please see the uploaded word files

I went to several sources in order to create a demographic profile of my “home town.” I have not lived in Highland for over 30 years, but it is still the place where I grew-up and it presents a pretty unique profile.

Just the facts:

In 2011, Highland had a population of 15,625 which represented a population increase of 91.2% since the year 2000. The median resident age was 21.9 years old which is over 10 years younger than the state of Utah average and 15.2 years younger than the national average.

At $103,270, house hold income is close to double the state average. It also costs more than twice as much to own a home. Income tends to correlate with education and this appears to be true for Highland. Close to 99% of the population graduates from high school. The national average is only 85%. 59.9% of the population has at least a 4 year degree. The national average is roughly 25%. One interesting fact is that even though the household income is so much higher than the state average, per/capita income is only $5000 more. This is due to the larger than average number of people in each household. (4.37 compared to the Utah average of 3.06 and the national average of just 2.6) Large families seem to be the norm in Highland. Only 0.3% of housing units are multi-unit structures. Most are single family homes. Aparently there are no apartments or duplexes in Highland. The state of Utah average for multi-unit structures is 21.3%. One last item, only 4% of the population of highland lives below the poverty line. That’s compared to the national average of over 14%.

To sum up… Highland is made-up of young, rich, well-educated, large, white-families. According to the census 95.9% of the population is made up of “white persons.”

Prizm classifies each zip code into 5 neighborhoods. The five neighborhoods that were chosen for the Highland zip code were:

Country squires (upscale midle age with kids)

Kids & Cul-de-sacs (upper-mid younger with kids)

Upward Bound (upscale midle age with kids)

White Picket Fences (upper-mid younger with kids)

Winner’s Circle (wealthy midle age with kids)

Notice the three defining characteristics that we would expect to find based on the census data and other sources we looked at, relatively well off, relatively young and “with kids.”

Now the story:

The numbers represent a snap shot of Highland the way it is today. Although I could see the seeds of today’s Higland when I was a young man, the Highland I grew up in is quite a bit different than today’s version. I was 5 years old when we first moved to Highland. It was a rural farming community and if Prizm were to describe the prominent neighborhoods, they would have most likely come up with the following: Mayberry-ville, Shotguns and Pickups and Kid Country USA. We still had large families. I come from a family of 8 children. But instead of being rich and well to do, we were farmers, ranchers and hunters. I grew up milking cows, riding horses, chasing pigs, hunting pheasants, camping outside and fishing for trout. I am an eagle scout. We used to be able to go out our front door and hunt pheasants in the fields across the road. My brother once shot a deer while he (my brother, not the deer) was standing on our back porch. Our closest neighbor was a mile a way (probably not that far. It just seemed that way to my young mind.) He raised mink for fur coats. We were rural in every sense of the word.

One prominent feature of growing up in Highland that does not present itself in the numbers is the impact of religion. It seemed like everybody was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). Much of Highland life revolved around the church. On Wednesdays, riding the bus home from school meant that the bus drove straight to the church. All of the kids had “primary.” (This was a week day meeting for the young kids of the church.) I can’t remember anybody who stayed on the bus. This also meant that we knew Saturdays might include working on the church welfare farm and Sundays definitely meant being at church, no sports and no shopping.

Other items that do not exactly show up in the numbers include: First, Highland’s interactions with surrounding communities like American Fork to the south, where I graduated from High School and Alpine to the north, where all the rich people lived. Second, Highland has four distinct seasons. I remember going snow camping in the winter. We built igloos and spent the night with just our body heat and a candle to keep us warm. And third, lack of industry located in Highland. Most Highlanders (makes me want to insert a “there can be only one” joke) then and now travel outside of Highland to work and shop.

In targeting the population of Highland when I was growing up, I would have priced my merchandize on the low end, sold products related to hunting, farming, camping and fishing, avoided alcohol and tobacco, used the local seed store to distribute my merchandize and tried to get my announcements in the church bulletin. Today, I would be charging a premium price, selling merchandize related to large family activities, still avoiding alcohol and tobacco products, distributing my goods through the mall and still trying to ge my announcements in the church bulletin.

The Highland Utah I knew is long gone. The fields where I hunted, camped and went horseback riding are now used for housing. The old farmer struggling to get in his crop has been replaced by the young entreprenuer trying to raise his large family.