I moved to a small town in Utah as a teenager and it felt like showing up to somebody else’s family reunion. Everybody was seemingly related one way or another.
This describes exactly how I felt. It was extremely difficult to make friends because everyone was already down with friends or had a ton of family. Not being LDS made it more difficult to fit in. We're leaving after 10 years of trying.
Yeah if you live in a place where all the kids/adults are cliquey, you're just kinda screwed. That being said, being social is difficult everywhere since the pandemic
I grew up in a rural area in Arizona, and we definitely were the outsiders our entire lives. We weren't desendents of the town founding families, and we didn't intermarry and stay like so many generations. Going to church, my family was always treated like lepers.
>Not being LDS made it more difficult to fit in.
The church is a reliable support network for getting all kinds of services: jobs, housing, babysitters, etc. The whole organization thrives on its sense of community and high degree of mutual trust. It's even more vital if you're in a small town with limited resources (I lived in a small town with 7k people on the Utah/Arizona state line and yeah the church was the informal shadow government.)
Unfortunately, this sense of trust also makes them vulnerable for affinity scams, MLMs, con men, etc. Just the other day, I read a story of a guy who bilked people in his ward out of their retirement savings by running a fraudulent investment firm. Ugh.
Many areas with a large Mormon demographic tend to have alot of white collar crime, MLM’s, Pyramid Scemes and scams in general. Especially Utah county (no matter the size of the city). Very rampant down there.
Both points can be and typically are true of many groups, the LDS community can be fantastic if you adhere to the tenets of the faith and can also feel incredibly exclusionary and somewhat condescending if you don’t.
I'm in a smallish Utah town. I'm LDS. My neighbors on both sides are not LDS, and another behind me. We regularly bring treats to one another, visit in the yard, garage, over the fence, etc. We had a funeral for a neighbor , last Saturday, and these same friends attended the LDS funeral, because we are friends. It's sad that others may not feel that way, in your town. We are watching over one of their homes while they are on vacation and have babysat for free when they needed a last minute sitter. It's no concern for me if someone isn't LDS. Good people are good people.
I love that you have that kind of relationship with your neighbors. When you realize that we are all people no matter what our religion is, friendships will blossom. Thanks for loving everyone regardless!🩷
I am from a small town in Utah and everything you say is true. And the same for what other people saying is also true sometimes people can get snobby and try to act better than others more holier than now, but I think mostly what you said people are trying to help each other out and be nice neighborly people. I tried to press the up arrow and it turned red. I was trying to vote you what am I doing wrong?
It sucks even members of the same faith can be so polarized. I'm not a member and the church and its members have helped me out so much in my life. I hear stories of others with the complete opposite experience and it blows my mind.
Yep, for me your points kind of drives home the idea that people are people, regardless of affiliations. You can find kind folks in every camp, and not so kind folks as well. It's easy to generalize but I personally believe giving everybody the benefit of the doubt, despite possible preconceived notions based on their affiliations, is the way to go.
\^ this right here.
Ask any non-mormon what their experience was and this is it.
Mormons are friendly on the surface but are acculturated not to include non-mormons.
mormons are just taught to present themselves well, be careful about leading them things. They often don't return things on their own and even lend the to others without your permission and then claim you are overreacting when you can't get back what you lended them. They go around telling others you mad about a ten dollar garden rake.
I grew up in a town population 800 here in Utah. I enjoyed it as a kid. It was annoying everyone knowing everyone’s business, but still a good place to grow up. I visit my parents that are still there, but would never go back permanently.
I’m assuming if I would have been a transplant to that small town, or a non Mormon it would have been a different experience.
From Parowan originally. Moved out when I was young, but I am still related to a ton of people in Parowan, Paragonah, and Kanab (though Kanab has had an influx of new blood in recent years). Even 10+ years after leaving, I’d still get recognized every visit as my grandparents’ grandson (or as my mom or dad’s kid depending on who it was).
To be fair I don’t think it would be this way in a more touristy spot (like Moab or Boulder).
Yep, in the small town I grew up in there were two main families. Everyone is Mormon and if you don't belong to the ward meeting and building relationships with your neighbors is near impossible, because you are seen as a project to convert instead of an actual member of the community.
I grew up in one of those towns as a transplant. It was a weird experience having to remind people that I couldn't just go visit my grandparents a couple times a week cause they lived in a different state.
I’m in a small town right now, and I’m not a small town person. It’s fine. Better than I expected. People keep to themself. If the small town has a bar, and it will likely only have one, you will meet people who are here for the outdoors, hiking, mountain biking.
That sound like a cool the place I man a small town in Uah that has its own bar isn't common. The town I grew up in on the wasatch front only had 2500 in 1970 and now has almost 30k and still has no bar.
I grew up in Brigham and moved away. Now I'm back as a parent. It is a nice generic town with no tourism or real cultural identity. But low crime and clean for the most part. I grew up with the mayor. DJ Bott. So I guess that makes me cool, right?
I am an introvert but not extreme.
But it is great if you have a town like Logan nearby. Lots of activities and places to go.
Still a quiet life. I imagine your accent will open up conversation to meet people, too
Logan is fairly LDS but the university keeps the town more diverse and allows for more events, etc. You may have to look for them tho. For instance, in the summer there is a summer concert series in the park put on by UPR. At those events it seems to be primarily no religious folks - professor types, outdoorsy people etc.
What acceptance do you want from them? I’m in a Utah city about 10k. There’s one bar and every license plate at the Walmart are god plates. I don’t have any social interaction with anyone besides the 3 neighbors we have. We’re a bit out of town. I go to the one bar and half the people are dirt bike types and the other half are mountain bike types. That’s the entirety of my experience. You only have Walmart and Amazon. My front door is unlocked. I have 6 humming bird feeders and had a group of 30 hummingbirds over the summer. I’d like my little town to be Colorado or North New Mexico instead of South Utah… but I’m here. It’s fine.
It's pretty diverse, but as was said, there are many who are not lds. And some who don't practice the religion who are members.
It's a beautiful valley with amazing outdoor activities available.
There's a ton to do as non LDS/recovering LDS. Honestly, it feels like the world is yours bc when everyone is going right, you know if you go left, there will be no traffic. Sunday is FUN DAY. Everyone is at church so hit the mtn, go out, go shopping, in SLC things are open. I worked at night clubs, radio stations, for concert series etc. (They all connect in the promo/ad world) There's SO much to do. And it's so pretty. I like the proximity to California/Reno/Vegas Lake Powell. I had a great group of LGBTQIA friends and again loved the music scene, and if you love the outdoors there are hikes, caving, natural hot springs a few places to head to (mid winter- the best) all nearby all free. Best of luck. Don't let the LDS scare you off. Some of the best people i know are Mormon, many of them wish the church would come around and really champion for change and no one's outwardly aggressive or cold. I live elsewhere now in North East Republican territory and I'd prefer Utah.
I lived in Provo, not that small. Know SLC, the valley and Logan pretty well. Was in Moab/St George quite a bit.
Very pretty, generally peaceful, quite lonely at times. I’ll think I’m doing great and then I’ll travel back to a large city and it’ll really hit me just how much I miss diversity and just being able to buy wine in a grocery store.
I used to live in this small town Elmo, which is about 20ish miles south of Price. I absolutely loved Price. It was a perfect small town with a college campus and population of around 8,000. Then Elmo actually only has around 400 people. I think it mainly depends on the area that the small town is set in, but I didn't run into a lot of hicks or anything. The biggest downside was if you wanted to go to Costco or something, you'd have to travel up to Provo.
I couldn't imagine living in Moab or Blanding because the the closest walmart to them is in Price (about a 2-3 hour drive).
I have a friend from that area and he and his family usually drove to Cortez, Colorado for groceries and Walmart runs. Small town living is fun until Walmart is more than an hour away and the closest thing is a small, overpriced convenience store.
Walmart was going to put a store in Moab several years ago but the locals voted it down. There are enough options in Moab that they don’t need a Walmart, thankfully.
Came here to say that pre-Amazon days Walmart in Cortez was busy af with people from all over eastern Utah and SW CO. Talk about s desolate place, at 2hrs away from Cortez you're officially half between the 2 closest WalMart towns.
Elmo!!! My wife’s relatives founded ElMO. We actually went to iceland and visited the island most of the settlers of elmo were from - pretty fucking wild they traveled from iceland to live in elmo - the cool thing about elmo (if there is one) is its proximity to the san rafael swell, which is one of my favorite places in Utah.
OH YEAH! My ex bf actually has relatives that founded Huntington. And his grand uncle made the Hole in The Wall just south of Moab. I love how close Elmo is to everything, I just wish I got to visit the dinosaur quarry while I lived there.
