So fun making this about my home! Utah is so unique, I love it.

As an SLC transplant, I'll say this - the grid and naming system makes it so easy to find your way around and instantly know where a place is, based just on its address. Coming from Orlando - which was apparently laid out in homage to a spilled bowl of spaghetti, it was a nice change.

Utah folklorist here: the wide streets were more likely to contain fires more easily to city blocks rather than jumping streets and threatening the whole city. I believe it was Wilford Woodruff who clarified that in a letter.

So in Salt Lake City, the streets are referred to by their number, starting as mentioned in the video at Temple Square. However, something that often confuses visitors is how the names are written as opposed to how they are spoken aloud. "300 West" on a map or street sign is "Third West" when spoken aloud. "2100 South" is "Twenty-First South." North, South, and West Temple are the streets that border Temple Square to the respective directions, and Main Street borders Temple Square on the east. "100 East" is actually "State Street," which leads up to the Capitol Building. So if you wanted to know where the Main Branch of the Salt Lake City Library is, I would tell you it's at "Fourth South and Second East," that is four blocks south and two blocks east of Temple Square.

Not only is SLC gridded out in large squares, but practically every city and town in Utah has the same layout

I've waited so long for this! As a out of state and non-LDS student at the U, I've absolutely fallen in love with Salt Lake City and Utah. I'm so happy you did a breakdown on the map!

Those obscenely wide streets have allowed for a lot of modern urban amenities to flourish in the city. For example, it has allowed for wide sidewalks that provide space for landscaping, benches, etc. It’s allowed for the easy construction of light rail lines right on busy streets. Bike lanes were easily implemented with so much space to work with. Angled street parking has been added to what has essentially become restaurant/night life district. State Street was even turned into a river during historic flooding in the 1980’s!

4:50 Deseret is a Mormon term, meaning of the hive. They likened themselves to a colony of bees, building & producing. That is why Utah is called the beehive state. I wondered about this for decades, until I started trucking in Utah regularly. The road layout was explained to me by a local Utah driver. Gotta give those early settlers credit. They were very ingenious !

Have lived in Salt Lake for 30 years and just learned more from this 9 minute video than I did from any Utah history class I ever took. 10/10 beehives.

Worth mentioning is Samuel Newhouse, an early-20th century millionaire who financed many of the buildings in the Exchange Place Historic District (400 S/Main St). This area was intentionally built as a counter to the LDS-owned business areas centered around Temple Square. Even today, you can feel the difference between the northern side of downtown and the southern side on a Friday or Saturday night. City Creek and the areas around it close early while the Exchange Place has an active bar and restaurant scene late into the night.

Dude this is like, one of the most well-constructed, interesting, and quality KZfaq videos that I've watched in a minute. Instant subscriber.

Yes, SLC is booming. But at a huge cost, unfortunately: As you mentioned, the Great Salt Lake is drying up, a phenomenon that's happening to many terminal lakes across the globe. We started researching for a new video about it and realized that the case for the GSL is unique and alarming: the exposed soil underneath its water could eventually make the city unliveable very soon. People need to be aware of that bc there are still viable measures to prevent such a scenario.

Growing up in Salt Lake Valley, the grid system was taken for granted. When I first studied Cartesian coordinates, I was pleasantly surprised that I already knew how they worked. Just like Salt Lake City’s street system.

Currently a student of Utah history right now and you did an incredible job summing up this period in 8-9 minutes. Great job!

I've lived in Utah and Israel, so the thumbnail caught my attention. Awesome video!

As a geography geek, I dug this video. I love cultural geography and maps and historical info. SLC is one of my favorite cities. Always managed to stop off on my travels and explore. The wide streets, leafy east side neighborhoods and beautiful location always entranced me. Good work

Great video! Interesting, respectful and informative. It's fun to see the city I live in be explained in such a way.

Finally! We’ve been waiting for new map explained!

