I moved from Minnesota to Utah almost two years ago. I met my husband online in 2007 and we got married last year; I moved here to Salt Lake City to be with him. For now I'm just going to introduce myself by sharing my experience in moving from a more progressive blue state to a very conservative red state and some of the differences I've personally had to adapt to.
The only thing I really don't miss about Minnesota is the weather. I don't do well with cold; I get depressed in the winter. We basically haven't had a winter here at all this year, which is great not dealing with snow, but still feels wrong.
I hate it here; both of us do. Unfortunately moving to somewhere that doesn't suck would probably put us into debt, which we're lucky we don't have any right now. Below the fold is a list of all the things I hate about Utah that will hopefully be coherent.
-Bad drivers. Utah has some of the worst drivers I've ever seen. They don't know where they're going, don't use turn signals, don't know how right-of-ways work, don't pay attention to what's going on around them, go 5-10mph under the speed limit and crowd in the right lane on the freeway making it difficult to merge or exit, and get into the exit lane and immediately drop to 10mph below the speed limit slowing everything down even if the exit isn't for another half mile, and drive around at night without headlights on. You literally have to assume that every other car is going to do something stupid. My husband saw someone driving down the road in the bicycle lane one day. Having visited both east and west coasts and many cities in between, the one place I've seen drivers worse is in New Orleans. My father-in-law went to New Orleans for the first time a couple years ago and he said the same thing. At least I felt safe riding my bicycle around New Orleans; can't do that here without going mountain biking or a trail nowhere near traffic.
-Bad road design. I don't know what UdoT is smoking because a lot of it just doesn't make any sense. There's one interchange we take going to work where it basically goes from 3 lanes down to one, and the left lane merges into the middle one. Of course people always hug the yellow line until the last moment and then force their way in.
If you want to turn left from Bangerter Highway, you have to go over to the left side of the road, crossing oncoming traffic and make your left turn. There are extra traffic lights, but it's just as confusing as it sounds; all it does is slow everything down.
UdoT takes forever to finish projects, and that's assuming they do it right in the first place. They had to rebuild some of I-15 for the Olympics; it took them 5 years and they had to redo part of it. Most of the time you can't even tell what they're doing. And then there's the “Spaghetti Bowl” near downtown Salt Lake.
Utah road design in a nutshell.
Detours are pretty much non-existent here. There's a year-long project going on on Bangerter right now where more than one person has died because nobody knows what's going on or where they're going. In Minnesota they'd throw a detour around it and be done in half the time.
Residential streets are also often poorly lit and street lights go out as you drive by, and speed limit signs are fewer and farther between. On some streets there are even sidewalks that just stop abruptly, and aren't continued on the other side of the street either.
They also don't use reflective paint on a lot of the roads, making the lines difficult to see especially when a lot of them aren't straight. And if it rains at night and you have to drive, good luck.
Oh, the one thing I actually like about Utah roads is in some places the left turn lane is separated from the other lanes so vehicles turning left are forced to get out of the way.
-Taxes on everything. Wonder why a state that's so anti-tax has sales taxes on food and clothing? Hmm. Minnesota only taxes prepared/convenience store food. Utah also has a flat income tax rate of 5%.
-Mormons. If you aren't religious Utah is a cultural wasteland. LDS people from other parts of the country say the Mormons here are so much more judgmental and arrogant than other places. They drive giant vehicles (affectionately called Mormon Assault Vehicles) to shuttle their six or more kids around, which are all depicted on their back windows with those little stick-figure families.
I grew up Lutheran and while I'm no longer religious I have yet to see any Lutheran or for that matter Catholic churches around here.
-Wages to cost-of-living ratio. While some places do pay higher than industry standard, such as my work, full-time jobs with benefits are still few and far between, even with the new healthcare law. (We work together full-time and our job does not offer benefits.)
Right now my husband and I are in a small one-bedroom apartment that's about $800/month with utilities, which will go up some when we renew our lease in a few weeks. In 2011 I was living in a comfortable two-bedroom apartment in Minnesota for $500/month. I realize a big city like SLC has a higher cost of living than where I used to live in central MN, however there isn't enough low-cost housing available. They keep building more and more giant houses, condos and luxury apartments that rent for $1000/month or more for a one bedroom, which is more than most people can afford anymore. Ridiculous.
-Medicaid. Utah of course is one of the states that refused to expand Medicaid or set up their own health care exchange. I was on Primary Care Network for a while, and then after I got my current job I no longer qualified. It sucked anyway; it's $1000/month income limit I believe, and the services are very limited. They limit you to 4 prescriptions/month. I have type 1 diabetes since 2007; between my insulins, test strips and birth control that was it; I had to hope I didn't end up needing anything else. Vision wasn't covered at all, and dental was limited basically to cleanings and exams once a year. If you're male and have no children you are automatically disqualified. I got a cyst in my breast once and had to go in for a mammogram and ultrasound, which of course wasn't covered either; I had to pay around $330 for that.
MinnesotaCare was freaking awesome; while you were limited for eyewear choices and one dental cleaning per year everything else was included for your monthly premium and prescription copays. I needed a bunch of dental work done around 2009 and didn't pay a red cent for any of it. (I did have to have a few fillings redone because the dentists sucked, but that's neither here nor there.)
Obamacare has been a mess for us for various reasons, but I'm going to write a separate diary about that.
-Grocery stores with low prices. We do have Costco, Whole Foods, WinCo, Smith's (which is Kroger with a different name) and a plethora of regional grocery chains in addition to the Walmart and Target super centers. But no Aldi, Trader Joe's, Meijer, or Publix. Oh how I miss Aldi; I could get an entire bag of quality groceries for under $20 there in Minnesota. As a baker this also somewhat limits places to find work that actually treats their employees well.
-Public transportation. What a joke. I mean it's ok I guess if you have all day to get somewhere. Otherwise, good luck. TRAX is ok if you need to get downtown, say to Temple Square and you have $5 to spend on a round trip. A one-month pass is $83. UTA is actually one of the most expensive in the country. If you need to get anywhere else be prepared to spend about an hour and a half getting where you could drive in 15 minutes, and make a dozen transfers. I really miss riding my bicycle everywhere, but our work is about 20 miles away so that isn't feasible, or safe.
Right now my husband and I share his car. I left my old POS car back in Minnesota because I was sure it wouldn't make the trip if I drove, and as I can't afford a decent one I've been without my own car ever since, which also makes having separate jobs more difficult. Any money I'm not spending is being saved to buy a decent (read: <100k miles and won't have to fix something every couple of months) car outright, and I'm only halfway there.
It's been pretty rough adjusting. I'm going to write more diaries about my experiences with work and health care in Utah soon.