It has been a joyous few weeks in Park City, starting with the outpouring of pride on July 24 as the International Olympic Committee selected Salt Lake City to be the host of the 2034 Winter Olympics.
A crowd of 4,000 later that day gathered at the Utah Olympic Park to celebrate the selection. Park City and Summit County sent officials to Paris for the IOC meetings and to begin learning about the staging of a Games. They returned from France with observations about the Olympic transportation system and the impacts on businesses. And City Hall, the County Courthouse and the Park City Chamber/Bureau are readying to tap a consultant to craft a plan for the Games that will outline a decade of work.
But the excitement generated by the awarding of the Winter Olympics, and the buzzing final months of the bidding for the Games, perhaps acted as a distraction of sorts, at least momentarily, from the widespread concerns in the community about a range of issues like traffic, the state of the resort industry, growth and affordability.
The IOC selection put Park City, as well as Summit County, into the planning stage for the Winter Olympics after the efforts were focused for years on the bidding. There are three competition venues in the Park City area identified on the Games map — Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park — and the community will be critical to the transportation, security and celebration plans. Leaders in Park City and Summit County in coming months are expected to begin laying the groundwork for a plan for the Games that will extend through the months after the cauldron is extinguished in 2034.
The mayor of Park City and the City Council, though, will need to accomplish that work while attempting to lead a populace that already had deep concerns about the state of the community even before the awarding of the Games. The pending Winter Olympics, still more than nine years into the future, could exacerbate the worries, as Parkites dwell on the potential impact the event could have on the issues that are already so difficult. There had been indications during the bidding that some Parkites were worried about a Winter Olympics even as others expressed excitement about the prospects of a Games. A series of community conversations in the fall of 2022 highlighted the wide-ranging opinions.
With Park City having entered a second Winter Olympic era, another recent reading of the sentiments of Parkites, covering many of the most pressing issues, becomes notable again. The National Community Survey, conducted on behalf of the municipal government in late 2022 and early 2023, showed fractures were forming or, worse, widening in Park City. Some of the results were especially damaging and seemed to lend credence to the broad-based angst that was so apparent around the time of the survey.
One of the key questions inquired about the overall direction of Park City. Just 41% indicated the direction was excellent or good, representing a cratering in the response over the course of five surveys starting in 2011. The drop was 29 percentage points from the 70% who saw the overall direction of Park City as being excellent or good in 2011. A question centered on the cost of living of Park City resulted in a disastrous response, with a mere 12% rating it as excellent or good. The figure had dropped 14 percentage points from the response of 26% in 2013.
Other responses that are of consequence in the context of the beginning of an Olympic era included:
- The traffic flow of major streets, dropping to a 25% excellent or good rating from a high of 68% in 2011.
- The ease of travel using public transportation, falling to a 67% excellent or good rating from a high of 89% in 2013.
- The overall confidence in the Park City government, dropping to a 56% excellent or good rating from the 66% in 2013.
- The community as a place to visit, garnering a strong response of 92% excellent or good. The result, though, was a slight drop from the 96% figure in 2013.
- The overall economic health, at 88% excellent or good, up 7 percentage points from the 81% in 2013.
- The overall image or reputation, at 83% excellent or good after falling from 96% in 2011.
It seems almost certain the shock of the coronavirus, the intense concerns about what Parkites saw as unchecked tourism during the pandemic and fast-rising real estate prices at that time greatly influenced the results of the survey taken in 2022 and 2023. Still, the community has seemed to remain in some sort of funk, if not a malaise, that is difficult to define, even as Park City exited the worst of the pandemic with strength and then moved into the final phases of the Games bid.
It is impossible to predict what sort of influence the Winter Olympic efforts will have on the issues in Park City over the coming decade. The Games could provide new momentum, and access to monies, as City Hall and the County Courthouse attempt to address traffic and transportation. The Games under that scenario could be hailed as a catalyst for progress in the long-running efforts to combat traffic. The Winter Olympics could, at the same time, though, eventually push up real estate and rental prices, already seen as the most expensive in the state, as buyers are attracted to a Games-era Park City. If that were to occur, the Winter Olympics would likely be blamed in some circles for aggravating an already challenging housing situation, particularly for the rank-and-file workforce.
City Hall plans the next National Community Survey in late 2024, giving Parkites an opportunity to consider the impact of the Winter Olympics as they answer questions like the one about the direction of Park City.
By then, the celebratory atmosphere this summer surrounding the awarding of the Games may have encountered the stark realities of organizing a Winter Olympics in a community that already had so many concerns for the future.
Jay Hamburger has been a staff writer at The Park Record for the past 27 years.