Many people believe Utah may be the most entrepreneurial state in the country - its Mormon values for individual success being a factor.

Joe Alfandre and I visited three towns in Utah this week:  Pleasant Grove, St. George and Logan.  Pleasant Grove valued revitalizing its downtown, though more from a historic preservation point of view.  St. George wanted to revitalize its downtown as a regional destination with some artistic, cultural excitement.  They both understood the CoolTown approach to making that a reality.

The town that already had a CoolTown vision was Logan.  It’s no coincidence that the president of the town’s 22,000-student university helped found the Research Triangle Park in Raleigh, NC* (see comments below for clarification).  University administrators and city leaders alike embraced the notion that a CoolTown center would attract and retain the most innovative people, which is why the university renamed their R&D growth efforts as the Innovation Campus.

Image:  The Gateway in downtown Salt Lake City.  If it were vastly more affordable with more housing, workplaces and mom & pops, it’d be a CoolTown.