For the first time, Heber City and Midway were included in Utah State’s Utah Wellbeing Project, an initiative where the USU extension partners with municipalities to survey residents on how they are doing personally, and what they think of different aspects of the community.

The results are then passed along publicly as well as to community leaders for them to understand the needs and wants of their constituents.

In Heber City, 437 people answered the survey. In Midway, 153 responded.

Courtney Flint, a Utah State University professor specializing in community sociology and engagement, said she started the Utah Wellbeing Project in 2019 with a few goals in mind. She thought the project would provide a great research opportunity for undergraduate students to learn more about their state through data, and she wanted to explore whether well-being is different in mountain communities compared to other areas and if there are significant differences in rural and urban areas.

“I have come to learn that pretty much every community in Utah is a mountain community or considers itself as such,” Flint said with a chuckle. “We have no variation on the independent variable.”

In past years, she said the survey included questions about landscape features and their significance to people’s well-being.

She said the questions were omitted this year because the answers were monotonous, boring even.

“People love their natural landscapes,” Flint said. “Mountains are off the charts, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re in Sandy or West Jordan or Heber or Midway. Everybody loves mountains.”

Though that may be universal, the project has also shown that some community aspects are not, and — in the case of Heber City’s results — the areas of discontent and contentment among residents can tell their own stories and inform city officials of what their constituents hope to see in the future.

Too many people

There’s one subject almost every Heber City participant saw eye-to-eye, and that’s the notion that the community’s population is growing too fast. Among the 437 survey participants, 90% indicated they agreed with that statement, 7% said the growth is just right and 3% didn’t have an opinion.

Absolutely no one said the population growth is too slow.

“The only other community at 90% is Saratoga Springs,” Flint said.

She added other cities in the state aren’t far behind, but only the two hit 90%.

“Wasatch County has been one of the fastest growing counties, if not the fastest growing county, in the state ever since I’ve been in Utah, for 11 years,” Fling said. “It kind of stands to reason.”

In Midway 84% of participants similarly indicated people are coming too fast, and — just like in Heber City — no one thought they were coming too slow.

Heber City respondents also stood out when asked the same question about economic development in Heber City — only 49% of participants think it’s happening too fast, 20% think it’s just right, 22% said it’s too slow and 10% had no opinion. 

Heber Valley well-being 

Asked about their personal well-being in Heber City on a scale from one to five, participants largely indicated they’re doing pretty well.

The average individualized score was 4.01, with 77% of survey respondents choosing four or five on the scale. Only 1% chose 1.

When the question was broadened to consider well-being in Heber City overall, things took a somewhat less-well turn, with 52% choosing a four or five and an average score of 3.42.

In a grouping for rural and rural resort communities, the 4.01 personal well-being determination puts Heber City in the upper half of the pack, just above Beaver which has an average score of 3.95, and below La Verkin with an average of 4.13.

On an overall community well-being level, Heber City fell below both of those municipalities to land below Delta, which had an overall score of 3.43, and just above Blanding, which scored 3.31. 

Connection to Community

Also of interest is Heber City’s community connection evaluation where survey respondents were asked how connected they felt to their community. Only 34% of participants indicated a four or five, five meaning they felt the most connected. That left Heber City ranked 32 out of the 49 cities considered. For comparison, Midway ranked third with 56% answering a four or five.

Flint said Heber City’s lower position can likely be attributed to several factors, one of which is that newer folks need to spend more time in the community before they feel connected.

“The average length of residency of respondents was 18.8 years, which is pretty long,” Flint said. “One thing you can imagine is that maybe because of the rapid population growth in the last 10, 14 years, there may be people that just haven’t lived there long enough to be particularly connected.”

One other factor Flint pointed out is longtimers who once felt connected to the community might be recognizing their neighbors less and less as things continue to grow.

“There are quite a few people in Heber that are saying that there’s a real change in the town character, that they miss their small town feel,” she said. “I guess the term we would use in rural sociology would be density of acquaintanceship. They just don’t know as many people in their community because it’s growing so fast, and that can make them feel a little less connected.” 

She said the feelings of lost connection are akin to phenomena she sees in rapidly growing rural communities.

“They’re losing that sense of their small town that they have always loved,” she said.

Greatest concerns

As traffic grows more and more dense on Main Street and conversations with the Utah Department of Transportation for a bypass route become more dire, it may not be the greatest shock to learn the most pressing concern in Heber City according to the study is traffic. Second is water supply, followed by open space, public safety and air quality.

In order of some concern to least, respondents indicated they’re not concerned about suicide, substance misuse, accessible transportation, access to culturally appropriate food and access to substance-use disorder treatment.

In Midway, the top five areas of worry were open space, water supply, water quality, traffic and trails and paths. The five areas of least concern were suicide, accessible transportation, access to culturally appropriate food, substance misuse and access to substance use disorder treatment.

Paths to good vibes

Another important part of the Heber City study Flint discussed, though it is not yet publicly available on the city’s findings, is the positive effect the town’s parks and trails had on the people who used them.

“People who recreate in parks or utilize the trials or walk or bike really have this higher levels of well-being and connectedness,” Flint said. “I think that’s a direct correlation to the mayor’s efforts to really put some attention into those parks as part of Heber’s development.”

She said she believed the intention of those efforts was to help environmentally, and that effort has had a “bonus benefit” of improving peoples’ general well-being when they use the amenities.

“Heber’s residents are pretty active,” she said. “Midway’s even more.” 

Flint will present the results of Midway and Heber City to the city councils in September meetings.