Utah by the numbers
Still, there's a certain sparse poetry to numbers, and, as with poetry, a meaning that may not be entirely clear on the first reading.
What can we make, for example, of the fact that Utah has more breweries and brew pubs per capita than New York or California? (Is it because of our liquor laws? Our need to feel less "repressed"?) We also produce more pounds of solid waste per capita than the national average? (Because we have more disposable diapers? More beer bottles?)
Here are some Utah numbers that may — or may not — help define who we are:
Chuck-a-Rama buffets: 9
Starbucks: 11
Breweries: 15
Hazardous waste sites: 12
Pickups: 1 per every 7 people
Minivans: 1 per every 35 people
Horses: 1 per every 45 people
Snowmobiles: 1 per every 76 people
LDS ward houses: 1,300
Mosques: 3
Average bank credit-card debt per household: $6,714
Utahns on the Forbes richest 400 Americans list: 3
Number of five-star hotels: 1
Cloggers: 3,000
Living people who have ever sung with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir: 1,500
Of the 25 winners in the 1999 Scrapbook Hall of Fame, the number who are Utahns or are Utah natives: 15
Osmond brothers still maintaining residences in Utah: 6
Nobel Prize winners from Utah: 1
New Eagle Scouts in 2000: 3,828
Juvenile arrests in 2000: 31,117
Babies born in 2001 named Brigham: 24
Babies born in 2001 named Stockton: 27
Height of tallest building: 420 feet
Height of tallest mountain: 13,528 feet
Number of elevators: 5,008
Number of escalators: 287
Licensed cosmetologists/barbers: 20,342
Licensed lawyers: 5,943
Licensed massage therapists: 3,550
Licensed deception detectors: 23
Utah businesses with "pioneer" in their names: 284
Approved Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association rodeos in Utah in 2001: 22
Percent Utahns who live in urban areas: 90
Pounds of brine shrimp harvested in 2000: 19.9 million
Utah companies on the New York Stock Exchange: 3,000
Movies and TV shows shot in Utah since 1912: 697
Salt in the Great Salt Lake: 4.9 billion tons
Salt extracted in 2001 from the Great Salt Lake: 2.5 million tons
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