etc). As a Mormon kid, I was taught to work
hard my whole life for the good of others. I served a Mormon mission in
Europe, which was an extremely difficult experience, but I learned the value
of persistence and diligent hard work.

There are definitely some interesting positive cultural influences from the
Mormon church. There are some negative influences however. A few years ago, I
decided no longer to participate in the Mormon church because of its harsh
policies/teachings about LGBT people and because I found myself agreeing with
agnostic atheism. I told my family and friends that I'd always respect them
and their beliefs when I decided to leave the church. I was surprised by the
harsh reaction: my Mormon loved ones told me that they were concerned about
the future of my children, that I was depriving my family of happiness in
heaven, and, as one of my own parents told me, they didn't know who I was
anymore.

I think Mormons are extremely kind to non-members of the church and to the
church's current members. But if you are a member and you want to leave,
sometimes they can be extremely harsh. I also think Mormons are some of the
most kind people in the world on the person-to-person scale, but on the group-
to-group scale, they can be pretty brutal sometimes. Blacks were denied access
to the most sacred temple rituals until 1978, and today LGBT people in long-
term relationships or marriages are considered apostates and their children
are not allowed to be baptized. Weird mix of super kind and super harsh.

~~~
BurningFrog
I always wonder about the Mormon missionaries.

Did you actually convert anyone? Or is that not even the point?

~~~
waderyan
I was a Mormon missionary.

Each missionary memorizes this to drill in their purpose: "My purpose is to
invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel
through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism,
receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end."
[https://www.lds.org/manual/preach-my-gospel-a-guide-to-
missi...](https://www.lds.org/manual/preach-my-gospel-a-guide-to-missionary-
service/what-is-my-purpose-as-a-missionary?lang=eng)

Most of our activities were finding people interested in the LDS church and
teaching those people about the LDS church.

I would have 20-30 45 minute in house meetings a week with people that were
interested. We spent most of our time knocking on doors and meeting new people
to fill up those teaching slots.

For service, probably 5-10 hours a week. Usually set up by the local LDS
congregation or people we met on the street (ex. "I'm not interested but I
could use help power spraying my roof).

I had an awesome mission experience. It was a lot of fun. I met a lot of
interesting people, with tough backgrounds, looking for something new in their
lives. Made me really grateful for my middle class upbringing and want to help
people less fortunate than me.

~~~
angry-hacker
Just wanted to thank you guys, met a lot of Mormons all over the world. Great
people, can always talk snd discuss things, always recognize you by the n cell
clothes you wear and the fact you always speak the local language :)

~~~
waderyan
Hey thank you very much! Very kind of you.

------
redsummer
Utah is more like what the US used to be like. Demographically, it's like
early 60s America. Whiter, higher social trust, more Christian, neighborly,
higher work ethic, higher rates of marriage, more kids, fewer illegitimate
kids, no grievance industry etc. Many of these factors are looked down on by
people of a certain political outlook. Seen as regressive. And yet they're
happier in Utah.

The Mormons try harder to keep on the straight and narrow because their
religion is less authentic - it's made up by a couple of PT Barnum types,
rather than centuries of tradition. You don't need to try hard if you're
resting on a thousand years of tradition.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=371&v=7q6brMrFw0E](https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=371&v=7q6brMrFw0E)

Perhaps the lesson is that you should join the most absurd religion (or invent
your own) and then make up for its absurdity strive to live a good life in
order to prove the effectiveness of the religion.

~~~
Dobbs
On the other hand Utah has one of the higher suicide rates in the country[1],
and leads the country in use of antidepressants[2].

Despite being tongue-in-cheek I think the lesson is not so cut and dry. In my
personal, anecdotal experience, a lot of the behavior in Utah is forced to
keep up the image of a particular life style.

1:
[https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6345a10.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6345a10.htm)
2:
[http://articles.latimes.com/2002/feb/20/news/mn-28924](http://articles.latimes.com/2002/feb/20/news/mn-28924)

~~~
thedevil
My personal experience is consistent with your second point.

But I'd be careful about making conclusions from the suicide/antidepressant
statistics. It's shown to be highly correlated to altitude. I've included a
couple links from google search to demonstrate the point.