It's weird but I live in Australia, Cairns Australia to be exact and yet for some years now I've had a fascination with Salt Lake City and the LDS church, especially LDS Temple Architecture. I've been to the United States now twice and have visited the usual spots like LA, San Fran, NYC, Philly, DC, Chicago and of course Las Vegas. Las Vegas was the closest I got to Mormon Country and I do recall that LV was originally settled by LDSs. That said I found the country around LV more interesting than the City itself. I hope next time to perhaps drive from LA through LV and up into Utah and Salt Lake City and find out why this mountain city is in my thoughts and dreams so often. Great Video BTW.

Yes! The map explained videos are what gives Bright Trip an edge over other youtube travel/edu content! And it’s cool you talked with a local expert for this one - the kind of resource that might be an institution in a town but unknown to everyone else.

As somebody who also makes tons of videos about Utah, this was a great video. Very well made and well produced. Thanks for sharing our city!

Originally from Philadelphia, I've lived here in Salt Lake City for more than a decade. The roads are fantastic with how large they are, allow for a lot of two-lane thoroughfares in the middle of the city, and give it more a spacious look; i've never seen a city that was built around the mountains with such beauty and design. Thank you for noting the dwindling water supply in the area. The pollution out here is getting out of hand. This place is the perfect geological situation for pollution to linger. They are already enlarging I-15 and I-80 for the expected people moving out of Caledonia; learn from your lessons and don't consume all the water!!! Salt Lake is probably one of the most uniquely beautiful places in the U.S., and it seems people have figured that out recently, something I wish was still a secret. Great video.

Random fact: I took an SLC walking tour couple months ago and the guide told me that Fort Douglas is the only US Fort that is facing "inward" (towards the city) because the mormons were the sole thread!

Fellow Utahn here that loves our unique and quirky state (and its history). Please make this a continuing series!

This was cool! It was like watching a Johnny Harris video but without the orange jacket. The music, the maps, the way you apologize for stuff, the story telling... just like him. He would be proud

It’s just really fun to see videos about my state, it feels like no one talks about it

You don't need to apologize or explain that you're going to get to something...you always have a well thought out presentation in your map vids. Ignore any negative or overly critical comments unless they are genuinely constructive. Please continue making them...a few of my friends and I are hooked!

Come on!!! A longer version of this video please!!!!

Great video! A lot of surprising history in SLC and this makes for a great introduction to it!

You should do a whole bunch of cities like this. I watch your videos before visiting a city!

Let me say, living in the Salt Lake Valley, this layout is great! A lot of the time you can spit out an XXXXX S and XXXXX W/E and be able to instantly know where to go without maps, all within the greater salt lake area.

Thank you for sharing map explainers + history like this! So useful!

Thanks for treating the LDS church fairly. Great video. Subscribed.

The local legend is that Brigham Young wanted the streets wide enough that an 8-oxen team could pull a U-turn so easily that the ladies in the shops on either side wouldn't have to hear the drivers resort to profanity.

This was so interesting! So glad I found your channel, keep up the good work!

Honestly such a beautiful city

Please do Savannah, it has a very unique map/city design that unfortunately very few places in the US have followed

The Avenues were housing for miners and people who were not Mormon. It has always been the home for artists, students,university professors, etc.

This is my first time ever seeing one of your videos and was curious when i saw your thumbnail on this video because i am from and still live in Salt Lake City. Your video was so well done (akin to Johnny Harris videos) and this is the first time I've subscribed to someone's channel after just one video. I'm excited to watch many more of your videos too. Great job!

Great video! I like your style, especially the way you treated what could be seen as sensitive topics. I had always wondered why the avenues seemed more crowded than the proper. The more you know

