Utah claims three of the top 15 spots in Forbes’ 2016 ranking of the best cities in the U.S. to raise a family, with the Provo-Orem metro area earning the #1 spot.
Reports Samantha Sharf:
The Provo-Orem metro area is located in Northeast Utah, about 40 miles south of Salt Lake. It has 585,800 residents, 33% of whom are under 18, making it the youngest place on our list. A respectable 68% of households are owner-occupied (versus renter occupied, implying stability) and auto commuters suffer through just 21 hours of traffic delays per year (compare that to 82 hours for Washington, D.C., area commuters, the worst delays in the country).
The median household income in Provo-Oren is $60,647, which ranks it among the top third of large metro areas but is near the bottom of the pack for our top family cities. By our calculations, the biggest drawback of raising a family in Provo-Orem is that NAHB finds just 67.6% of homes in the area are affordable to those making the local median income, putting it in the bottom half of large metro areas on housing affordability.
These relative strengths, of course, do not mean Provo-Orem is the best place for you and yours. Taste, proximity to loved ones and opportunity will inevitably factor into your own calculations. Gallup, for example, has ratedProvo-Orem the most religious metro in America with 77% of residents considered very religious. Some will argue this is why Provo-Orem gets top marks in so many metrics, while others will be turned off by it.