That being said, the Mormon/LDS church does cause some psychological hardships
for certain groups such as LGBT and ex-mormons... at least in my anecdotal
experience.

suicide rate map: [http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2015/03/higher-suicide-
rates-o...](http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2015/03/higher-suicide-rates-out-
west-due-to.html)

altitude map:
[http://weather.unisys.com/usgs/](http://weather.unisys.com/usgs/)

~~~
coryfklein
How do you account for the uptick in the suicide rate since the introduction
of the Mormon policy of excommunicating gays and disallowing their children
from baptism? The altitude certainly didn't increase...

------
paulddraper
A few observations as a resident of Utah for the past 6 years

(1) Fantastic for outdoor activities: skiing, mountain biking, hiking,
camping. Has some of the most popular national parks in the United States
(Arches, Bryce Canyon, Zion). 2/3 of the state is federally preserved.

(2) Software industry is huge. Both historically (Novell, WordPerfect) and
nowadays. If I had to find a SE job right now, it would take a week, because
I'm picky.

(3) Geographically, most of the population lives in a 60 mile stretch along
the Salt Lake Valley in the north. South Utah is warmer, more rural, and
attracts retirees.

(4) Cost of living is relatively low. Two years ago I bought an older 5 bed, 3
bath, 2000 sq ft, 2 car garage, 0.19 acre house 10 minutes from downtown Salt
Lake for less than $200k. Utah is growing fast, so that is changing a little.
Still, my income is 33% less than what I could get in SV, and housing is a
fifth the cost.

(5) The culture is hugely influenced by Mormonism (similar to say, South
America and Catholicism or the South and Baptists). This means industrious
people, larger traditional families, more sobriety, and conservative
government.

I've seen people come here and hate it, and others come here and love it. The
gist of the article is correct: it depends how much you like the traditional
"American dream."

~~~
jordache
1) Distance of the SE Utah playground is just as far to SLC as Denver. So it's
a moot point.

I can also confidently say the drive from Denver to SE Utah trumps the drive
from SLC to SE Utah

~~~
paulddraper
Don't disagree, but SLC is insanely close to the Wasatch mountains. Colorado
has mountains too, though they're a ways away from Denver, Colorado Springs,
Bolder.

I have co-workers that go skiing in the morning, and come in around 10:00am.

~~~
jordache
Reason for those close mountains, the active wasatch fault line!

Yes if you are bigely into the ski resorts. Denver's overcrowding is a
downside.

------
greeneggs
> For a girl raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Salt Lake City is a
> very weird place. I went to Utah precisely because it’s weird. More
> specifically, because economic data suggest that modest Salt Lake City,
> population 192,672, does something that the rest of us seem to be struggling
> with: It helps people move upward from poverty.

By this criterion, should Salt Lake City be so weird to a New Yorker?

Upward Mobility in the 50 Biggest Cities:

1\. San Jose 12.9%

2\. San Francisco 12.2%

3\. Washington DC 11.0%

4\. Seattle 10.9%

5\. Salt Lake City 10.8%

6\. New York 10.5% ...

50\. Charlotte 4.4%

Source: Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational
Mobility in the United States Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline,
and Emmanuel Saez [http://www.equality-of-
opportunity.org/documents/](http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/documents/)

~~~
jessriedel
Conjecture: the number one driver of a city's upward mobility is fraction of
foreign-born population. Poor foreigners move to US with few skills, and then
their children do fine. Note that this mechanism has nothing to do with the
differences between social services in different cities.

Let's check: Out of the 50 largest cities, here are where those high-mobility
cities rank by percentage foreign-born.

    
    
       3. San Jose 38.1%
       4. New York 37.7%
       5. San Francisco 34.1%
       21. Seattle 17.1%
       30. Washington DC 12.0%
    

and Charlotte is #25 with 13.7% foreign born.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_foreign-
born_population)

So I'd say this conjecture looks pretty good for explaining cities that have
the very highest mobility.

(I could not get foreign-born data on Salt Lake City because it's population
is less than 200k. I don't understand why your source would list it as part of
the "50 Biggest Cities in the US," since the US' 50th city is Arlington, TX
with ~380k.)

~~~
hughdbrown
The Spearman rank correlation of your two sets is 61% (after dropping cities
that are not common to both).

[https://gist.github.com/hughdbrown/94016d0f477b855a893514131...](https://gist.github.com/hughdbrown/94016d0f477b855a893514131fc91f99)

Sadly, Salt Lake City is dropped from the set because of the missing foreign-
born data.

~~~
jessriedel
Cool, thanks!

If we were to dramatically over-simplify by assuming a city's economic
mobility is a simple sum of independent Gaussian variables, is the following
correct?

(1) Pearson and Spearman rank correlation are the same.

(2) Percentage foreign born is more important than all other variables
combined (since they would contribute 39% of the total variance)

~~~
hughdbrown
> Pearson and Spearman rank correlation are the same

I don't know what this means -- like you'd get the same value if you
calculated the correlation by Pearson correlation and Spearman rank
correlation?

Or are you saying there is something called the Pearson rank correlation and
asking how it relates to Spearman rank correlation? I have no knowledge of a
Pearson rank correlation.

