Natalie Gochnour, director of the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute and associate dean at David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah, describes Utah’s economic and societal environment during the recent “Trends” real estate conference in Salt Lake City. (Brice Wallace/Salt Lake Business Journal)
The audience takes in a presentation during the recent “Trends” real estate conference in Salt Lake City, presented by ULI Utah. (Brice Wallace/Salt Lake Business Journal)
A prominent Utah economist recently described the state’s environment in terms of “the water we’re swimming in.”
In short, that water is churning.
Natalie Gochnour, director of the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute and associate dean at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah, told the Salt Lake City audience that Utah is in the midst of five consequential trends.
“As an economist, I’m always looking at cyclical things and I’m looking at structural things, but, in this case, you’re almost looking at a new world — something that’s bigger [and] longer-lasting,” Gochnour said during the keynote presentation at the “Trends” real estate conference, hosted by ULI (Urban Land Institute) Utah.
Under the umbrella term “The Great Reordering,” she said a group of economic, demographic, technological, social and geopolitical changes “are colliding and creating a reordering of society, a reordering of the world.”
Utah is in a period of cumulative, ongoing and, in many cases, irreversible changes, and that reordering reconstitutes how people, institutions and nations function.
“The ground below us is shifting,” she said.
One example is the “fading” American dream, as the percentage of children earning more than their parents has slipped from 92 percent in 1940 to 50 percent in 1984 (based on children’s birth year).
“The economy is not working for everybody,” she said. “This economy — all the structural changes; this has been moving for a while — is leaving some people behind. And that creates an uproar, that creates polarization, that creates populism, that creates a lot of unrest and discord.”
What was one of Utah’s relative strengths, its strong fertility rate, also has slipped, with the state experiencing 16 consecutive years of flat or declining rates, “and it changes everything,” she said.
As a result, schools are closing, there are fewer college-age students, the labor force changes, “and youthfulness has always been an economic advantage for Utah,” she said. A younger population generally is healthier, less expensive, provides a growing labor force and, in a technology-heavy world, “a young population is tech-savvy, and we lose that competitive advantage.”
A generally older population means that Utah’s population that is age 65 and older stands currently at about 1 in 8 but could be 1 in 4 by the year 2065, with widespread consequences for transportation, housing, healthcare and the overall economy, Gochnour said.
Among social components that are complicating the world is anxiety, with people concerned about world events, paying bills, safety, identity theft, their health, climate change and technology impacts.
AI is contributing to that anxiety, as one-fourth of the state’s occupations are exposed to some level of AI automation. It’s even more dramatic in Utah’s technology sector, which saw employment erode from a peak of 46,700 in 2022 to 40,400 currently. The state’s information sector lost 4 percent of its jobs from September 2025 to September 2026. “It shows you an industry that is changing,” Gochnour said.
On the positive side, Utah has several “mega-projects” underway or on the horizon that will be significant contributors to the economy and the state’s people. For example, the reopening of the Salt Lake City temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will boost the city’s visitation totals by more than 5 million between April and October next year. “That’s like a second ski season,” Gochnour said. “That’s how many visits we get to Zions National Park.”
Other projects include developments at The Point; the Utah Inland Port; Salt Lake City’s Power District; the city’s Sports & Entertainment, Convention and Culture District; the Union Pacific/Norfolk Southern merger and its expected increase in rail activity; nuclear energy development and the 2034 Olympic Winter Games.
Most of those will take place in Salt Lake County. “This is urban Utah really powered and flourishing and thriving in this new era,” Gochnour said.
In this era of change, Utah’s leaders face questions about how to lead change, how to prepare people for change, how to prevent and solve problems together, and how to treat one another, she said.
“We’re in a new era,” Gochnour said. “There are massive structural changes. These changes are ongoing, cumulative and, in many cases, irreversible. It’s the water all around us. We’ve got to get good at change, and as we change, we’ve got to treat people with greater dignity.”