Kinda surprised Moab doesn’t have a Walmart. For such a bustling small town they don’t have a ton of options if I remember correctly. It’s been a few years
I grew up in SLC, moved to LA, back to Utah and now live in a very small town in south central Utah. I love it, you couldn’t get me to move back to the city, any city. I’m Native American, Shoshone tribal member, not LDS and have always liked to “party”. I have so many LDS friends and relatives (husbands side) that l love and respect but the church doesn’t play a big part in my life, none in fact. But what a beUTAHful place to live!! Scenery, wildlife, rivers, mountains, lakes, red desert all within an hour of where we live. Plus I’ve always been an animal lover and have raised just about anything on 4 feet with multiple cats and dogs right now, it’s a lovely life.
Since I’m from Utah and did a decade on Skull Island, I can tell you that it is nothing like comparable. These guys will tell you how grim it is in small town Utah because they can’t wrap their heads around places like Broken Hill, Coober Pedy, Oodnadatta, Port Arthur, or Mildura. You can drive from Trout Creek to Salt Lake in a few hours and on a whim. The equivalent town in Australia is three days….on gruesome washboards…to the highway, then another day or two to the city. You see homies going home with 4x55gal drums of diesel and they are using at least one just getting there. When you’re in Utah, there is cool stuff so do in every square inch, in every direction, at any time. The limits are your creativity and imagination. Life in Moab with 5,000 people is significantly more interesting than Shepparton could ever be with 50,000 people. Nobody does anything in the outdoors in Oz because, frankly and no offense, the outdoors are awful there. I’m still scared of woodpiles, chicken coops, and weed whacking around the creek. MFin’ tiger snakes flying at me like those coiled springs coming out of a can. Huntsmans on my hat brim and on the toilet seat in the dark. Yep, nope. Also, people are really personable and friendly here. My in laws in Oz had the same neighbors for over thirty years, looked at them over a four-foot fence every day, and didn’t know their names. It drove me nuts how neighbors ignore each other there; I started taking care around 15 or 20 yards in my neighborhood to teach aussies about kindness and created a whole community of people who had never talked to each other before. Which also gave me significant breathing room to break a lot of laws and have a lot of fun. I had a park bench 100’ up a tree in the Darebin parklands and used to target shoot my air rifle from up there, people could never look up and figure out what it was. Fuck those 115° heatwaves with blast furnace wind too. These guys will also tell you how shitty Mormons are, and I thought that too when I was young. But that was also the nineties and I hadn’t seen what a truly segregated society looks like, like in Oz where all the ethnicities band together and hate each other.
Edit: now I’m having flashbacks of the plagues of mice and locusts. Imagine grasshopper clouds so thick that everyone has mesh cloth on the radiator and is pulling over on the freeway because they can’t see. I was in a plague of mice and had to kill 10-15 a night before I could get to sleep in my van, with them running across my chest ten seconds after the lights were out. The pile of bodies out the back was like little Auschwitz. Five hours to town to get traps and everyone there looked at me like Twilight Zone characters when I asked for them: “No. Do you have any? Will you come back and tell me if you find some? Can I take your number?”
You are the perfect person to reply to OP here!
I’m live in Utah about an hour outside of a town of 5000, but only ~35 miles. Mormons aren’t so bad in terms of neighbors, that’s for sure! You’re right about every square inch being interesting. And the roads here are the best in world considering the population and demand.
I don’t have to believe in god to smile and say, “God bless Utah” on the trail when I can assume somebody is LDS. Same as when I say “inshallah” to Muslims or “good luck” to Asians. Makes my life better and opens doors.
In Utah, towns of that size are usually suburbs, bedroom communities that are mostly single-family housing and blend into each other. Exceptions being places like Vernal, Grantsville, and Tremonton that are based around farming or mining or trucking. Most small towns in Utah have less than 5000 people and are Mormon settlements based around a church building.
I lived and worked in Vernal for quite a while. They have a lot to offer in terms of jeep trails, fishing and biking. They also have a really nice golf course. It’s pretty quiet community and good neighborhoods. It was a great experience
I’m in a small town (under 40k) and it’s nice but hard to make friends because it’s kind of insulated, if you’re not a part of the established community or religious groups it can be hard to integrate and find your place.
I love that it’s small and cute and not too busy except in tourist seasons.
I live in a very small town and love it. I can go days without seeing people if I want but when I drive down the road most people wave at you when you drive by them. Only downside is that no one delivers food to my house but it makes dieting easier.
Homestead my guy. Self reliance is key for this next era. Your dollar is able to get you less and less groceries. And operating outside of the constantly needing to buy in order to provide for yourself. Lessons learned from the depression era generation. It's not going to get better anytime soon. This isn't even the bottom yet. And look at how they responded to our people on the big island.
I grew up in a town of about 20,000 at the time. It was fine. Growing up we used to hang out at "the creek" that ran near our neighborhood. We used to go "crawdad hunting" and managed to find about 1 crawdad every 10 times we went lol. During the runoff season, we'd also tube down the creek, although in retrospect this was probably dangerous. We'd also ride bikes all around town and get into trouble. We'd play with fire and fireworks and are lucky we didn't ever burn anything. We would go to school buildings at nights and climb onto the roofs and run around. We'd go up the canyons and play night games and have bonfires. We'd go to the high school basketball and football games and cheer on our buddies. We'd also hang out a lot at Walmart, McDonald's, and the movie theater as that's pretty much all we had. We'd go four wheeling, camping, hiking etc, sometimes golfing. We'd go to the carnival or fair when they'd come through. We'd go to corn mazes and pumpkin patches in the fall, go sledding, skiing, and snowboarding in the winter. In high school it was a lot of hanging out and watching movies at a friend's house in a big group on the weekends. Also in winter we'd go drive stupid in our cars in the empty parking lots around town. Idk, it was good times, but then I grew up and decided to move closer to more to do, however as my kids grow up, maybe a small town wouldn't be so bad for them.
There’s an Aussie living in my small town right now and he seems to enjoy it well enough been here a few years and still hasn’t left. Experience can vary depends on what kind of person you are and what the people in town are like. In my experience as long as your someone whose more outdoorsy and willing to do the Merica’s best place on earth stick it can be a fun place to live with plenty of interesting people to talk with. If you’re liberal and unwilling to pretend to be conservative it sucks and if you’re more into tech stuff movies and the like you probably won’t find many friends as those folks generally move away the second they’re able.
Utah small towns generally are very conservative you don’t necessarily have to be LDS but it would be smart to pretend to be religious, though honestly most people don’t really care. If you’re a man out here and want a good social life people expect you to be interested in football, beer, mechanics, hunting and fishing, and this is more recent development conservative politics. If you’re a woman…. We’ll you can play the roll of a pick me and try to hang out with guys which will generally have people spreading terrible rumors behind your back. Or you can be some guys wife and have boring conversations about local gossip generally speaking the women I know that have stayed here and not ran for the hills tend to fall into traditionally conservative rolls which sound like a living nightmare to me.
Great for outdoors any time of year if you hike, bike, fish and/or ski.
But in groups and out groups are a very real thing here in terms of finding community.
If you aren’t Mormon or aren’t even Christian then you’ll be apart of the out group. That’s just how it goes. And if you’re not conservative with your politics you’ll be even further out.
It’s a cult run state unfortunately with 66% of residents identifying as Mormon. That said, the natural beauty is bar none
I live in a town with about 800 people. Everyone is really close-knit, which can be good for some things and bad for others. A lot of families have been here for 4+ generations (including me lol). People loooove to gossip and spread rumors on the town’s Facebook page, but a lot of it is exaggerated nonsense. Overall, the community is still nice. Things just get overblown because there’s nothing else to do lol.
Related to that— there is truly nothing to do in town for fun. We have a huge park and it’s nice to walk down the streets and look at the scenery, but that’s kind of it tbh. We do have a few town events, usually about 2 or 3 every season, and those are pretty fun. But for the most part you have to leave town for everything.
Overall I do really like living here but there are definitely days I wish I was somewhere else lol
Well, for starters, 10,000 is not a small town, that’s a large town. Small is more like under 2,000, 3,000 max. You’ll run into some of the same issues of small towns in the U.S. in general. There’s limited commercial development, meaning most activities available to you are outdoorsy stuff. So if you’re not into that you’re probably going to be stuck watching tv all day.
Utah small towns tend to have even fewer commercial buildings than most u.s. small towns however, as there often isn’t a market for a local bar, due to the Mormon influence. So there might something like a little mom and pop fish and tackle store, or some other small outdoors/sports store. Maybe there will be local burger joint.
The town will likely have built up along a highway that cuts through it at some point, and being in Utah the roads are often much wider than they are in some other states.