I used Spearman rank correlation because it is applicable to this situation:
it "assesses how well the relationship between two variables can be described
using a monotonic function." [1] Pearson's correlation would be appropriate if
I was looking for a linear relationship between two numerical values, which I
don't have here.

> Percentage foreign born is more important than all other variables combined
> (since they would contribute 39% of the total variance)

Hmmm. I think that it is the r-squared that is the proportion of variance in Y
that is accounted for by X. Accordingly, the Spearman correlation of
0.61105258893120507 means that 37.3% of the variance in Y is accounted for by
X, so really there is 62.7% of the variance still to be accounted for by other
variables. There could well be another variable that explains the relationship
better. [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearman%27s_rank_correlation_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearman%27s_rank_correlation_coefficient)

[2] I am assuming here that the relationship of correlation to variance for
Pearson correlation works the same as for Spearman. I think they should, since
Spearman rank correlation is just Pearson correlation applied to pairs of
ranks.

~~~
jessriedel
> I don't know what this means...

I mean: under the stated assumption that the data is given by a sum of
independent Gaussian variables, would the Pearson correlation of the Gaussian
data be equal to the Spearman rank correlation of the corresponding ranked
data.

One can check from the definition that the answer is "yes".

> Hmmm. I think that it is the r-squared that is the proportion of variance in
> Y that is accounted for by X.

Yes, you're right, I needed to square this number. So, assuming Gaussian
independent variables, 37% of the variance in mobility is explained by
percentage foreign born. It would be pretty surprising if there were even an
larger effect independent than this, so I'll self-grade my conjecture as
"plausible".

------
alexanderson
As a Utahn, the most disappointing thing about this article is the racial
homogeny. It's true - nearly everyone is white. But that doesn't mean that
there isn't some diversity. When my father was a Mormon bishop, he would dole
out orders for the Bishop's Storehouse to everyone just the same, whether they
were white, black, Latino, or Asian - Made no difference to him. They got the
same food, but also had to live by the same requirements - coming to church
and serving in the community.

I recall one day after my dad was diagnosed with cancer. Out of the blue one
of those families my dad had prepared an order for brought over a casserole
for our family out of gratitude for what he did - not only for the food, but
for helping him get back in their feet. And this was one of the latinix
families.

My point is that I wish there were data on what this experiment would be like
with the racial diversity of NYC, DC, or elsewhere. While there are Mormon
congregations in these places, with the same bishops storehouses, they aren't
nearly as pervasive in their communities as In Utah, so it's hard to see the
effects of their efforts.

~~~
hkmurakami
Iirc Matz (of Ruby) is Mormon. I've always wondered what the Mormon roots are
like outside of the continental US and how they took hold and continue to be.

~~~
austenallred
There are more Mormons outside of the United States than there are in it.

------
skywhopper
These sorts of comparisons inevitably don't mean much because there's just too
many factors that are different between Utah and the states the author
compares them to. It helps upward mobility if you start out better off, and
Utah has the the fifth richest bottom quintile in the nation (See
[http://scorecard.assetsandopportunity.org/latest/measure/sta...](http://scorecard.assetsandopportunity.org/latest/measure/state-
income-quintiles-acs)) in a place where household expenses and housing costs
are probably lower than three or four of the states with a higher bar for
being "bottom quintile". It also helps if you don't have entrenched poor
communities, and are extremely culturally homogenous (meaning that those with
power and money are far more likely to identify with and support the bottom
quartile of people since they mostly share the same cultural and religious
identity). In other words, Utah is so different than the counterexample states
that making facile comparisons of "education spending per pupil" and
concluding that "big government is not the solution" is a ridiculous argument
to make.

~~~
wang_li
It might be ridiculous but not for the reasons you state. All those
differences are the result of culture and governance.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
Two points:

1\. You're wrong about it being just culture and governance -- history and
geography play a big role in why we see things developed as they are.

2\. Even if it were, your comment is useless. You claim it's culture _and_
governance, not just governance. With part of it being cultural homogeneity
(as the GP said...), which is itself a quirk of history and geography, it
doesn't follow that changing governance to match would lead to the same
outcomes, since cultures wouldn't match (and likely be less homogeneous).

------
OliverJones
I live in a racially homogeneous (Euro-American), neoliberal, resolutely
secular, generally well-off small city in Massachusetts. I think it's fair to
call the city's culture a post-Calvinist post-Christian monoculture of
striving upper middle class white people. Most of our kiddos have two married
parents. The majority can expect middle class economic success in their lives.

I volunteer in a drop-in center for kiddos in the public housing project for
families, where our Euro upper middle class monoculture isn't visible. People
come from other parts of MA to live in our public housing project for all
kinds of reasons. Many households contain just one parent. Many are
disfunctional. Many kids don't have enough structure in their home lives to
get their schoolwork done. Lots of the poverty is multigenerational.

