As Olivia Rodrigo once said, probably not in reference to Salt Lake City, co-comparison is killin’ me slowly…my jealousy, jealousy started following me.
The discordance in verb tense and the overt expression of teenage female angst have served as inspiration, even for a grammatically-inclined, middle-aged male blogger like me.
Why?
It’s just that Salt Lake City is—how should I put it?—killin’ me.
A couple weeks ago, I took the high road and apologized for mistreating Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, making clear that the final destination of their religious movement is now running circles around its birthplace.
But the numbers—they still didn’t make sense.
As I am prone to do, I started scrolling through a list of US metro areas by population. The table started with New York City, but I was already down around Louisville (KY), Richmond (VA), and Birmingham (AL). How could it be that a metro area that runs in these circles has an NBA team, NHL team, MLS team, and might even land an MLB team?!
Even more puzzling was that just below this batch of metros were places like Grand Rapids (MI), Tulsa (OK), and yes, Rochester (NY).
How is it that a relatively unimpressive patch in Utah, somewhere near the borders of Idaho and Wyoming, with hardly more people than Hartford (CT), is—in the words of Rodrigo—getting all the things I want?
I started clicking around the internet, the song still running through my head.
I think I think too much.
One by one, I eliminated the possibilities:
It isn’t the damn Wasatch Mountains—you can’t build a place on skiers and views.
Nor is it that shriveling joke of a lake they call the Great Salt Lake.
It isn’t the population density, which is less than half the population density in Rochester (NY).
Sure, the place has highways and universities, but so does everywhere.
It isn’t the supposedly liberal politics—c’mon now.
Then, embarrassed, I remembered the only number that matters.
And I knew Wikipedia would have a list.
Near the top were the likes of San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Boulder (CO), and Washington (DC).
Down among the mediocre were all those other dumps—Louisville, Richmond, Birmingham, Grand Rapids, Tulsa, and Rochester.
But Salt Lake City was nowhere to be found.
I scrolled all the way back up and then started down more slowly, this time focusing just beyond the top 10.
There, on a list of 382 US metropolitan areas by GDP per capita (in 2021 dollars), at number 11, was Salt Lake City.
And now, it finally makes sense.
All I see is what I should be…I’m losing it, all I get’s jealousy, jealousy.
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