Quote:
Originally Posted by Liberty Wellsian
South Salt Lake and Millcreek(86k people) should both be part of SLC, imo. These two cities almost completely lack an identity outside of SLC. They feel more like neighborhoods than neighbors. Water, economies of scale, sales tax sharing, political muscle, coordinated planning, etc. There are lots of good reasons to consolidate, imv.
ONE CITY SLC
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You assume the citizens of these cities want to be part of Salt Lake City. My guess is that they don't - especially Millcreek. I know in the mid-90s, South Salt Lake tried really hard to annex Millkcreek but could never gain the support of the community to do so. Beyond that, the opportunity to annex Millcreek all but died the second the city incorporated last year. Had it remained a township, you'd have a better chance of seeing annexing possible (which was a constant threat for the community in the 90s with South Salt Lake and then recently, up until incorporation, with Holladay). But not now - not with it being its own city.
South Salt Lake would also fight tooth and nail on being annexed into Salt Lake. Their residents take pride in being independent of the city - to the point where the city has even suggested changing its name so it's not as associated with Salt Lake - especially now that they're aggressively trying to establish a downtown area around State.
Beyond that, Salt Lake hasn't shown much interest in annexing any areas outside its borders. Not recently, anyway. Back in 1979, when the state legislature passed a law stating cities must establish annexing policy declarations (in the event they were to annex), Salt Lake established one that encompassed much of the eastern valley south to Little Cottonwood Canyon Road (areas included: Cottonwood Heights, Canyon Rim, Emigration Canyon, the Millcreek area and Holladay/Cottonwood) - west to Magna (annexing the township into the city) but that was never anything established with any seriousness and it's been decades since the declaration.
Salt Lake did attempt to annex a portion of the tailing ponds at Kennecott in the 90s, but not the entire Magna community - and that really has been the established trend of Salt Lake's annexing history lately. They mostly focus on open land areas.
There's some interesting history about incorporation and annexing in Salt Lake County - including some massive plans that would've consolidated a great deal of the cities in the valley into one.
Bonneville City
In 1975, a plan was established to incorporate, and unify, all of Salt Lake County's unincorporated areas into one city. It would have easily established the largest city in the state at the time (as most areas of the county at this point were completely unincorporated). It went down to massive defeat at the ballot.
In 1978, a new plan, this time unifying all of Salt Lake City & County (beyond incorporated cities - so, unincorporated areas), failed at the ballot box by a 3-2 margin. Leaders of the movement, pushed by former SLC mayor, and Utah governor, J. Bracken Lee, used Nashville as an example - but they could never convince residents.
Lake Valley City
In May, 1982, Salt Lake County voters in unincorporated areas of the county rejected a plan to consolidate those communities into one city - Lake Valley City. It would have had a population of 229,000 people and would've been the state's largest city. It was an odd election, since voters in the area actually cast a ballot in support (or in opposition) to the new city, while also voting on mayoral and councilperson candidates. So, Lake Valley technically elected a mayor and council (it would have been a nine-district council) but didn't actually incorporate into anything.
So, I guess, for a brief moment, Jim Eakins, a former center for the BYU Cougars, who played a time in the NBA and ABA, was elected mayor of Utah's largest city - if only briefly.
That was the last real attempt to incorporate a vast area of the county. The biggest was Urban County, I believe, which happened shortly after, or before, Bonneville City failed. There was a lot of contention about whether Ted Wilson, who was Salt Lake's mayor at the time, would lead the new city-county government merger.
But none of these plans ever won remotely close to the support needed to pass. They were all overwhelmingly rejected by county voters.
I think, for the foreseeable future, Salt Lake's borders aren't changing.