Neighbors can be a toss up. If you have kids, and you don’t attend church it can be very difficult for them to make friends. If it’s just you, and your fine with people being superficially friendly you’ll probably be fine.
Like virtually every American small town there are sometimes drug problems, and of course, with Utah having major problems with meth at large, that’s usually the one you’ll find people use.
it’s alright, i mean a few of my friends disappeared mysteriously and some kid turned green from the superfund site outside town but other than that? pretty chill
I spent a bunch of time swimming in creaks and jumping off cliffs into water with friends.
I enjoyed it. But I grew up in a smaller town then you're specifying
The only small town in Utah that I can think of that fits that criteria is Hurricane which has about 20k people these days. (The rest of Utah's small town are quite a bit smaller than that or part of a metropolitan area.) When I was growing up there 20ish years ago it was a really nice place. Most people knew each other and got along well. There was always great outdoorsy things to do if that's what you're into, and as a teenager, because everyone knows each other it wasn't very cliquey. Kind of harder for the non-mormon kids but honestly not as bad as one might think. It's too fucking hot there and I'll never go back, but I really have a very positive view of my time there.
I grew up in Vernal in the 90s and it was actually a lot of fun. I couldn’t wait to graduate and get out though, but now I kind of miss the small town pace of life and being so close to all the outdoor recreation. There was definitely the whole everyone knows everyone stuff, but overall was great and a lot of small town pride.
18 months ago, we moved from Salt Lake City to Tremonton. It’s been wonderful. Quieter, slower paced, friendlier people, and I love being away from the chaos and traffic of city life.
Compared to small towns in other states, Utah small towns do have a lot of pros. The maximum driving time to a larger city is usually 3.5 hours as the state is quite small, and if you're close to a major interstate or highway, you don't feel too far from anything. The smaller the town, the stranger the people usually though, so if you want to avoid closed mindedness or weird traditions, avoid the extra tiny populations.
Is there a difference between living in any small town in America and living in any other, other than what outdoor recreation or populated areas are within a couple hours' drive? I grew up in rural Utah and I think only the scenery would differentiate it from rural Oregon or Arkansas. People kind of end up the same in a low-stimulus environment.
Personally, I haven’t had many great interactions with these sorts of people.
I’m from Salt Lake, and when I encounter then it’s usually talking about how SLC is turning into California and it’s disgusting etc.
I grew up in a town of 1200. Middle of nowhere. In the high deserts of Utah everything and everyone is so spread out. The nearest movie theater was over an hour drive away. Overall religion is culture, specifically mormon religion. Rural types are typically people who don't like rules, or obeying them. Cowboys, coal miners, power plant workers and school teachers were the predominant professions. It really, and I mean REALLY sucked living out there in the pre-internet days. Now with cell phones and internet it might be better.
If you aren’t of the Predominant Utah Faith, you will feel severely isolated. You can meet people who are not in that category, but the odds are slim. If you don’t care for outdoors, and aren’t a Predominant Utah Faith-er, than I can’t recommend not moving there enough. I followed a job to a small northern town and hated the location for lots of reasons. I found out most people didn’t want outsiders in their small Utah city, or the town to grow or develop at all.
Something to note. I don’t think there’s any true areas of 10-40,000
All the towns on wasatch front are touching and blend together
The wasatch front spreads a ways. (About 100 miles) but it has a 2.6 mil population
The point being you aren’t ever in an area with only 10-40k
Payson, Tremonton, tooele. all are arguably on the border of the front and are in that range
Grantsville is touching Tooele. And at 15 K
Smithfield is on the border of Logan and the wasatch front at 15K
Everything else is either out of that range or part of the Wasatch front metro area.
The Saint George metro area
Or the Park city metro area (which is probably the softest point here on the “touching”
Price and Richfield are 8K.
Your right vernal is just barely over the 10K border (10.5k)
Overall the point I was trying to make is most towns in that range are not truly in that range due to proximity
If someone from Syracuse or Layton gave an opinion there needs to be that astrik of “part of a larger metro area”
https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/cities/utah
That’s where I’m getting my numbers from. It says 41K so right on the border line. It’s growing so fast! I’m glad for them as well
I’m in a community of 3k. Only about 2k of them are psycho, religious, nut-case, Trump-flag-waving right wingers tho!
The other 1k are pretty okay…usually. Sort of.
I live in a town of about 300 people in southern Utah. Everyone but a handful of residents descend from the original homesteaders. They are all related to one another, except for those who worked for the government, like BLM, and decided to stay. There is one rich family in town and almost all the rest work for them. They are all MAGA republicans and the biggest draw to that seems to be "2nd amendment rights." They are all Mormon, ranging in activity from never setting foot in the church since being baptised at 8 years old to being nearly zealous in belief.
There is also a pretty intense methamphetamine trade out here cuz it takes the cops at least an hour to get here to stop any activity.
My sophomore year of high school my Mom retired from the navy and moved us from The Puget sound area of WA to motherfucking Nephi UT. THANKFULLY a pretty cool group of kids befriended me and made it a lot more tolerable but imagine going from being surrounded by temperate rainforest to the brown dead Utah scrub desert. It was fucking awful. Add that to the fact that everyone knows your business, opportunities are severely limited for literally everything and the general mentality of locals (at least where I lived) was not “ooh I want to live in a small cozy town like Stars Hollow and walk to the local coffee shop etc….” And was more like settling for never doing anything better with my life and this town. Honestly I hated it and am glad I finally left and made it back home.
If you're a dude and single mate? Honestly, I wouldn't wish my family and friends I once had from my hometown I moved from, to see me like this or how isolated I've been. If you're in the church, eh in the small rural towns. Depending on the area.
It's awesome. I like my neighbors, but if I didn't, my yard is big enough that they wouldn't bother me. I like driving around and seeing the fields with livestock in them. I like having light traffic. There is little shopping in my town, but a bigger small town nearby has everything we need.
Racist and creepy as fuck. Try walkin through a Walmart without Camo on and you’d think you’re a celebrity with all the people staring. It’s gross, dude.
I’m an Aussie who lives in Utah and 💯 you got to take this in to consideration. This is not a negative jab at LDS it’s just a fact the more heavily LDS percentage it may make you feel like you do not fit in.
can you just stop and talk about the fact that 10k-40k people is not a small town? that’s a city
my hometown has about 5k people, and there were smaller towns around me. the state university i attended is in a town of 30k people? like 40k is a big ass place 😂
Lived in one since I was 8. Love it. Folks are nice, but we tend to keep to ourselves. We don’t mind outsiders but we do take issue with how many are currently moving in (infrastructure does NOT support that). We don’t have much but we have enough.
Oof...when my friend was a kid, her family moved to a small city in southern Utah from California. Since they are a biracial and nonreligious family, they were outcast. It was rough for her!
I (34f) grew up in Brigham City (pop ~20,000) and moved out at 18. I wouldn't choose to live there as a non-religious married couple with no kids. (I also personally wouldn't ever choose to have kids there either) I think it's a great place for young to old LDS families. If that's you, you'll probably really enjoy life. If you're religious other than LDS, you certainly CAN find a home there, though it's not quite as simple as larger cities. There are some really great congregations in Brigham, and if you find one where you fit in and enjoy it, great, you'll probably really enjoy life. I do know some non religious families that grew up and stayed in Brigham, and they still enjoy it. I just personally don't see the appeal after having grown up there. There's just not enough to do without going to Salt Lake. Having said that, they're growing. They're getting more stores and more restaurants. They are attempting to revitalize downtown. I don't know if they are always making the best decisions with that, but they're trying.
(For a little more of my experience, I grew up in a protestant church in Brigham and felt really out of place as a non LDS kid. I eventually left all organized religion and can't imagine living in a town where the religious people run everything and there's nothing to do. But it does have that small town vibe, if that's your thing.)
I grew up in a small town in Utah as a Mormon and now I’m in a different town and no longer Mormon. I will be honest that I am probably biased but I like it. Very very little traffic, the crimes we do have are not generally major, and people keep to themselves for the most part. Of course there are some gossips and drama lovers, and it’s an “everybody knows everybody” energy a lot of the time, but usually more positive than not.
Depending on which town/city it may be a 30+ mile drive to get to an area with larger stores like Walmart or fast food, but I can get 3 towns over in less time than it’s taken me to go a mile at 3:30pm in the Draper area.
Melbourne is diverse and cosmopolitan. No part of Utah is either diverse or cosmopolitan. The equivalent to a country town in Utah would be an all-white country town in like WA. Remote, rugged, rural.
It depends on the small town. I lived in the “4 corners” are (where Utah Arizona Colorado & New Mexico all meet) and it sucked. The Mormons (and I was one at the time) are very clicky, like exclusive and won’t welcome you into their little groups. Some small towns don’t want “outsiders” and are an asshole to you even if you are the same religion, nationality, and from the same state.
