Valley Visioning: Share your voice for the future of Utah County
This month we held the kickoff for the Valley Visioning process, including the release of an online survey that will help us understand how residents want to see Utah County grow. Please take the survey and share it with your friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, and everyone you know!
The Valley Vision will play a critical role over the coming decades as Utah Valley adds more than one million residents—85 percent of that growth coming from our own families. Thank you for your support and participation as we work to help Utah Valley residents create a vision for the future of the region.

Moving forward, the Valley Visioning team will hold a series of public workshops across Utah County to learn more about residents’ desires and concerns for the future. We're still in the scheduling stage, but you can click here to see the initial list. We hope to see you there!
Utah Education Solutions: Highlighting the great things happening in Utah education
These 30-second videos are part of our education outreach campaign and highlight some of the great things going on in Utah's education system. We are working to use these videos to help Utahns understand what it will take to ensure that every child in our state gets a great education. 
Salt Lake City School District's Peer Assistance & Review (PAR) program is a great example of a "Utah education solution." Logan Hall, SLCSD'S HR Supervisor, discusses how induction and mentorship structure has brought SLCSD's five-year teacher retention rate up 20 percent from the statewide average and what it can do for Utah students. PAR is great example of a model that could be implemented statewide.
Liz Hitch, Associate Commissioner of Academic and Student Affairs at the Utah System of Higher Education, highlights teachers' critical role in student success and the important work Utah's colleges and universities do to ensure teachers get high-quality, cutting-edge training. This ties directly back to Envision Utah's teacher shortage data—we know teachers who come out of USHE's academic prep programs are most likely to stay in the classroom long-term and become the experienced, skilled teachers our kids need.

Please watch the videos and share them! Focusing on what's working in our education system and using those best practices throughout the state will go a long way towards improving Utah's education outcomes. 
Envision Utah in Arizona—Maricopa County regional transportation plan
Together with Heart+Mind Strategies, Envision Utah is working with the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) to complete a values study as a precursor to their next regional transportation plan. This fall we traveled to Phoenix, Arizona to conduct two “illumination labs” (basically large computer-assisted focus groups) with key stakeholders and prominent community members. This month we also helped conduct a “Bright Board” exercise where community members provided in-depth feedback about transportation and quality of life. 

We'll use this input to create a detailed values map that will provide insight into what Maricopa residents care most about—and why they care about those things—related to transportation. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to help MAG use the Envision Utah process to create a vision for transportation in Maricopa County!
Robert Grow recognized with national award
This month Envision Utah CEO Robert Grow traveled to Washington D.C. to receive the "Leader for a Livable, Equitable, and Sustainable America" award from Partners for Livable Communities. The award is a national recognition of Robert's work with Envision Utah and the process he helped pioneer nearly two decades ago. Since then, Robert has consulted, coached, and taught communities in more than 80 major metropolitan areas of the U.S., helping them follow Envision Utah's process for values-based visioning.

Here in Utah, that process has led to a dramatic expansion of Utah’s public transportation system, reductions in per capita water use, reduced air pollution, and community design that is more convenient for families and minimizes the loss of farmland. Most importantly, the state and communities throughout Utah have created visions for what the future should look like, including specific, collaborative strategies to realize that vision. Envision Utah’s efforts are making a big impact, and people are looking to Utah to see what we're doing right.

Congratulations Robert, and thank you to everyone who makes the Envision Utah process possible!
Support Envision Utah!
We greatly appreciate all of our contributors for enabling us to carry out these efforts. Please consider a donation to support Envision Utah today!
In the news
Good 4 Utah
Utah County is expected to see a population boom of more than a million people by 2065. While that may seem far into the future, experts say decisions made today will impact how the area grows. Community leaders and residents are working on  The Valley Visioning  plan.
Utah Policy
Robert Grow, CEO of Envision Utah, received the national “Leader for a Livable, Equitable and Sustainable America” award, presented by Partners for Livable Communities, a Washington-based nonprofit. 

Deseret News
While researchers note Salt Lake City is, and will likely remain, the economic epicenter of the Beehive State for the foreseeable future, Utah County has become the primary engine of the state's nation-leading growth.


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