The purpose of our drop-in center is to try to give these kiddos a vision of
what it would be like to get out of housing -- to be socially mobile.
Statistically, I suppose the phrase "get out of housing" means "move from the
bottom quintile to some other stratum." But "get out of housing" is more
tangible. And it's very difficult in my city. Why? Because we antipoverty
activists get a lot of positive liberal lip-service but not much tangible
support from the majority. Most of the kids in town are insanely busy --
music, dance, rock-climbing gym, sports. But, the kids in housing have very
little to do; they don't feel like they fit in.

It would be GREAT to have a bishop or two cracking the whip and saying, "Look,
suck it up. Welcome these neighbors into your lives, and treat them like
neighbors." "You're going to Cambridge to check out Harvard and MIT? Take a
friend along." etc.

We have some small victories: a few families a year stabilize, get jobs, and
move out. But we have some defeats too. It's all about keeping at it. But to
me the metaphorical grass in SLC sounds pretty green from this article.

------
anovikov
I can't see how 20% is a 'perfectly just world'. It is not a perfectly just -
it is a perfectly random world. If it was 20%, it means that person from every
family (wrt. parent's incomes) has equal chance to end up rich or poor,
meaning that there is nothing that parents could do to help their child. It
means nothing but a totalitarian, concentration camp society, because even if
education, healthcare etc. are perfectly equal and free for everyone, there is
still a personal example and values taught to the person by his parents that
define a lot of his future. If i could not do anything at all to help my
children succeed, i'd call it anything but fair.

Of course, reverse - 0% chance - is called a caste system. It is also
completely unjust.

Middle ground - 10% - sounds about right.

~~~
literallycancer
You could have equal chance to end up in the top quintile when measuring
income, and still do things to help your kids succeed. It would just mean that
those things wouldn't depend on the family income.

E.g. people whose family is more educated than the average would have better
chances to end up in the top quintile by income, regardless of how much money
they make.

~~~
anovikov
What's the point of being more educated if you don't make more? Fancy way to
waste time?

~~~
EliRivers
That's what it is for me. I spent five and a half years slowly doing a masters
in mathematics in my own time, evenings and weekends, for the pure thrill of
it.

Now I'm learning Japanese just for the sake of being able to read, write and
speak Japanese. Wnet all the way to Tokyo in December for five mornings' worth
of Japanese lessons (and some tourism stuff around it); just for the pleasure
of learning something of interest.

As you say, a fancy way to waste time. I understand some people do other
things to the same ends; movies, television, music, socialising, drugs and
alcohol, dancing, art, reading, writing, building things, making things,
running, climbing, swimming, on and on and on. Oh, the range of things we
humans do as fancy wastes of time.

------
supremesaboteur
"Utah is a deep red state, but its conservatism is notably compassionate"

Or maybe conservatives are not ruthless towards the poor ?

~~~
philipodonnell
In general, conservatives tend to regard poverty as a self-inflicted state, or
at least that remaining in poverty is a failing of the individual by not
escaping it, and thus addressing poverty should be left to that individual.

Liberals think of poverty more as a systematic social condition that
individuals bear little responsibility for, either getting there or remaining
there, and thus addressing poverty should be undertaken by formal social
support systems.

It's not ruthless as much as different views of why poverty exists and how to
address it, and like many issues, not all conservatives hold 100% conservative
views. It's common to refer to conservatives who have a more liberal view of
poverty as "compassionate", but it's just a word, not a judgement.

~~~
paulddraper
That is the usual narrative, but conservatives contribute more to charity than
liberals.

~~~
jernfrost
I don't think that is given. My home country Norway is mainly liberal but we
give a lot to charity.

But as a liberal myself, I don't really favor charity. I favor government
solutions. I'd rather pay more taxes than pay to a charity directly.

The problem I see with charity is that (1) they can't provide comprehensive
solutions, (2) vulnerable to the free rider problem, (3) inefficient as much
resources needs to be spent collecting donations.

By comprehensive solution I mean that a lot of poverty is caused by complex
set of factors. E.g. the person might lack job skills and have a mental health
problem. Thus they need mental health care and a job training program. Putting
together something like that is something a modern welfare state is quite
capable of doing, while charity doesn't really have a solution. Charity is for
giving you food when you are hungry or giving your emergency care.

Charity is poorly suited for having a long term medical follow up e.g. of high
risk groups. E.g. Norway has one of the worlds best statistics for infant
mortality. A lot of that is because there are extensive checkups through the
pregnancy. Everything related to a pregnancy is completely free. For other
health care there is usually a minimum fee. The US in the contrast has
terrible infant mortality rate and that is mainly due to poor checkups.
Charity in the US has been unable to solve that problem. All they can do is
give hungry people food or patch them up.