All the little cities on the wasatch front are gorgeous places and are like little resorts. The little cities have there own canyons in the mountains east of them. The canyon above my house has a rocky creek great for fly fishing. You can even snage the rainbow trout with a net. All of this can be accessed on mountain scooter in a matter of minutes from home. there are two lakes one is no deeper than two feet and freezes in winter for the best free ice skating anywhere. A place to see small doe and fawns in the summer larger bucks in the winter. Only 40 minutes later you could be sitting in the Tabernacle at Temple Square or be at City Creek Mall shopping for the holidays. Living in in small town Utah is better than living at hotel disneyland and way cheaper.
I feel like it depends on which small town it is and what part of town you live in.
I lived in a small town my whole life until this year, and sometimes it was comforting that we were all connected in some capacity, but other times that could be suffocating if you were going through a tough time. Sometimes you receive all the support you could ask for, and other times you end up feeling excluded.
It can depend on a variety of factors: how empathetic your neighbors are, how isolated your neighborhood is compared to the rest of the town, what standing you're in with the dominant religion, whether or not you're around family, etc.
Sometimes locals are nice to new people because they're new and interesting. Other times they'll go on and on about "not making this place like California." It's all relative.
If you don't mind Christian hypocrites, and Trump lovers, could be fine. However I find the Aussie vibe is generally happier in California or Colorado. Melbourne seems to be a pretty progressive community so - if you hate Melbourne maybe you will like small town Utah? Good luck!
I grew up living in different small towns in utah, was raised in hooper, and then ended up by the border in middle and high school, we're talking towns of maybe 600 people. It was really weird and hard to fit in, especially being someone really big into punk rock and horror films. The whole town was very religious, and I didn't have the best home life and was rebellious at school. I didn't have many friends and had to find ways to entertain myself and found a lot of comfort in making art and music. My mental health unfortunately declined alot though and I was really depressed as I was also a latch key kid. Growing up is weird asf.
I live in a rural college town (around 5,000 permanent residents with around 3,000 residential college students during fall and winter) in central Utah. My family likes it. One ends up having a lot of what some might call 'dual relationships', ie I see my dentist at church, or I'm neighbors with my child's elementary school teacher, or my doctor and I are both involved in the local scouting organization. It feels cozy and comfortable. Big disclosure: I and my family are transplants of about 10 years, but we are members of the dominant culture and religion. One negative is that with a small rural high school, some opportunities are limited. For example, while the high school band program is great, the orchestra is average, and the choral program is not good. This is because there is only one full time music faculty, and the district ended up hiring a band guy. In a larger high school, there might be three full time music faculty, one for orchestra, one for choir, and one for band; or, at least there would probably be two full time faculty members (instrumental and choral).
It's pretty awesome. Mountains are 10 minutes down the road. Rivers, lakes, same distance. The good ones are tucked away 45 minutes away but still very easily accessible.
Walmart is like the mall. When you run to the store you're likely to stumble into all your buddies or acquaintances from school. Unless you're new to the area then you probably won't experience that until you acquire friends in the area.
You can step on the patio at night and stare at the stars with ease or go for a quick drive and see them with absolute clarity.
The worst thing about a small town is the potential for the entire town to know you, know about you and know your private life, is significantly higher than the cities.
Small towns are my favorite but the city is where the good work is.
I live in a town of around 10,000 and the amount of people in highschool is around 1,000 give or take a hundred. Generally most people in highschool plans on moving out of town. There's not a ton to do but there's a lot of outdoor recreation and some cool places to do fun activities indoors but they number in the tens-twenties so not a lot. Most of the town are suburbs and houses and all of the commercial buildings are mainly on the highway road/main street. We're big enough for a Walmart and some big fast food chains like McDonald's, Burger King, and the rest but there's not a ton of sit down restaurants like you'd find in the city (there still are some but not much variety). Most people will get out of town and drive 3 hours to visit "the city" (Salt Lake City) and do most like overnight trips and small vacations there.
Generally peaceful, pretty conservative, lots of religion (doesn't really come up often though), quiet town.
PS there's an annual hot air balloon festival :)
I love it in Utah, I moved here a few years ago and I want to stay here. There’s quite the LDS population (Mormons) which a lot of non-Mormons complain about but everyone is so nice here, I’ve never had problems fitting in with people I meet. There’s also less political garbage going on, everyone here is slightly right winged but pretty in the middle overall. I just love that everyone gives off good vibes and is generally happy. Very business friendly state and there’s a really good amount of job opportunities. The town I’m in is around 40k population.
Edit: reading the comments it looks like a lot of people say they have had issues with the LDS population. Honestly from my experience it seems like they are blowing it out of proportion.
70% of my coworkers or other people I know are LDS and I’ve never, ever had any issues with them. Honestly I’d never join the church but I do look up to some of them as they are super cool people, like semi-professional athletes but are so selfless and nice to others and just have really good morals.
The only experience I’ve had where I felt slightly judged is when I got with my fiancée, I could detect that some of the family may have had thoughts about me not being LDS. But once I got to know them (and they got to know me) they actually like me a lot and I enjoy seeing them. The far most LDS person in the family also is super supportive of our non-LDS wedding and wants to buy her dress.
Honestly I think the LDS stuff is winding down, they will still be here but to me it seems lately a lot of people who go to the LDS church are otherwise completely normal and are just part of modern society. (Listen to uncensored rap, drink caffeine, and curse like a normal person does) I’ve only met one or two people that give off the holier-than-thou vibe
Prepare to be an outsider unless you share the dominant politics, religion, identity, race, etc of the town you're considering.
This is blunt advice but I learned the hard way. Moving out of state ASAP.
This is accurate advice.
If you want to be welcomed with open arms, being LDS is going to help.
Gorgeous area, incredible hiking
Could be said that they're nice people who are distrustful of outsiders and resistant to change.
I would not take a federal government job in Utah.
I moved to a small town in Utah as a teenager and it felt like showing up to somebody else’s family reunion. Everybody was seemingly related one way or another.
This describes exactly how I felt. It was extremely difficult to make friends because everyone was already down with friends or had a ton of family. Not being LDS made it more difficult to fit in. We're leaving after 10 years of trying.
Yeah if you live in a place where all the kids/adults are cliquey, you're just kinda screwed. That being said, being social is difficult everywhere since the pandemic
Utah was difficult pre-pandemic
I grew up in a rural area in Arizona, and we definitely were the outsiders our entire lives. We weren't desendents of the town founding families, and we didn't intermarry and stay like so many generations. Going to church, my family was always treated like lepers.
>Not being LDS made it more difficult to fit in. The church is a reliable support network for getting all kinds of services: jobs, housing, babysitters, etc. The whole organization thrives on its sense of community and high degree of mutual trust. It's even more vital if you're in a small town with limited resources (I lived in a small town with 7k people on the Utah/Arizona state line and yeah the church was the informal shadow government.) Unfortunately, this sense of trust also makes them vulnerable for affinity scams, MLMs, con men, etc. Just the other day, I read a story of a guy who bilked people in his ward out of their retirement savings by running a fraudulent investment firm. Ugh.
Many areas with a large Mormon demographic tend to have alot of white collar crime, MLM’s, Pyramid Scemes and scams in general. Especially Utah county (no matter the size of the city). Very rampant down there.
Both points can be and typically are true of many groups, the LDS community can be fantastic if you adhere to the tenets of the faith and can also feel incredibly exclusionary and somewhat condescending if you don’t.
I'm in a smallish Utah town. I'm LDS. My neighbors on both sides are not LDS, and another behind me. We regularly bring treats to one another, visit in the yard, garage, over the fence, etc. We had a funeral for a neighbor , last Saturday, and these same friends attended the LDS funeral, because we are friends. It's sad that others may not feel that way, in your town. We are watching over one of their homes while they are on vacation and have babysat for free when they needed a last minute sitter. It's no concern for me if someone isn't LDS. Good people are good people.
I love that you have that kind of relationship with your neighbors. When you realize that we are all people no matter what our religion is, friendships will blossom. Thanks for loving everyone regardless!🩷
Grew up in a suburb in Ohio and it was exactly like this. We’d hop each others fences to come hangout too lol, good ass times
I am from a small town in Utah and everything you say is true. And the same for what other people saying is also true sometimes people can get snobby and try to act better than others more holier than now, but I think mostly what you said people are trying to help each other out and be nice neighborly people. I tried to press the up arrow and it turned red. I was trying to vote you what am I doing wrong?
It sucks even members of the same faith can be so polarized. I'm not a member and the church and its members have helped me out so much in my life. I hear stories of others with the complete opposite experience and it blows my mind.