I don't get any of these comments complaining that he didn't cover most of SLC's history. It's a video about the formation of the SLC map not whyrubuttfrustrated about Mormons and that's coming from an atheist that grew up in SLC. Growing up here spoils you to a very easily navigated city, if you can understand a X,Y axis. The biggest mountains are on the east side so you always know which way is true north. As a kid there was a couple times I snuck out late to go to my gf's house in the middle of the night. I had to go down some dodgy streets to avoid patrolling cop cars and I became lost. That is until I hit the next street sign which I immediately knew which direction was true north. I really never knew how mentally grounding it is living here. When I lived in Portland for a year it was so discombobulating. My head always felt like a spinning compass because I could never just look about and know what my orientation to the planet was. You wouldn't think such a simple thing would make you feel more/less confident but it was really significant. Didn't help that the streets there are super super tiny compared to SLC and It took such a long ass time to cover any distance in Portland. Plenty of things that I don't like about Mormonism but I cannot deny the cities advantages when a mostly singular entity had control about the street design and expansion. Another funny thing about growing up here is I used to be like most people complaining and gripping about Utah's liquor laws, that you should be able to buy alcohol from any store/time etc. When I went on my first road trip to California right after joining my fraternity. I was actually really bothered that almost every single store, outlet, grocery, gas etc. was selling more alcohol than whatever store they purported to be. It really opened my eyes to how normalized alcoholism is in the USA. It just felt grimy and trashy that alcohol was plastered everywhere. I stopped drinking about a decade ago and I can't imagine how much worse and obnoxious it would be living somewhere that I'd just be staring at liquor bottles any time I went out. Grew up resenting it, now I'm actually grateful for it. It's actually kind of surprising that I've never heard of AA promoting moving to places like SLC where the temptation would be night and day for any recovering alcoholic.

Love how you make history interesting

Love living in Utah. Fantastic place. Takes me 20 minutes to get to my favorite ski resort. I'm there with the fam every winter weekend.

Hometown!

Loved this video! Learned a lot about the city I've called home for 6 years now

Love your content ❤

Excellent subject, content, and videography. Phenominal

I actually found this quite interesting. I would really enjoy a whole series on how certain cities were planned and laid out.

An excellent presentation. Thank you. I learned more in this video than all that I've been taught in school.

Great information ! Thank you,

The video turned out amazing man

I learned about the Mormon Grid and Plat of Zion of when I traveled in Utah a few years ago, but I never learned all this. Fascinating and well done video!!

All my favorite things: maps, Salt Lake City, and black cherry Fresca. Thanks for an awesome video!

Born and raised here and I always love learning new small things about this city and state. Little different perspective being of migrant decent. Small things in this video are common knowledge to the people who's family have been here from the start. Thanks for this! Definitely subscribing

Thank you so much for making this video.. Born and raised here and how much I love my home here what a great state this is. This is the Place!

Weird I was subscribed to you awhile ago. Not sure why I wasn't anymore. Glad to see your videos again!

I really enjoyed this video. I’m a sucker for maps and this one struck home for me. When i was a kid, back in 1988, we moved to SLC from Oregon. Lived in the east bench. I graduated high school there and later from the ‘U’. I moved away in 2001 and never moved back. As an adult thought I would still return to visit my dad until his passing last year. Well done.

Great video!

Such a good video!

Visited SLC for the first time last winter season. The skiing here is absolutely amazing and I’m mad at myself for not discovering it sooner 😅

Fantastic video about the place I now call home!

I thought of giving a nickname to the Great Salt Lake. It's the "Dead Sea of Utah." But, the offical nickname is "America's Dead Sea."

Thank you.. Liked and Subbed. I find these videos very interesting. I did visit SLC once and was a little surprised to see all of the large buildings north of Temple Square. I kind of expected Temple Square to be the “core” of the city with tall buildings surrounding it. You also kind of explained why Promontory Point is so far north of SLC.

As an SLC native I loved this. Fascinating. I felt like it was finished though! I wanted more.. haha

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints and someone who just moved to Utah I found this super cool! Its not very often you get to learn so much about why where you live is the way it is! Also I really appreciated the respect he used when talking about the church and the name of the church!

I live in Salt Lake City. The grid system is perfect. Love it.

Awesome video! Utah and SLC are some of the best kept secrets on the planet for their natural beauty hope we can save the GSL.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing! SLC is a beautiful city in a beautiful state.

Salk Lake City is such a beautiful city. It may be a small city, but it's very influential for its size

Giving me Johnny Harris vibes, loves it

The streets in SLC are so wide, you almost need a map to find your way across the street. 😁 Thanks for the great upload, very professionally produced.

the naming of the 'jordan river' is interesting. a dead sea connecting a fresh water sea. like in the 'holy land' more interesting to me is that the mormons petitioned the government for the state of "deseret", it was the mormons preferred name for the region.. a name from the 'book of mormon' but it was rejected by the US government in favor of "utah" which was derived from the Ute Indian Language meaning people of the mountains.. but the navajo meaning of Utah was 'upper' or higher up' as they referenced the shoshone people. So in Isaiah 2:2 it says "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills" so in a way, the Us governments decision to name the region 'Utah' only reinforced(by accident) or validated what the mormons were trying to establish. It seemed to fulfill prophecy.

