University of Utah professor launches new air quality app to keep residents informed
| Fox 13 | Jan 12, 2026 | Caroleina Hassett |
“SALT LAKE CITY — It may just look like a haze, but poor air quality is inevitable, especially during the winter.
“I think of air quality almost as the silent killer,” said Professor Derek Mallia with the University of Utah’s Department of Atmospheric Science. "If you're exposed to enough poor air quality over your lifespan, it can definitely impact the quality of your life.”
That haze can be caused by weather-based inversions…
“If we can turn off your car when you're waiting in the carpool line, not idle as much as possible,” said Jason Brown with Envision Utah, "taking TRAX or FrontRunner or even carpooling or working remotely… those things can reduce a lot of the tailpipe emissions that we typically see coming from cars.”
Utah’s 2065 projections see 2M more people, and a birth rate that keeps falling
| KUER | Nov 18, 2025 | Sean Higgins |
“With strong projections, perennial issues like housing affordability, water and quality of life will still be top of mind for many Utahns, something Envision Utah CEO Jason Brown is keeping a close eye on.
“I think it is hard to look at some of these numbers and honestly, not get a little bit worried about, you know, all the change that's going to be coming,” he said. “Utah has always been a pretty rapidly growing place, and we've been able to build a great quality of life in the face of all that growth.”
Utah will also continue to get older. The state has traditionally had big families and a high birth rate, but declining births, longer life expectancies and more people moving here for jobs mean an overall older population in the coming decades.”
Utah on pace to add 2 million people over the next 40 years, but is growth slowing?
| KSL.com | Nov 18, 2025 | Carter Williams |
“Utah remains on pace to add 2 million more people over the next 40 years, but the state's rate of growth may continue to slide over the next few decades, according to a new projection of statewide population trends.
The Beehive State's population, which recently surpassed 3.5 million, is projected to surpass 5.5 million by 2065, per the updated long-term planning projection released by the University of Utah Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute on Tuesday. It's the institute's first update to long-term projections since 2022, when experts estimated Utah's population could come close to 5.5 million by 2060.
The findings can help leaders prepare for growth in a way that preserves the state's current quality of life, said Jason Brown, CEO of the statewide growth planning nonprofit Envision Utah, after reading the report…”
Lawmakers want to flex Utah’s muscle on housing, but the real power is all local
| KUER | October 30, 2025 | Sean Higgins |
“A new analysis by Envision Utah warns that Utah could need more than 840,000 new homes over the next 30 years, adding to the urgency already felt by state and local leaders to deliver more housing.
Two years ago, Gov. Spencer Cox unveiled an ambitious goal of constructing 150,000 new homes in Utah by the end of 2028. Thirty-five thousand of those are supposed to be starter homes aimed at young, first-time buyers. Progress has been slow since that announcement…
The harsh reality is that Cox and state lawmakers can only do so much to encourage new housing construction. The overwhelming majority of that power rests in the hands of local governments and planning commissions. They’re the people who approve individual projects. It’s also where the process gets bogged down the most.”
Utah may be 235k homes short in 30 years. So lawmakers look to consolidate a ‘labyrinth’ of housing efforts.
| The Salt Lake Tribune | October 20, 2025 | Megan Banta |
“Utah could be more than 200,000 homes short of demand in 30 years unless policymakers and lawmakers address a “labyrinth” of state housing and development policy.
“This is not prescriptive,” said Kamron Dalton, the managing director of operations at the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity. “It is where we are headed if we do not change anything.”
Dalton, along with Jason Brown, the CEO of Envision Utah, presented a new housing report to an interim legislative committee on Wednesday. The GOEO and Envision Utah authored the report.”
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Think housing costs are high? Study shows Utah could fall well short of demand by 2055
| KSL-TV| October 15, 2025 | Bridger Beal-Cvetko and Daniel Woodruff |
“Utah is on track to fall significantly short of the number of homes needed to meet market demand over the next 30 years, analysts told lawmakers on Wednesday.
During a meeting of the Economic Development and Workforce Services Interim Committee, representatives from Envision Utah and the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity presented a Legislature-funded study painting a sobering picture of the state's housing market.
Specifically, the study found that Utah needs to build 842,515 new homes over the next three decades to meet expected demand. But the state is projected to have a shortage of 235,000 homes, meeting only about 72% of that projected demand by 2055, according to Jason Brown, CEO of Envision Utah.”