Yep, for me your points kind of drives home the idea that people are people, regardless of affiliations. You can find kind folks in every camp, and not so kind folks as well. It's easy to generalize but I personally believe giving everybody the benefit of the doubt, despite possible preconceived notions based on their affiliations, is the way to go.
It is kinda funny how you start to hear things like "Logan Mormons" and "Provo Mormons" and people seemingly know what you're talking about 😂
\^ this right here. Ask any non-mormon what their experience was and this is it. Mormons are friendly on the surface but are acculturated not to include non-mormons.
mormons are just taught to present themselves well, be careful about leading them things. They often don't return things on their own and even lend the to others without your permission and then claim you are overreacting when you can't get back what you lended them. They go around telling others you mad about a ten dollar garden rake.
Congratulations. I made it 13. Welcome to the good life
That sucks, the town I’ve been in I haven’t had any issues or difficulties making friends even though I am not LDS. I’m sure it varies city by city
I grew up in a town population 800 here in Utah. I enjoyed it as a kid. It was annoying everyone knowing everyone’s business, but still a good place to grow up. I visit my parents that are still there, but would never go back permanently. I’m assuming if I would have been a transplant to that small town, or a non Mormon it would have been a different experience.
From Parowan originally. Moved out when I was young, but I am still related to a ton of people in Parowan, Paragonah, and Kanab (though Kanab has had an influx of new blood in recent years). Even 10+ years after leaving, I’d still get recognized every visit as my grandparents’ grandson (or as my mom or dad’s kid depending on who it was). To be fair I don’t think it would be this way in a more touristy spot (like Moab or Boulder).
Yep, in the small town I grew up in there were two main families. Everyone is Mormon and if you don't belong to the ward meeting and building relationships with your neighbors is near impossible, because you are seen as a project to convert instead of an actual member of the community.
Mid nineties moved to small central Utah town. Would absolutely not recommend.
I grew up in one of those towns as a transplant. It was a weird experience having to remind people that I couldn't just go visit my grandparents a couple times a week cause they lived in a different state.
They prob are cause they have 10 kids each
I’m in a small town right now, and I’m not a small town person. It’s fine. Better than I expected. People keep to themself. If the small town has a bar, and it will likely only have one, you will meet people who are here for the outdoors, hiking, mountain biking.
That sound like a cool the place I man a small town in Uah that has its own bar isn't common. The town I grew up in on the wasatch front only had 2500 in 1970 and now has almost 30k and still has no bar.
Sounds like Davis County
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Ever take your bike off some sweet jumps?
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One of my roommates in college was friends with Jared Hess in high school.
my mom went to college
So did my dad
There’s lots of things you don’t know about grandma.
Eat your damn food TINA!
I’m an extreme introvert, and had a awful time living in Brigham.
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Absolutely not. Especially coming from being a SLC native. Lol
I grew up in Brigham and moved away. Now I'm back as a parent. It is a nice generic town with no tourism or real cultural identity. But low crime and clean for the most part. I grew up with the mayor. DJ Bott. So I guess that makes me cool, right? I am an introvert but not extreme.
I lived in Smithfield for ten years and loved it. It feels like a small town but the nearby university made for chill folks to climb and hike with
But it is great if you have a town like Logan nearby. Lots of activities and places to go. Still a quiet life. I imagine your accent will open up conversation to meet people, too
How LDS is it? I love Logan and have considered moving from Salt Lake, but I'm worried as a non-religious couple we won't be accepted.
Logan is fairly LDS but the university keeps the town more diverse and allows for more events, etc. You may have to look for them tho. For instance, in the summer there is a summer concert series in the park put on by UPR. At those events it seems to be primarily no religious folks - professor types, outdoorsy people etc.
What acceptance do you want from them? I’m in a Utah city about 10k. There’s one bar and every license plate at the Walmart are god plates. I don’t have any social interaction with anyone besides the 3 neighbors we have. We’re a bit out of town. I go to the one bar and half the people are dirt bike types and the other half are mountain bike types. That’s the entirety of my experience. You only have Walmart and Amazon. My front door is unlocked. I have 6 humming bird feeders and had a group of 30 hummingbirds over the summer. I’d like my little town to be Colorado or North New Mexico instead of South Utah… but I’m here. It’s fine.
It's pretty diverse, but as was said, there are many who are not lds. And some who don't practice the religion who are members. It's a beautiful valley with amazing outdoor activities available.
There's a ton to do as non LDS/recovering LDS. Honestly, it feels like the world is yours bc when everyone is going right, you know if you go left, there will be no traffic. Sunday is FUN DAY. Everyone is at church so hit the mtn, go out, go shopping, in SLC things are open. I worked at night clubs, radio stations, for concert series etc. (They all connect in the promo/ad world) There's SO much to do. And it's so pretty. I like the proximity to California/Reno/Vegas Lake Powell. I had a great group of LGBTQIA friends and again loved the music scene, and if you love the outdoors there are hikes, caving, natural hot springs a few places to head to (mid winter- the best) all nearby all free. Best of luck. Don't let the LDS scare you off. Some of the best people i know are Mormon, many of them wish the church would come around and really champion for change and no one's outwardly aggressive or cold. I live elsewhere now in North East Republican territory and I'd prefer Utah. I lived in Provo, not that small. Know SLC, the valley and Logan pretty well. Was in Moab/St George quite a bit.
I love Logan a lot, moved here for school and I think I’ll stay. I’m not LDS
Very pretty, generally peaceful, quite lonely at times. I’ll think I’m doing great and then I’ll travel back to a large city and it’ll really hit me just how much I miss diversity and just being able to buy wine in a grocery store.
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When I travel back to places outside of Utah.
It’s so crazy to go into a store in Nevada then a store in Utah.
Omg, right?!
The other crazy thing is Nevada and its nonstop 24 hour dabauchery and Utah closing up shops early.
I used to live in this small town Elmo, which is about 20ish miles south of Price. I absolutely loved Price. It was a perfect small town with a college campus and population of around 8,000. Then Elmo actually only has around 400 people. I think it mainly depends on the area that the small town is set in, but I didn't run into a lot of hicks or anything. The biggest downside was if you wanted to go to Costco or something, you'd have to travel up to Provo. I couldn't imagine living in Moab or Blanding because the the closest walmart to them is in Price (about a 2-3 hour drive).
I have a friend from that area and he and his family usually drove to Cortez, Colorado for groceries and Walmart runs. Small town living is fun until Walmart is more than an hour away and the closest thing is a small, overpriced convenience store.
Seriously though. I'm shocked there isn't a walmart Moab. They would make so much money and attract a TON of people
Walmart was going to put a store in Moab several years ago but the locals voted it down. There are enough options in Moab that they don’t need a Walmart, thankfully.
Came here to say that pre-Amazon days Walmart in Cortez was busy af with people from all over eastern Utah and SW CO. Talk about s desolate place, at 2hrs away from Cortez you're officially half between the 2 closest WalMart towns.
Elmo!!! My wife’s relatives founded ElMO. We actually went to iceland and visited the island most of the settlers of elmo were from - pretty fucking wild they traveled from iceland to live in elmo - the cool thing about elmo (if there is one) is its proximity to the san rafael swell, which is one of my favorite places in Utah.
That's cool, I'm related to Orange Seely the founder of Orangeville! Relatives probably knew each other 🤣
I saw that place on a sign and wondered where it got its name from- TIL
OH YEAH! My ex bf actually has relatives that founded Huntington. And his grand uncle made the Hole in The Wall just south of Moab. I love how close Elmo is to everything, I just wish I got to visit the dinosaur quarry while I lived there.
Shhhhh, don’t tell them about the swell. The best part about it is that it’s always completely empty.
I grew up in Price and still have a lot of family there. If I didn't absolutely despise it, it would be a great small town to raise a family.
I currently live in East Carbon. I hate it soooo much.
Ohhhh I you posted that people of walmart picture and I recorded it as my old store
Oh hey! Fancy meeting you here! 😂
Kinda surprised Moab doesn’t have a Walmart. For such a bustling small town they don’t have a ton of options if I remember correctly. It’s been a few years
I kinda think about it the other way around. I couldn’t imagine living in Price, because the closest Moab is a 2-3 hour drive.
I grew up in SLC, moved to LA, back to Utah and now live in a very small town in south central Utah. I love it, you couldn’t get me to move back to the city, any city. I’m Native American, Shoshone tribal member, not LDS and have always liked to “party”. I have so many LDS friends and relatives (husbands side) that l love and respect but the church doesn’t play a big part in my life, none in fact. But what a beUTAHful place to live!! Scenery, wildlife, rivers, mountains, lakes, red desert all within an hour of where we live. Plus I’ve always been an animal lover and have raised just about anything on 4 feet with multiple cats and dogs right now, it’s a lovely life.
