Provo in Businessweek

Businessweek recently ran a story about Mormons and business. It’s fairly interesting, but on the fifth page it describes Provo as

“a city of roughly 100,000, laid out on a grid of colossal six-lane streets built up into a maze of housing developments, hotels, and fast-food chains.”

I think the tone of the sentence is (meant to be) vaguely insulting, and at very least it’s meant to contrast the city to others that have successful business schools. But I also think its really kind of interesting. It makes Provo seem so much bigger, and wilder, than I typically perceive it to be.

Clearly, whoever wrote the sentence has never been to Provo. After all, I can’t think of any six lane streets, and I wouldn’t describe it as a maze (when I think of maze-like cities I think of alley-filled places in Europe or South America).

But in any case and despite it’s intentions, I don’t think it’s a wholly unflattering description.