Why Provo, Utah is a Top 100 Best Place to Live
Provo residents benefit from excellent heath care, scenic beauty, and events often hosted by BYU, one of the area's top economic drivers.
Provo is willing to put itself up against all comers when it comes to scenic beauty, parks and recreation, great arts and entertainment, outstanding cuisine, and all the other must-have’s a city needs to lure in and keep residents. But then it throws in things like affordable housing, low crime, and quality education from kindergarten through college, and excellent health care to sweeten the deal.
“Each morning, its residents wake up to a breathtaking view of the Wasatch Front towering several thousand feet above them,†says Val Hale, former president and CEO of the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce. “They venture out on some of the safest streets in America, and they go to work in what Forbes magazine says is the best place in America to do business thanks to low tax rates and an extraordinary entrepreneurial spirit and business-friendly environment.”
Residents are kept in top shape thanks to the routine and specialty treatments and health-care services provided by Utah Valley Regional Medical Center and Cache Valley Hospital. On the school front, perennial state football champs Timpview High School share accolades with Provo High School’s International Baccalaureate School program, not to mention Brigham Young and Utah Valley universities.
Museums and cultural opportunities are everywhere here, from theater and art shows at the Covey Center for the Arts to the many facilities on the BYU campus. There’s also the monthly Downtown Provo Gallery Stroll. Anchoring all this is a revitalized downtown featuring buildings that date back to the 1800s and housing dozens of shops, restaurants, and clubs like Communal and the Velour Live Music Gallery.
And did we mention recreation? Robert Redford’s Sundance Resort is 20 minutes from downtown Provo, and the mountains offer backpacking, snowshoeing, hiking and mountain climbing.
“It’s no wonder that Father Escalante, in 1776, was so impressed by Utah Valley that he wrote in his journal he wanted to return to the valley to establish his permanent home,†Hale says. “There is no doubt that ‘livability’ and ‘Provo’ are synonyms.”