2015 Yearbook

R E V I E W 21 PRESERVING HISTORIC RESIDENTIAL CHARACTER IN SALT LAKE CITY CARL LEITH This commentary on conservation in Salt Lake City, Utah, focusses on the current tensions between residents striving to retain the character of their neighbourhood and those who either use it as a resource to be mined for redevelopment profit or who regard it as another residential suburb to be modified at will to provide space for their growing family. Underlying these tensions are opposing definitions of property rights, with either a personal or a community focus. Underlying this again is the increasingly polarised pro- or anti- government myopia of current US politics, characterised by an inability to countenance alternative viewpoints. At stake are many of the architectural resources which define Salt Lake City and the essence of residential neighbourhood character. This snapshot deals with diversity in culture, politics, heritage resources, values and ‘understanding’ – as well as ‘futures’. SALT LAKE CITY AND UTAH Salt Lake City was established by Brigham Young’s Mormon pioneers in 1847. The cultural diversity of modern Salt Lake City began to emerge soon after with the growth of mining in the area, the establishment of a US military presence from 1850, and the coming of the railroad in 1869. These developments encouraged non-Mormon immigration and the beginnings of a long-standing tension between Mormons and ‘Gentiles’. The Mormon (Latter-day Saints or ‘LDS’) Church attracted many from Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, so ancestral and family ties to Britain are strong, as were the imported traditional building craft skills engaged to construct the city. Despite the dominant presence of the LDS Church, Salt Lake City has a very atypical Utah cultural, ethnic and religious diversity. The state has always been effectively run by the LDS Church in the shape of the State Legislature, always conservative and latterly more Republican. In stark contrast to neighbouring cities and Upper Harvard Yale Park Local Historic District (designated February 2015) in the Yalecrest neighbourhood of Salt Lake City, Utah