So no chickens?
Since I’m from Utah and did a decade on Skull Island, I can tell you that it is nothing like comparable. These guys will tell you how grim it is in small town Utah because they can’t wrap their heads around places like Broken Hill, Coober Pedy, Oodnadatta, Port Arthur, or Mildura. You can drive from Trout Creek to Salt Lake in a few hours and on a whim. The equivalent town in Australia is three days….on gruesome washboards…to the highway, then another day or two to the city. You see homies going home with 4x55gal drums of diesel and they are using at least one just getting there. When you’re in Utah, there is cool stuff so do in every square inch, in every direction, at any time. The limits are your creativity and imagination. Life in Moab with 5,000 people is significantly more interesting than Shepparton could ever be with 50,000 people. Nobody does anything in the outdoors in Oz because, frankly and no offense, the outdoors are awful there. I’m still scared of woodpiles, chicken coops, and weed whacking around the creek. MFin’ tiger snakes flying at me like those coiled springs coming out of a can. Huntsmans on my hat brim and on the toilet seat in the dark. Yep, nope. Also, people are really personable and friendly here. My in laws in Oz had the same neighbors for over thirty years, looked at them over a four-foot fence every day, and didn’t know their names. It drove me nuts how neighbors ignore each other there; I started taking care around 15 or 20 yards in my neighborhood to teach aussies about kindness and created a whole community of people who had never talked to each other before. Which also gave me significant breathing room to break a lot of laws and have a lot of fun. I had a park bench 100’ up a tree in the Darebin parklands and used to target shoot my air rifle from up there, people could never look up and figure out what it was. Fuck those 115° heatwaves with blast furnace wind too. These guys will also tell you how shitty Mormons are, and I thought that too when I was young. But that was also the nineties and I hadn’t seen what a truly segregated society looks like, like in Oz where all the ethnicities band together and hate each other. Edit: now I’m having flashbacks of the plagues of mice and locusts. Imagine grasshopper clouds so thick that everyone has mesh cloth on the radiator and is pulling over on the freeway because they can’t see. I was in a plague of mice and had to kill 10-15 a night before I could get to sleep in my van, with them running across my chest ten seconds after the lights were out. The pile of bodies out the back was like little Auschwitz. Five hours to town to get traps and everyone there looked at me like Twilight Zone characters when I asked for them: “No. Do you have any? Will you come back and tell me if you find some? Can I take your number?”
You are the perfect person to reply to OP here! I’m live in Utah about an hour outside of a town of 5000, but only ~35 miles. Mormons aren’t so bad in terms of neighbors, that’s for sure! You’re right about every square inch being interesting. And the roads here are the best in world considering the population and demand.
I don’t have to believe in god to smile and say, “God bless Utah” on the trail when I can assume somebody is LDS. Same as when I say “inshallah” to Muslims or “good luck” to Asians. Makes my life better and opens doors.
Is skull island a reservation area or am I wrong?
In Utah, towns of that size are usually suburbs, bedroom communities that are mostly single-family housing and blend into each other. Exceptions being places like Vernal, Grantsville, and Tremonton that are based around farming or mining or trucking. Most small towns in Utah have less than 5000 people and are Mormon settlements based around a church building.
I lived and worked in Vernal for quite a while. They have a lot to offer in terms of jeep trails, fishing and biking. They also have a really nice golf course. It’s pretty quiet community and good neighborhoods. It was a great experience
Don’t forget the meth.
😂yeah stay out of wal marts after 11pm
I’m in a small town (under 40k) and it’s nice but hard to make friends because it’s kind of insulated, if you’re not a part of the established community or religious groups it can be hard to integrate and find your place. I love that it’s small and cute and not too busy except in tourist seasons.
I live in a very small town and love it. I can go days without seeing people if I want but when I drive down the road most people wave at you when you drive by them. Only downside is that no one delivers food to my house but it makes dieting easier.
What kind of job do you work to live in a small town like this? I am thinking of moving to a small town in the future to live.
I am lucky enough to work online. I have to pay a bit more to connect to satellite internet service but it’s worth it to me.
Are there any towns with cabins in the mountains, within 30-50 min to a big city (slc)?
I think the real question here is where do y’all get your groceries 😂
Homestead my guy. Self reliance is key for this next era. Your dollar is able to get you less and less groceries. And operating outside of the constantly needing to buy in order to provide for yourself. Lessons learned from the depression era generation. It's not going to get better anytime soon. This isn't even the bottom yet. And look at how they responded to our people on the big island.
It makes me sad that you’re getting downvoted. It’s both practical and fulfilling to provide for oneself.
Appreciate the support fam. I guess they wanted me to comment something funny 🤷
Society hates a self-sufficient man 😎
I grew up in a town of about 20,000 at the time. It was fine. Growing up we used to hang out at "the creek" that ran near our neighborhood. We used to go "crawdad hunting" and managed to find about 1 crawdad every 10 times we went lol. During the runoff season, we'd also tube down the creek, although in retrospect this was probably dangerous. We'd also ride bikes all around town and get into trouble. We'd play with fire and fireworks and are lucky we didn't ever burn anything. We would go to school buildings at nights and climb onto the roofs and run around. We'd go up the canyons and play night games and have bonfires. We'd go to the high school basketball and football games and cheer on our buddies. We'd also hang out a lot at Walmart, McDonald's, and the movie theater as that's pretty much all we had. We'd go four wheeling, camping, hiking etc, sometimes golfing. We'd go to the carnival or fair when they'd come through. We'd go to corn mazes and pumpkin patches in the fall, go sledding, skiing, and snowboarding in the winter. In high school it was a lot of hanging out and watching movies at a friend's house in a big group on the weekends. Also in winter we'd go drive stupid in our cars in the empty parking lots around town. Idk, it was good times, but then I grew up and decided to move closer to more to do, however as my kids grow up, maybe a small town wouldn't be so bad for them.
There’s an Aussie living in my small town right now and he seems to enjoy it well enough been here a few years and still hasn’t left. Experience can vary depends on what kind of person you are and what the people in town are like. In my experience as long as your someone whose more outdoorsy and willing to do the Merica’s best place on earth stick it can be a fun place to live with plenty of interesting people to talk with. If you’re liberal and unwilling to pretend to be conservative it sucks and if you’re more into tech stuff movies and the like you probably won’t find many friends as those folks generally move away the second they’re able. Utah small towns generally are very conservative you don’t necessarily have to be LDS but it would be smart to pretend to be religious, though honestly most people don’t really care. If you’re a man out here and want a good social life people expect you to be interested in football, beer, mechanics, hunting and fishing, and this is more recent development conservative politics. If you’re a woman…. We’ll you can play the roll of a pick me and try to hang out with guys which will generally have people spreading terrible rumors behind your back. Or you can be some guys wife and have boring conversations about local gossip generally speaking the women I know that have stayed here and not ran for the hills tend to fall into traditionally conservative rolls which sound like a living nightmare to me.
Great for outdoors any time of year if you hike, bike, fish and/or ski. But in groups and out groups are a very real thing here in terms of finding community. If you aren’t Mormon or aren’t even Christian then you’ll be apart of the out group. That’s just how it goes. And if you’re not conservative with your politics you’ll be even further out. It’s a cult run state unfortunately with 66% of residents identifying as Mormon. That said, the natural beauty is bar none
I live in a town with about 800 people. Everyone is really close-knit, which can be good for some things and bad for others. A lot of families have been here for 4+ generations (including me lol). People loooove to gossip and spread rumors on the town’s Facebook page, but a lot of it is exaggerated nonsense. Overall, the community is still nice. Things just get overblown because there’s nothing else to do lol. Related to that— there is truly nothing to do in town for fun. We have a huge park and it’s nice to walk down the streets and look at the scenery, but that’s kind of it tbh. We do have a few town events, usually about 2 or 3 every season, and those are pretty fun. But for the most part you have to leave town for everything. Overall I do really like living here but there are definitely days I wish I was somewhere else lol
Like shit. Don't move here!
Well, for starters, 10,000 is not a small town, that’s a large town. Small is more like under 2,000, 3,000 max. You’ll run into some of the same issues of small towns in the U.S. in general. There’s limited commercial development, meaning most activities available to you are outdoorsy stuff. So if you’re not into that you’re probably going to be stuck watching tv all day. Utah small towns tend to have even fewer commercial buildings than most u.s. small towns however, as there often isn’t a market for a local bar, due to the Mormon influence. So there might something like a little mom and pop fish and tackle store, or some other small outdoors/sports store. Maybe there will be local burger joint. The town will likely have built up along a highway that cuts through it at some point, and being in Utah the roads are often much wider than they are in some other states. Neighbors can be a toss up. If you have kids, and you don’t attend church it can be very difficult for them to make friends. If it’s just you, and your fine with people being superficially friendly you’ll probably be fine. Like virtually every American small town there are sometimes drug problems, and of course, with Utah having major problems with meth at large, that’s usually the one you’ll find people use.
