Last week, state and county leaders met to discuss how to cope with economic and population growth in Utah County. While the suggestions were reasonable, they were all based on the assumption that growth is inevitable — like tectonic plate movement — and not the product of deliberate state and local government policies. In fact, fast-paced, unbridled growth is a choice — one that we should address head-on.

Forty years ago, when families in Utah County were much larger and economic opportunities were more limited — especially after the closure of Geneva Steel — attracting outside businesses was essential. But that was a long time ago. Our local population is no longer growing, and our biggest problems are congestion, pollution, water scarcity, housing prices, adequate schools, and — ironically — a lack of workers.

Despite all this, the state, county, and some municipalities continue to encourage businesses to relocate to Utah County by providing an alphabet soup of economic incentives, such as EDTIF, HTICT, REDI, and IAF, not to mention sweetheart deals for Amazon, Google, GoHealth, Anglepoint Group, and many others. All are designed to lower the cost of establishing and maintaining a business in this area on the assumption that what we already offer is not enough.

This incentive strategy makes little sense in Utah County, where workers are simply not available locally and must be pulled in from out of state. These efforts produce accelerated growth that pits towns and states and their governments against each other while making it more difficult for established firms to retain their workers, thus driving up wages and prices. It makes even less sense when we consider the obvious constraints on sustaining the quality of life in this particular area. Unlike Austin, Texas or other high-growth areas, we live in a high desert on a very narrow strip of land wedged between mountains and a lake.

We have all seen the effects of this growth-first strategy. Despite dramatic cuts in vehicle emissions, we continue to pump out as much air pollution as ever due to more cars on the roads. Despite our best efforts to expand highways, traffic jams are increasing. We still can’t afford to build enough schools to lower class sizes or pay the teachers enough to keep them in the classroom, despite recent reforms. Nor can we afford to build up a mass transit system that makes sense for everyone. Every year we risk depleting our reservoirs. And we can’t keep up with the demand for housing.

We need to rethink our insistence on economic growth — at least for a time. We should pause the tax breaks to out-of-state businesses. And we should bring our state and local tax structure in line with those of neighboring states. We should then use that time to catch up with needed public services and to get a grip on pollution and resource management.

We can rest assured that businesses and workers will still be attracted to our area. They’ll come for the natural beauty, the strong universities, the great neighborhoods, and the quality of life. Utah County will still be a wonderful place to train for a career, to raise a family, and to retire.

On the dark side, insisting on economic growth as the top priority will probably solve itself over time, but in a most difficult of ways. Our quality of life will deteriorate to the point that outside businesses and workers will decide that coming to Utah County is not worth it, despite the tax incentives. If conditions get bad enough, we might even see people leave the area. While this will help solve problems related to pollution, congestion, housing prices, and school class sizes, but also harm many along the way. This is what we can expect from unmanaged growth — but if growth is fast enough, it will always be unmanaged.

There is nothing inevitable about growth — it is in large part the result of government policies. The first step in managing growth is deciding how much growth there should be in the first place.

Ken Stiles is a Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University.

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