Charity can't solve systematic problems.

~~~
thomastjeffery
> The problem I see with charity is that (1) they can't provide comprehensive
> solutions, (2) vulnerable to the free rider problem, (3) inefficient as much
> resources needs to be spent collecting donations.

The problem I see with _government solutions_ is that (1) they can't provide
comprehensive solutions, (2) vulnerable to the free rider problem, (3)
inefficient as many resources need to be spent collecting _and distributing
taxes_.

------
jordache
If the american dream means sucking down some of the worst polluted air in the
country, then yes SLC is that realized.

[http://www.sltrib.com/home/4762483-155/utah-will-
welcome-201...](http://www.sltrib.com/home/4762483-155/utah-will-
welcome-2017-with-bad)

~~~
paulddraper
You are not wrong, but to bring some context to this: this is not because Utah
doesn't care. Since moving to Utah from Florida I've often grumbled at the
strict yearly emissions checks. Utah has emissions checks, has very functional
public transit, and pushes for reductions.

The primary reason is geographic. SLC is an urban area in a valley, which
traps the smog.

~~~
jordache
the geography is a huge enabler of this, but the government is also complacent
in not doing anything to ensure this issue doesn't bubble up to the extend it
currently is.

With the recent disastrous handling of the OR show. It is clear how the the
Utah government prioritizes.

------
ricardonunez
It seems that a big factor is empathy, something that many politicians don't
have. Meanwhile in a few Places in Florida you get arrested if you try to feed
the homeless.

~~~
josinalvo
> Meanwhile in a few Places in Florida you get arrested if you try to feed the
> homeless.

Can you please provide some source for that? Not that I doubt you, but that is
very surprising (and I wonder what could possibly be their reasoning)

~~~
adventured
It made a lot of headlines in the last few years:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2014/12/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2014/12/03/after-90-year-old-is-arrested-florida-judge-halts-law-
that-restricts-feeding-the-homeless/)

[http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-
world/national/article1253...](http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-
world/national/article125306029.html)

[http://www.naturalnews.com/047802_feeding_homeless_illegal_c...](http://www.naturalnews.com/047802_feeding_homeless_illegal_charity_hunger.html)

And

"In More Than 70 Cities, It's Illegal to Feed the Homeless"

[http://blog.lowincome.org/2016/08/more-than-70-cities-
illega...](http://blog.lowincome.org/2016/08/more-than-70-cities-illegal-feed-
homeless.html#.WOFACGf_pkg)

------
davidf18
The $20K per year per pupil that NYC (and other large cities) spends is skewed
because of the enormous costs of special education. I don't know the numbers
for NYC, but from an article I saw about Philly: cost to educate non-special
need child: $10K, moderately special need: (7% of students) $20K, severe
special need: (another 7% of students) $40K.

I suspect Salt Lake City has a much lower amount of special needs students.

Still, we spend an enormous amount of money on K-12 education in NYC and other
large cities.

~~~
valuearb
Special education is a self perpetuating bureaucracy everywhere. Not to say
the programs don't offer super valuable services to those in need, but my
experience is it's really hard to get your kids out of special ed when they
are ready to mainstream.

In my daughters case they fought us for two years, we eventually moved her to
a charter school that mainstreamed her immediately. 2 years later she's made
the honor roll twice.

~~~
davidf18
> "2 years later she's made the honor roll twice."

:-)

------
Mz
The article makes many good points about how upward mobility works. These
points generally fit with what I understand: That stable marriage is one of
the best ways to become and stay upper middle class; that poor neighborhoods
with too few middle class people have much more serious problems than poor
neighborhoods with X percentage of middle class residents; that spending on
education is not the most critical metric for education effectiveness. etc.

It's a really good piece. The conversation here, not so much.

I am not hugely familiar with Mormonism myself, but I grew up in the Deep
South, a place full of hellfire-and-brimstone Christians. That does not mean
all Christians are like that. I am not personally fond of Christianity, but
there is a line in the bible somewhere where someone tells Jesus "People will
do terrible things in your name someday" (or words to that effect) and he
replies "I will say I did not know them." (or words to that effect).
Christians behaving in a way that gives Christianity a bad name is not
definitive proof that Christianity is an inherently evil organization. Ditto
Mormonism.

I am somewhat disappointed that so much of this discussion is about Mormonism
and so little about upward mobility. I am deeply disappointed that the topmost
comment here is one that outright mocks Mormonism. Bad enough it was said, but
then multiple people apparently upvoted it. Ugh.

------
diebir
Go ahead and visit Salt Lake (I am comparing to Colorado). I think they either
don't have the money or out of principle do not maintain their roads.

That's the economy. The geography is not favorable either. Salt Lake sits in a
bowl surrounded by dark hills with little vegetation. The hills are all dug by
mines and open pits. They have the whole range ("on the other side") that is
essentially one big mine. The winter is cold and the temperature inversion
traps cold air in the bowl and the air quality becomes worst in the nation
(you can't even run outside). There's no chinook winds in winter, so it's
colder than the other side of the Rockies.

The political landscape is very bleak. This is the most conservative state in
the nation. Utah hates their environment so much, that they are working on
shrinking or destroying several National Monuments (Escalante and Bears Ears).
Their congressmen are loathsome Trump toads like Chaffetz (who investigated
Park Service for making a folder with maps for a new monument, but refused to
investigate anything about Trump).

The anti-environment stance in Utah has become so bad, that the Outdoor
Retailer Show (the prime event for multi-billion outdoor industry) has left
Salt Lake. Patagonia, Arcteryx and many others initiated it.

The only redeeming quality in Utah is the ski areas nearby. 15 miles vs
40-60-70 in Colorado. And the snow is better.

BTW, the Salt Lake is empty in winter, in prime ski season. Never seen motels
and hotels so empty and so cheap. Good for skiing, not good for the economy.

Mormons are nice people for the most part.

