Utah May Be One of Fastest-Growing States

SALT LAKE CITY - With a big influx of retirees and lots of fertile, family-minded Mormons, Utah is projected to be one of the five fastest-growing states over the next three decades.

The Census Bureau said Thursday that Utah's population is expected to increase 56 percent, or by more than 1.2 million people, between 2000 and 2030. Nevada and Arizona are expected to double in population, and a gain of nearly 80 percent is projected in Florida and almost 60 percent in Texas.

One reason for the boom in Utah is the Mormon church. It is estimated at least 70 percent of the state's 2.2 million residents are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Because of the church's emphasis on big families, Utah's fertility rate is 2.56 children per woman of childbearing age, the highest in the nation. (The national rate was 2.03 in 2001.) The state also has the nation's highest average of people per household, 3.13, and the lowest median age, 27.5.

It also has one of the nation's fastest-growing older populations. Its 65-and-older population has climbed 27 percent in the past 10 years, and will rise an additional 28 percent in the next decade, according to the Utah Division of Aging and Adult Services.

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Every day there is another subdivision going up.

Congressional apportionment must await the decennial census.

Why don't they go wild and encourage some Baptists to move there? Or even play with danger and look the other way while a few families of worldly Methodists slip in!

Gotta go for the gusto.

Wonder if they're all going to go down to Provo when they get home and attend Tabernacle Tech.