The scenery, clean air, scenic and properly spaced neighborhoods (nothing like the trailer parks being built in herriman or Lehi), fun restaurants, being close to Mirror Lake, and the weather. Even in August the nights up there are nice and cool. So while Salt Lake, Davis, and Utah Counties are suffering from haze and oven like heat, Park City has blue skies and nice temperatures. This past summer I spent a few days up there and was astonished at how much cooler it felt and how clean the air was. Remember in August when there were major fires near Spanish fork and Payson that blanketed the valleys in nasty smoke? Park City didn’t have any of that.
The valleys aren’t bad. Most of my family still lives in bountiful and the east side of salt lake. The Murdock and provo canyon trails are awesome for walking, running, and cycling in utah county and the bonneville shoreline and Jordan river trails are awesome for the salt lake valley. The air, weather, and overall congestion is getting to me though. The traffic is awful, Especially if you’re commuting between Lehi and midvale. And many of the new neighborhoods being built in alpine, Lehi, Saratoga springs, herriman, south Jordan, are all just overpriced trailer parks. Hell, you couldn’t give me a place in that dumpster fire known as daybreak.
So if you want space, clean air, scenery, live in park city. If you want to live in the valley, you need to find a place on the east side. If you want to live in some overpriced dump without any yard or privacy, move to the west side of the valleys. It’ll take you 20+ mins just to sift through the traffic to get to I-15 where you’ll wait in a parking lot for 45+ mins just to get anywhere.