~~~
saryant
> The political landscape is very bleak. This is the most conservative state
> in the nation. Utah hates their environment so much, that they are working
> on shrinking or destroying several National Monuments (Escalante and Bears
> Ears). Their congressmen are loathsome Trump toads like Chaffetz (who
> investigated Park Service for making a folder with maps for a new monument,
> but refused to investigate anything about Trump).

Utah is also home to some of Congress' most anti-Trump members. Sen. Mike Lee,
Rep. Mia Love, among others.

At the 2016 GOP convention, the Utah delegation was one of the groups trying
to overthrow Trump's nomination (along with Colorado's delegation). They
failed, of course, but Sen. Lee was instrumental in getting those efforts off
the ground.

Almost as if a broad generalization isn't an accurate picture...

~~~
losvedir
It's interesting the situation was so bad McMullen ran and had a shot at
winning the state, IIRC.

~~~
thomastjeffery
I count any third party candidate getting 20% of the vote as a good situation.

------
princetontiger
SLC suffers from inversion, and this article fails to address it... Would
never live there. Worst air quality in the nation during the winter.

~~~
ghaff
Maybe because it doesn't have anything to do with the topic of the article?
And SF can be cold and foggy.

------
innocentoldguy
I live in Utah, and there are many reasons as to why breaking out of poverty
is easier here than other parts of the country. I just want to mention one
though: The Mormon church is a huge power in welfare in this state, and while
they do focus on feeding, clothing, and housing the poor, their welfare
program really pushes self-reliance, education, and breaking the cycle of
poverty in people's lives. They spend a lot of money to train people with
marketable skills, and they give interest-free education loans to their
members, in poverty-stricken countries, in an effort to help elevate the
conditions and opportunities in those countries. As part of the help they
give, they encourage people to donate and volunteer themselves, to help others
in need, as they break out of poverty themselves.

A lot of people complain about the Mormon church, over a variety of issues,
but this is one thing they do incredibly well, I think.

------
lukaa
Most Utahans are of Northern European descent.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah#Demographics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah#Demographics).
Northern European culture stayed with them with Mormon religion.

~~~
tomcam
My stock joke about it is that when you land at SLC and are waiting at the
baggage area it's like you're surrounded by cheerleaders--and that's just the
moms. Seriously, I'm not Mormon but I feel that they've got a ton to teach
most of the rest of us. Bloomberg article quantified it effectively.

------
dsfyu404ed
All the California transplants should take not before they become politically
active and turn it into the kind of place they left.

------
fovc
Would love to see how much Utah residents end up spending on poverty efforts,
including donations and taxes and volunteer time. I believe there are
inefficiencies in the current system, but by and large poverty reduction costs
money. Socially liberal, fiscally conservative may not be feasible when you do
the math

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
It seems to be feasible in Salt Lake City, though. If the community picks up
where the government is lacking, the work still gets done and the poorest of
our society get the help they need.

------
austenallred
I'm a Mormon (grew up in Utah, served a mission in eastern Ukraine, speak
Russian fluently, now live in the Bay Area).

I often think of the way the Mormon church works as a distributed system, and
the way it operates is not unlike most open source software. It works because
everyone knows their role, is dedicated, and willing to sacrifice.

In the ward (congregation) I'm in now I teach the fourteen-year-olds on
Sunday. My wife teaches the 16-year-old girls in the third hour of church. In
our last ward I was the eleven-year-old boy scout leader, and would take one
night a week to teach them self sufficiently, how to camp and fish and hunt,
knot tying, etc. We'd also go camping four times per year.

