Utah Is The Fastest Growing State in the US

Utah's population continues to grow, but the rate has slowed somewhat from the boom times of the past few years.

Still, our grown hasn't slowed as much as other areas and so Utah leads the nation in population growth.

Business Week has this interesting article on Utah's population trends. Below are excerpts.

Utah won the designation Monday as the fastest growing state based on figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau for the year ending in July. The population grew by 2.5 percent to more than 2.7 million.

But Utah's growth rate has slowed since earlier this decade, and the rate has continued to decline since July, state demographer Juliette Tennert said Monday.

Still, Utah won the growth race because of the one thing that keeps the state expanding through good times and bad: a high birth rate attributed to the state's dominant faith, Mormonism, and family oriented culture.

"Utah is really unique in that over 60 percent of the growth is natural increase," Tennert said.

The face of Utah's population also is changing. Within a generation, the state's 60-and-older crowd will be larger than the school-age population, part of a nationwide demographic shift, according to a University of Utah study.

The study released last week by the university's Bureau of Economic and Business Research said that a third of the state's population will be made up of racial or ethnic minorities a generation from now.

Developers and real-estate lenders say southern Utah still is a draw for so-called equity refugees from California and other places who are looking for relatively cheaper living in a mild climate.