I have always been confused when looking at Salt Lake City on google maps, thanks!

As a Utah native, I didn't realize this wasn't normal in other states lol

This is so cool. I'm a native utahn and love history

hey man you should do Portland OR! It seems to be super interesting

Very comprehensive!

Nice video! Giving me Johnny Harris vibes! 😊

incredible video

SLC was very cool when Port O call was around. Very important piece of history.

That man in the tie seemed so pleasant!

Great video. The temple square and the Utah Capitol are les than a mile away. May be in old times, they thought it was far enough.

8:30 the horse and carriage thing is true, and Brigham Young expected it of all the cities, even Lehi. In fact, it is in the histories that he told David Evans (my great great grandfather) that Lehi (who had already built their business streets close together) was to push their businesses back. They refused to do this thing, and that’s why Pioneer Crossing eventually had to be built.

I would have spent an hour watching this. Well done.

This guy is like a younger Johnny Harris. Love it

Nice !

You gotta do Dallas!!!!!

I think you forgot to talk about the how the street names are named how they are! You briefly mentioned the names but I feel like that’s an important part you missed about the history. Why are they sized the way they are (hint: why are they 100 E or 1200 S and not named Main Ave or something?

The LDS church split into about 7 different groups after Joseph Smith died. Brigham's group was just one of these and the rest stayed in the same area. The reason they came to the Salt Lake City area was because it was part of Mexico and Brigham Young wanted to create his own nation called Deseret which would have been Utah, Nevada, Southern California, parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. This was undone by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which made all this area US territory. Utah kept getting shrunk down to its current size because of the gold rush in California and the silver rush in Nevada. Also, Salt Lake City wasn't the original capitol of Utah. It was Fillmore which is smack dab in the middle of Utah. But, yeah, this is why SLC is on the grid system that we still have today. You just gotta get used to locals calling streets like 3300 south "33rd south" which we do for all of them

Something not covered in the video is how the numbering system works but changes depending on which side of temple square you are on. For example, When you are on a East-West street like South Temple, and you are East of Main St. the even numbered addresses are on one side. Go West of Main St. and they change to the other side of the street. The same is true for North-South streets. The dividing streets in Salt Lake City, are South Temple and Main St.

Native Utahan (actually didn't know how to spell that, english is weird. Utahn was my first attempt). Great video. will like and subscribe.

I think they are still called the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. Isn’t that name on all their buildings?

Please make a video about Boston

The mormon cult is horrifyingly interesting

I was helping my son move from NY to California for grad school, and we took turns driving. The car broke down coming over the mountains into Salt Lake City. It took them three days to fix it. So we looked around the city a little bit. I was expecting a grim theocracy, but it turned out to be pleasant enough. The planetarium was fun. And there was a Brazilian "rodizio" restaurant in the mall, and the food was pretty decent. But I was still glad to get back on the highway.

I love the grid system and as a teenager in the mid 70’s, I was a delivery driver for a local printing company. The grid system made it so easy to locate my destinations, and GPS hasn’t even a thought then. Years later I took a job delivering pizzas outside of the original grid, and it was far more difficult to find my customers. Again, no GPS.

Whenever I visit Utah and somebody tells me a named street, the very first thing I do (anybody does) is ask what north or east (or whatever) that named street is. Because then you can just head in the grid direction until you're almost at your destination. No map or GPS needed in Salt Lake.

Do a map break down of cape town

It's actually pretty neat. No other cult built a city that has lasted 150 years.

I was just at Niagara Falls and got to talk to someone from salt lake city he couldn't believe the amount of freshwater that flows over Niagara Falls each Second I live by Lake Erie in Ohio Lake Erie water levels have been high for 4 years now I was at Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario thus summer as well definitely no lack of low water still higher than normal.