Both my wife and I fast (don't eat) one day/month and donate what we would
have spent on food (in reality a lot more) to the poor. We also donate 10% of
our income to the church, a lot of which goes to the poor. We feed the Mormon
missionaries once a month (we did so last night; one grew up as a refugee in
Kenya, the other grew up in the Philippines). My wife and I each served a
mission (me - Ukraine for two years, her - Lima, Peru for 18 months).

The organization is what makes it work, and is really top notch. If there's an
emergency we know exactly what our role is. When we come across someone who is
struggling we know exactly what to do. There are volunteers assigned to be
employment specialists, to help with food, over shelter, educational
resources, funds earmarked, etc. (For both members and non-members). Every
once in a while calls for extra funds or materials come out during a natural
disaster or refugee influx, though most of the time those are stockpiled and
ready to ship long in advance.

There are weekly leadership meetings where needs of the people in our area
(mostly concerned with members, but we'll discuss on-members as well), and
each member is supposed to have an in-person visit each month to make sure
they're not doing OK. I'm assigned three families, and if anything is wrong we
report back and it's taken care of. In my teens I volunteered once a month
teaching in a prison and once a quarter helping out in a nursing home.

Growing up we served on the church farm, my parents frequently volunteered at
the canning facility, and we took people into our home that were struggling to
get by.

There are a lot of problems within the Church, and things we need to work on
and fix. But, I think, as an efficient caregiving and charitable institution,
there are few in the world that rival it.

~~~
subpixel
I would love to contribute to a system like the one you describe that was not
based on fealty to any particular system of belief. That being said, I'd argue
that the belief (especially the affinity of shared belief) is totally
fundamental to the system at any sort of scale.

My own beliefs [0] are unfortunately not easily evangelized.

[0]
[https://jimleff.blogspot.com/2013/06/apprecianity.html](https://jimleff.blogspot.com/2013/06/apprecianity.html)

~~~
austenallred
I think you're right.Not sure how to replicate that outside of a shared system
of belief.

Candidly I think there are many who aren't believing but are there for the
social impact.

------
losteverything
I am not convinced that people in the bottom or top have the same dream as the
rest; and I am not convinced the article title is the best one for the
content.

Her comment: "Salt Lake City is a very weird place." made me think more.
Having experience in nearly all the states, SLC is truly unique. It is easy to
imagine myself in almost all of the US, but SLC is hard for me, and thus I
would agree with her statement.

HOwever - UTAH is probably the best state for national parks and state parks.
If you had to choose just one, I would choose Utah.

------
jeffdavis
In other words, the left and the right are both wrong.

The left is wrong because it focuses too much on money and entitlements rather
than real help. It also uses big government only, which crowds out local
solutions, churches, and NGOs. Beyond that, many on the left are actively
hostile towards religion.

The right is wrong because they scale back government without doing the hard
work to build alternative solutions, and leave people stranded.

(Obviously these are caricatures and not to be taken personally.)

Sounds like the people in Utah have somethibg figured out.

~~~
lern_too_spel
You can think of the Mormon Church as a second government in Utah that levies
a 10% gross income tax on nearly everyone in the state and spends a portion on
welfare programs.

~~~
jeffdavis
A church is not a government. Governments have special powers that churches do
not.

