I almost posted this under "Last gasp effort to save the wards", but decided it was worth its own thread.

http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2023/05/united-states-congregational-growth-by.html

The biggest takeaway IMHO is that the three west coast states, and Nevada and Arizona, between them lost 111 congregations, California counting for half of that.

Utah added 37 congregations, and most other states were pretty much onesie-twosies. Colorado lost 4.

Except for Utah, the Intermountain West and West coast appear to be having a rough go WRT to accepting The One True Church.

The GAs can relax, It's the members fault.

Interesting. It looks like they are contracting and concentrating here in Mormon belt in ID and UT.

Politics of the different states and worries about water supplies are probably factors. However, overall, I think it's more of a migration back to Zion where they can have their own turf kind of like an Amish reclusive thing as their numbers decrease. They really don't fit in well in other places and like-minded community is limited outside of Mormon belt.

I suspect a good part of the 37 new congregations in Utah are because of in-migration of members from outside Utah.

Two points:
1) Even so, the other western states are still net down over 70 congregations. Where did those people go?

2) Demographers have been keeping track of how much of the in-migration is LDS. Turns out that that the percentage of people moving into the state that are LDS is lower than the percentage of LDS already living in the state. That means the migration population growth of Utah is actually lowering the overall percentage of Mormons in the state.

Yes, the number of Mormons is going up. The number of nonMormons is going up faster.

Does that mean there's going to be a re-gerrymander of districts in order to maintain the church strangleholds on the state's legislature and congressional delegation?

MUFF: Make Utah Florida Forever.

Eventually, yes.

Most states gerrymander by putting most opposition voters in a few congressional districts, so that all the other districts in the state are “safe” for the party doing the gerrymandering.

Utah doesn’t have to do that. They can split the opposition up among the 4 congressional districts, and all 4 are Republican enough to still be safe. If the northern and eastern halves of SL County were a single district, it would almost certainly be a Blue district. That 3/4ths of SLCounty is presently split into all 4 congressional districts.

The time will come when that will no longer work, and there will have to be at least one Blue district in Utah. Then the gerrymander will be to stuff as many D voters into that one district, similar to what is done in other states.

I don’t see that happening anytime soon, but the numbers move a little bit in that direction each election.

One more thing. Mormons don’t need to be 51% of the population to control elections. That would mathematically guarantee control (if enough unrealistic assumptions are made), but in reality, if Mormons continue to vote as a pretty reliable block, even if they were only 20% of the population, that’d be enough to win most elections.

The key is that the nonMormon vote is split between two parties, so the number of votes the Mormon block would need to supply to win is considerably less than 51% of the total vote.

California, along with the Pacific coast in general, has gotten so expensive. Housing is through the roof. I can see a young Mormon family thinking that the Moridor (especially Utah and Idaho,) might be the better option. Texas has shown some growth as well.

Although not as expensive as California, Utah and Idaho have become expensive as well. A two or three bedroom condo in the Salt Lake area runs in the $350k-$400k range. I suspect that many young families just won’t be able to afford to live here either.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2023 12:34AM by want2bx.

Wow! I had no idea. That's pricey. Central Maryland has always had a somewhat elevated cost of living. Two-to-three bedroom condos in my community are going from about $310k to $330k. For townhomes I'm not sure, because they haven't been coming on the market lately.

I have a problem with the "California is so expensive" rationale for declining congregations. For starters, 40 million people still manage to live in California. I don't see why that group would not include Mormons.

I have to smile when people claim the only people who can manage to live in California are rich people and illegal aliens. Really? At least people usually don't claim that in the same breath.

Secondly, if the closing of wards is because of people moving out because of the cost of living, then there should be an equal increase in wards in the locations people are moving to. I think some, perhaps much of the growth in Utah, and maybe even Texas is from move-ins from the west coast. However, the amount of growth is much smaller than the amount of shrinkage in the non-Morridor western states.

The only conclusion that makes sense to me is that a lot of Mormons are no longer active members of any ward.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2023 05:25PM by Brother Of Jerry.

I take your point, but sometimes what works in the short term in high cost of living areas does not work for the long term. My niece who formerly lived in San Francisco, had at least seven roommates there. She is now living in New Orleans with her spouse, and they own their own home. My nephew had a very high level job in his industry in NYC. He and his wife and child had a tiny rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn. Now they own their own home in Maine. That would not have been possible in NYC. I can see Mormon families looking at the housing cost in California, and going for more affordable options elsewhere.

I don't go to church anymore. I belonged to the Palo Alto ward in California the early 70s - 90s. It was a well attended ward. Just about all the Mormon kids I grew up with moved to Utah along with just about everyone else in the ward. One family was offered 30 million for their house in Palo Alto. They took the money and headed for Utah. The super rich person who bought their house bought the entire block for his family compound. I think it was the guy who started snapchat. How does the average family from Utah have enough money to compete with that?

The only kids I grew up with who still live here have wealthy parents who bought them houses. Many of them still ended up moving to Utah in search of more conservative values and less pressure for their children, especially after several suicides in the local schools.

The Palo Alto ward has shrunk to just about nothing. The old members who stayed put are all dying off. Their children can't afford to stay. The ones who can don't like how the area has changed so they moved to Utah where they will be surrounded by lots of conservative Mormons.

When I first moved to Palo Alto in the early 70s the rich people were mostly doctors and lawyers. Everyone else had jobs connected with the university or in other areas that didn't pay as much but still enough to buy a nice home in parts of the town that weren't so expensive. Today doctors can't afford to live here. The house I lived in in Palo Alto cost $120,000 in 1973. It's now for sale for over ten million dollars. How many families from Utah can afford that?

Although it seems logical that Mormon families should be moving in as the population is increasing with more and more housing crammed in, it is out of financial reach for most. Just being a doctor, lawyer or dentist won't cut it. Most young couples or families who move in are just here to finish up med school or degrees and then move to a place where they can afford to buy a nice house. Who wants to live in an apartment forever? Also, the area has become very diverse and many conservative people don't really like it.

It seems that the more affordable places to live in California are places with a higher crime rate and lower quality schools. So off to Utah/Arizona/Idaho/Texas go the Mormons.

I think you are describing Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg's home in Palo Alto; he's the one who bought about five homes and turned them into his own pleasure palace.

Zuckerberg lives in a different part of town. There are lots of super rich like him. One of the guys who started google also bought many properties surrounding his house. It's the trend here. Uber rich people buy the lots surrounding their property so they can have privacy.

I see.

Great info. Thanks.

Even in Utah its contracting in a lot of areas, particularly metro areas. I'm guessing the growth is in Utah County and south(across the Payson-Dickson Line).

In my area they just consolidated two wards and sold one of the properties for development (the new 4th pillar of the church).

Until the last 10 years there were about 6 chapels and 12 wards (at least) in east Ogden. Now there are 5 chapels and 5 wards.