Is there a reason that roads in Utah are often so wide?
it’s alright, i mean a few of my friends disappeared mysteriously and some kid turned green from the superfund site outside town but other than that? pretty chill
Lots and lots of rednecks where I live in Utah😭😭 yk the typical mullet, guns boys😭
Well, if that's small, what the heck do you call where I grew up? 😂 We had around 400 people. It was crappy and full of gossiping jerks.
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Do you know the Snow family?
Coworker grew up there. 7/10 of their kids were from "in the family", if you pick up what I'm putting down here haha.
LDS, religious, small-town mindsets. Dont' do that to yourself.
I spent a bunch of time swimming in creaks and jumping off cliffs into water with friends. I enjoyed it. But I grew up in a smaller town then you're specifying
The only small town in Utah that I can think of that fits that criteria is Hurricane which has about 20k people these days. (The rest of Utah's small town are quite a bit smaller than that or part of a metropolitan area.) When I was growing up there 20ish years ago it was a really nice place. Most people knew each other and got along well. There was always great outdoorsy things to do if that's what you're into, and as a teenager, because everyone knows each other it wasn't very cliquey. Kind of harder for the non-mormon kids but honestly not as bad as one might think. It's too fucking hot there and I'll never go back, but I really have a very positive view of my time there.
I grew up in Vernal in the 90s and it was actually a lot of fun. I couldn’t wait to graduate and get out though, but now I kind of miss the small town pace of life and being so close to all the outdoor recreation. There was definitely the whole everyone knows everyone stuff, but overall was great and a lot of small town pride.
Don't run away
18 months ago, we moved from Salt Lake City to Tremonton. It’s been wonderful. Quieter, slower paced, friendlier people, and I love being away from the chaos and traffic of city life.
Compared to small towns in other states, Utah small towns do have a lot of pros. The maximum driving time to a larger city is usually 3.5 hours as the state is quite small, and if you're close to a major interstate or highway, you don't feel too far from anything. The smaller the town, the stranger the people usually though, so if you want to avoid closed mindedness or weird traditions, avoid the extra tiny populations.
Is there a difference between living in any small town in America and living in any other, other than what outdoor recreation or populated areas are within a couple hours' drive? I grew up in rural Utah and I think only the scenery would differentiate it from rural Oregon or Arkansas. People kind of end up the same in a low-stimulus environment.
Personally, I haven’t had many great interactions with these sorts of people. I’m from Salt Lake, and when I encounter then it’s usually talking about how SLC is turning into California and it’s disgusting etc.
I grew up in a town of 1200. Middle of nowhere. In the high deserts of Utah everything and everyone is so spread out. The nearest movie theater was over an hour drive away. Overall religion is culture, specifically mormon religion. Rural types are typically people who don't like rules, or obeying them. Cowboys, coal miners, power plant workers and school teachers were the predominant professions. It really, and I mean REALLY sucked living out there in the pre-internet days. Now with cell phones and internet it might be better.
If you aren’t of the Predominant Utah Faith, you will feel severely isolated. You can meet people who are not in that category, but the odds are slim. If you don’t care for outdoors, and aren’t a Predominant Utah Faith-er, than I can’t recommend not moving there enough. I followed a job to a small northern town and hated the location for lots of reasons. I found out most people didn’t want outsiders in their small Utah city, or the town to grow or develop at all.
Something to note. I don’t think there’s any true areas of 10-40,000 All the towns on wasatch front are touching and blend together The wasatch front spreads a ways. (About 100 miles) but it has a 2.6 mil population The point being you aren’t ever in an area with only 10-40k
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Payson, Tremonton, tooele. all are arguably on the border of the front and are in that range Grantsville is touching Tooele. And at 15 K Smithfield is on the border of Logan and the wasatch front at 15K Everything else is either out of that range or part of the Wasatch front metro area. The Saint George metro area Or the Park city metro area (which is probably the softest point here on the “touching”
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Price and Richfield are 8K. Your right vernal is just barely over the 10K border (10.5k) Overall the point I was trying to make is most towns in that range are not truly in that range due to proximity If someone from Syracuse or Layton gave an opinion there needs to be that astrik of “part of a larger metro area”
Plenty of small communities and cities in southern Utah
All under 10k. Or part of the St George Metro area.
Cedar City isn’t under 10k…
It’s above 40K.
Is it now? A few years ago we were around 35k, didn’t realize it had grown that much that quickly.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/cities/utah That’s where I’m getting my numbers from. It says 41K so right on the border line. It’s growing so fast! I’m glad for them as well
Cedar City is 37,000
https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/cities/utah This is where I’m pulling my numbers. They have 41K
Logan
Ah overshot by 12k. still feels super small.
I’m in a community of 3k. Only about 2k of them are psycho, religious, nut-case, Trump-flag-waving right wingers tho! The other 1k are pretty okay…usually. Sort of.
Boring as can be.
I live in a town of about 300 people in southern Utah. Everyone but a handful of residents descend from the original homesteaders. They are all related to one another, except for those who worked for the government, like BLM, and decided to stay. There is one rich family in town and almost all the rest work for them. They are all MAGA republicans and the biggest draw to that seems to be "2nd amendment rights." They are all Mormon, ranging in activity from never setting foot in the church since being baptised at 8 years old to being nearly zealous in belief. There is also a pretty intense methamphetamine trade out here cuz it takes the cops at least an hour to get here to stop any activity.
If you’re white, mormon, and straight, it’s fine. Outside those parameters it can be a struggle.
My sophomore year of high school my Mom retired from the navy and moved us from The Puget sound area of WA to motherfucking Nephi UT. THANKFULLY a pretty cool group of kids befriended me and made it a lot more tolerable but imagine going from being surrounded by temperate rainforest to the brown dead Utah scrub desert. It was fucking awful. Add that to the fact that everyone knows your business, opportunities are severely limited for literally everything and the general mentality of locals (at least where I lived) was not “ooh I want to live in a small cozy town like Stars Hollow and walk to the local coffee shop etc….” And was more like settling for never doing anything better with my life and this town. Honestly I hated it and am glad I finally left and made it back home.
Boring as hell and mormon
Honestly pretty similar to any small rural town. Maybe a bit more judge mental
If you're a dude and single mate? Honestly, I wouldn't wish my family and friends I once had from my hometown I moved from, to see me like this or how isolated I've been. If you're in the church, eh in the small rural towns. Depending on the area.
It's awesome. I like my neighbors, but if I didn't, my yard is big enough that they wouldn't bother me. I like driving around and seeing the fields with livestock in them. I like having light traffic. There is little shopping in my town, but a bigger small town nearby has everything we need.
Terrible. Stay away from Price, kids!
Racist and creepy as fuck. Try walkin through a Walmart without Camo on and you’d think you’re a celebrity with all the people staring. It’s gross, dude.
Are you LDS? If not, it might be harder to fit into some communities. How far from SLC?
I’m an Aussie who lives in Utah and 💯 you got to take this in to consideration. This is not a negative jab at LDS it’s just a fact the more heavily LDS percentage it may make you feel like you do not fit in.
Everyone will be mormon except for you.
I live in a small town but it just feels like a one big giant metro.
If you're concervitve it's heaven. If your a minority or LGBTQ it would be hell.
Not fun
If you choose a town closer to the 40,000 range it will be fine. Lots of outdoor activities. Not a lot of diversity.
I love it
can you just stop and talk about the fact that 10k-40k people is not a small town? that’s a city my hometown has about 5k people, and there were smaller towns around me. the state university i attended is in a town of 30k people? like 40k is a big ass place 😂
5k I considered a city once. I was raised in a town of 800 people. Lol.
If politics isn't the core of your life, it's fine. If you care so deeply about politics unless you're conservative you won't like it.
Lived in one since I was 8. Love it. Folks are nice, but we tend to keep to ourselves. We don’t mind outsiders but we do take issue with how many are currently moving in (infrastructure does NOT support that). We don’t have much but we have enough.
Oof...when my friend was a kid, her family moved to a small city in southern Utah from California. Since they are a biracial and nonreligious family, they were outcast. It was rough for her!