Because it has those powers, government has an incredible burden to be fair.
That doesn't sound so bad, but really limits how effective it can be at many
things.

~~~
dragonwriter
> A church is not a government.

A church can be nothing like a government, very much like a government, a _de
facto_ government, or a _de jure_ government.

In practice, relevant to the specific situation at hand, a religion which is
both dominant in a region and possessed of a strong centralizee heirarchy
often acts a lot like a government, though it's direct sanctions are generally
social (though potentially very powerful in effect, including economically)
and often also has substantial influence with the formal government.

------
heynowletsgo
Simply a kinder, gentler power structure. Not anything the US government
hasn't pretended to be working toward for years. All it is is treating
citizens as "one of your own" instead of as one of the "them". No great
mystery, when power doesn't act quite as much as monstrous assholes people
have a better time. People need to stop pretending like a little concern for
your fellow man is some difficult, complicated, magical system design based on
some secret power. When governments let people help those around them they
will. Just get out of the way and give up a little control. All its ever taken
for people to build a better system here is just for the Government to get out
of the way.That's how the west was won, and built.

------
jernfrost
As a Norwegian who has spent a lot of time in Utah visiting distant relatives
and having them visit Norway, I made a lot of thoughts about Utah in relation
to the Scandinavian society model.

This article is a nice addition to my own experiences. I admit I felt at first
somewhat envious and impressed by the community sense, they have in Utah.
Family and neighbors seem quite close. People are very smiling and positive.
As a diehard atheist, meeting mormons made me really have to contemplate the
role of religion. It seemed to make many mormons happy and create a tight
knight society. And despite being anti-religion and atheist I actually wanted
to live there for some years just for the experience. I loved my time there
despite it being so much at odds with values in many respect.

Mormons deserve a lot of praise for what they have accomplished. Yet after
staying longer I think it became clear to me that there was a dark side to
what looked like paradise at first glance.

Too me it is a bit funny to see Americans praise the Utah model, when it is a
far more extreme case of homogeneity than any Scandinavian country typically
dismissed as a viable model for America for just that reason. To me people in
Utah live a complete bubble world, with little idea of what the real world is
like or what other people think about stuff. They seemed very confused when
speaking to a non-mormon or non-religious person like myself about particular
subjects. And if you didn't fit the narrow path designated by the mormon
church, you were pretty much screwed.

I honestly think the Scandinavian model scales a lot better when it comes to
tackling societies problems than the Utah model. It allows for a lot more
individualism and ethnic mix. It doesn't rely on the majority being strongly
religious and doing huge amounts of volunteer work. In a way Utah is really
just doing the same as Scandinavian welfare states are doing. Citizens are
contributing a lot of resources towards helping the less fortunate. The
difference is that in Utah it happens through volunteering through the church,
and a strong social pressure to do so. In Scandinavia it happens through high
taxes. I realize that in the US the Utah approach is more palatable as it is
strictly speaking not required to contribute, while you can't skip taxes in
Scandinavia. However in practice there is a a strong social pressure that
means it isn't really an option not to.

It is interesting though that creating social mobility and reducing poverty
follows very similar receipts in Utah and Scandinavia. E.g. avoiding that
welfare becomes a way of life has a pretty strong tradition in Scandinavia as
well. The Norwegian labour party's old slogan was "Do your duty and demand
your right!" The welfare system has always been generous but also quite a lot
more pushy on getting people back into work than what has been the case in
many other countries. But the ability for the system to work has also rested
on a lot of trust between people as in Utah. I believe in Norway 68% say you
can trust your fellow man, while in the US in general would around 30%, while
in e.g. Brazil it would be 2%. That is one of my strongest believes about
society. One of the most important things for society to succeed is trust.

------
kelukelugames
I have a couple of girlfriends who moved to/from Utah from/to a costal city.
They think it's backwards as hell.

~~~
tp3z4u
I used to be a Mormon, my family converted when I was young. At no point did I
believe their teachings. Like many cults being required to believe something
obviously wrong keeps the normies out and clearly defines who is in the 'in
group' and who is in the 'out group'. Just by saying you believe it signals to
others that you are willing to lie in order to belong.

I really enjoyed my time in the church. There is huge pressure to conform in
one area but this means your free to be yourself in others. I was a nerd and
constantly tormented for it outside the church. (The US is much nicer to nerds
than those in my country where it considered a civil duty by other children to
beat it out of you). Inside the church I was treated like a normal person.
Similarly, Dijkstra had to leave Europe to escape a 'religious' academia and
found refuge in 'backwards' religious Texas.

There is a natural human tendency, an emergent behavior, to self organize into
'religious' groups. I see the same behavioral patterns in environmentalism,
veganism, feminism etc. By keeping 'religion' to religion there is less of for
it in others areas.

I left the Church quite young because I didn't need it anymore and thought the
church was stupid. I still liked the people in it.

Obviously if I was gay I would have a different story.

~~~
VLM
"Like many cults being required to believe something obviously wrong keeps the
normies out and clearly defines who is in the 'in group' and who is in the
'out group'."

Its the same game played with politics instead of religion in academia,
"coastal tech", soft sciences, mass media... Under static ruleset conditions,
I donno, mid 60s to 2010 "boomer generation" lets say, its sort of an
intelligence test to see if you're smart enough to observe others then play
along, and whats more important than action is the social signalling to show
you can be a trustable follower. If the players are willing intelligent
players the game works really well and results will naturally be good. When
people grow tired of the game or are too dumb to play or actively dislike the
entrenched ruleset, you get periods of political turmoil, "populism" etc.
People get very angry that their hard fought position in the game is wiped
away with a new ruleset. "Polarization" especially politically is just the
future being here but unevenly distributed, and the legacy ruleset isn't going
to be deprecated or sunset quietly especially while those about to be obsolete
still have a legacy voice.

"Obviously if I was gay I would have a different story."

The analogy with the above is white people starting to abandon the Democratic
party, resulting in Trump, etc.

~~~
kelukelugames
lol, this is comical. White people are not persecuted by a major US political
party run by and composed of mostly whites. Sure, some people perceive it so
because they have a narrow...argh...different understanding of the world.