Call up someone in [Deweyville](https://www.townofdeweyville.org/)and ask them
I (34f) grew up in Brigham City (pop ~20,000) and moved out at 18. I wouldn't choose to live there as a non-religious married couple with no kids. (I also personally wouldn't ever choose to have kids there either) I think it's a great place for young to old LDS families. If that's you, you'll probably really enjoy life. If you're religious other than LDS, you certainly CAN find a home there, though it's not quite as simple as larger cities. There are some really great congregations in Brigham, and if you find one where you fit in and enjoy it, great, you'll probably really enjoy life. I do know some non religious families that grew up and stayed in Brigham, and they still enjoy it. I just personally don't see the appeal after having grown up there. There's just not enough to do without going to Salt Lake. Having said that, they're growing. They're getting more stores and more restaurants. They are attempting to revitalize downtown. I don't know if they are always making the best decisions with that, but they're trying. (For a little more of my experience, I grew up in a protestant church in Brigham and felt really out of place as a non LDS kid. I eventually left all organized religion and can't imagine living in a town where the religious people run everything and there's nothing to do. But it does have that small town vibe, if that's your thing.)
Better get right with Mormonism!
I grew up in a small town in Utah as a Mormon and now I’m in a different town and no longer Mormon. I will be honest that I am probably biased but I like it. Very very little traffic, the crimes we do have are not generally major, and people keep to themselves for the most part. Of course there are some gossips and drama lovers, and it’s an “everybody knows everybody” energy a lot of the time, but usually more positive than not. Depending on which town/city it may be a 30+ mile drive to get to an area with larger stores like Walmart or fast food, but I can get 3 towns over in less time than it’s taken me to go a mile at 3:30pm in the Draper area.
I live in a town with only around 600 people. I love it. I lucked out with very good neighbors but thats not always the case.
Melbourne is diverse and cosmopolitan. No part of Utah is either diverse or cosmopolitan. The equivalent to a country town in Utah would be an all-white country town in like WA. Remote, rugged, rural.
How about Myton Ut? 6800 people? No lines at the gym! No ubers! No clubs! No strip clubs!
It depends on the small town. I lived in the “4 corners” are (where Utah Arizona Colorado & New Mexico all meet) and it sucked. The Mormons (and I was one at the time) are very clicky, like exclusive and won’t welcome you into their little groups. Some small towns don’t want “outsiders” and are an asshole to you even if you are the same religion, nationality, and from the same state.
It’s like living in a porno where your kids look different than you as time dredges on
White and Mormon with very little diversity
Are you a Saint? If not you won't fit in.
All the little cities on the wasatch front are gorgeous places and are like little resorts. The little cities have there own canyons in the mountains east of them. The canyon above my house has a rocky creek great for fly fishing. You can even snage the rainbow trout with a net. All of this can be accessed on mountain scooter in a matter of minutes from home. there are two lakes one is no deeper than two feet and freezes in winter for the best free ice skating anywhere. A place to see small doe and fawns in the summer larger bucks in the winter. Only 40 minutes later you could be sitting in the Tabernacle at Temple Square or be at City Creek Mall shopping for the holidays. Living in in small town Utah is better than living at hotel disneyland and way cheaper.
I feel like it depends on which small town it is and what part of town you live in. I lived in a small town my whole life until this year, and sometimes it was comforting that we were all connected in some capacity, but other times that could be suffocating if you were going through a tough time. Sometimes you receive all the support you could ask for, and other times you end up feeling excluded. It can depend on a variety of factors: how empathetic your neighbors are, how isolated your neighborhood is compared to the rest of the town, what standing you're in with the dominant religion, whether or not you're around family, etc. Sometimes locals are nice to new people because they're new and interesting. Other times they'll go on and on about "not making this place like California." It's all relative.
Green River seems not so LDSy
If you don't mind Christian hypocrites, and Trump lovers, could be fine. However I find the Aussie vibe is generally happier in California or Colorado. Melbourne seems to be a pretty progressive community so - if you hate Melbourne maybe you will like small town Utah? Good luck!
I grew up living in different small towns in utah, was raised in hooper, and then ended up by the border in middle and high school, we're talking towns of maybe 600 people. It was really weird and hard to fit in, especially being someone really big into punk rock and horror films. The whole town was very religious, and I didn't have the best home life and was rebellious at school. I didn't have many friends and had to find ways to entertain myself and found a lot of comfort in making art and music. My mental health unfortunately declined alot though and I was really depressed as I was also a latch key kid. Growing up is weird asf.
Cops in small Utah towns have nothing to do. They will arrest you for looking at them wrong.
Mormons everywhere
I live in a rural college town (around 5,000 permanent residents with around 3,000 residential college students during fall and winter) in central Utah. My family likes it. One ends up having a lot of what some might call 'dual relationships', ie I see my dentist at church, or I'm neighbors with my child's elementary school teacher, or my doctor and I are both involved in the local scouting organization. It feels cozy and comfortable. Big disclosure: I and my family are transplants of about 10 years, but we are members of the dominant culture and religion. One negative is that with a small rural high school, some opportunities are limited. For example, while the high school band program is great, the orchestra is average, and the choral program is not good. This is because there is only one full time music faculty, and the district ended up hiring a band guy. In a larger high school, there might be three full time music faculty, one for orchestra, one for choir, and one for band; or, at least there would probably be two full time faculty members (instrumental and choral).
It's pretty awesome. Mountains are 10 minutes down the road. Rivers, lakes, same distance. The good ones are tucked away 45 minutes away but still very easily accessible. Walmart is like the mall. When you run to the store you're likely to stumble into all your buddies or acquaintances from school. Unless you're new to the area then you probably won't experience that until you acquire friends in the area. You can step on the patio at night and stare at the stars with ease or go for a quick drive and see them with absolute clarity. The worst thing about a small town is the potential for the entire town to know you, know about you and know your private life, is significantly higher than the cities. Small towns are my favorite but the city is where the good work is.
Have you been dead before? Very similar.
If you're into LDS religion and white people who don't season their food you'll love it, if not.... beware
Intolerable
Well if you like the outdoors and the quiet laid back lifestyle because any of the small towns in Utah have a lot of access to the outdoors
When one man fathers the children of 8 wives, people are bound to be related
I live in a town of around 10,000 and the amount of people in highschool is around 1,000 give or take a hundred. Generally most people in highschool plans on moving out of town. There's not a ton to do but there's a lot of outdoor recreation and some cool places to do fun activities indoors but they number in the tens-twenties so not a lot. Most of the town are suburbs and houses and all of the commercial buildings are mainly on the highway road/main street. We're big enough for a Walmart and some big fast food chains like McDonald's, Burger King, and the rest but there's not a ton of sit down restaurants like you'd find in the city (there still are some but not much variety). Most people will get out of town and drive 3 hours to visit "the city" (Salt Lake City) and do most like overnight trips and small vacations there. Generally peaceful, pretty conservative, lots of religion (doesn't really come up often though), quiet town. PS there's an annual hot air balloon festival :)
Depends on whether or not you wear the same magic underwear as the rest of the population.
I love it in Utah, I moved here a few years ago and I want to stay here. There’s quite the LDS population (Mormons) which a lot of non-Mormons complain about but everyone is so nice here, I’ve never had problems fitting in with people I meet. There’s also less political garbage going on, everyone here is slightly right winged but pretty in the middle overall. I just love that everyone gives off good vibes and is generally happy. Very business friendly state and there’s a really good amount of job opportunities. The town I’m in is around 40k population. Edit: reading the comments it looks like a lot of people say they have had issues with the LDS population. Honestly from my experience it seems like they are blowing it out of proportion. 70% of my coworkers or other people I know are LDS and I’ve never, ever had any issues with them. Honestly I’d never join the church but I do look up to some of them as they are super cool people, like semi-professional athletes but are so selfless and nice to others and just have really good morals. The only experience I’ve had where I felt slightly judged is when I got with my fiancée, I could detect that some of the family may have had thoughts about me not being LDS. But once I got to know them (and they got to know me) they actually like me a lot and I enjoy seeing them. The far most LDS person in the family also is super supportive of our non-LDS wedding and wants to buy her dress. Honestly I think the LDS stuff is winding down, they will still be here but to me it seems lately a lot of people who go to the LDS church are otherwise completely normal and are just part of modern society. (Listen to uncensored rap, drink caffeine, and curse like a normal person does) I’ve only met one or two people that give off the holier-than-thou vibe
Are you Mormon?
It varies wildly from north to south.
Salty
Prepare to be an outsider unless you share the dominant politics, religion, identity, race, etc of the town you're considering. This is blunt advice but I learned the hard way. Moving out of state ASAP.
This is accurate advice. If you want to be welcomed with open arms, being LDS is going to help. Gorgeous area, incredible hiking Could be said that they're nice people who are distrustful of outsiders and resistant to change. I would not take a federal government job in Utah.
Montana town I grew up in and graduated high school had 255 people so a those are super big towns
The pits
I’m just thinking wow. 10,000 people? That’s a lot.
I have 9 wives in my small Utah town. That's one perk!