17 Reasons Not to Move to Lindon, Utah (Voted by the locals!)

Sunset panorama in Utah Valley, Utah, USA with views of Orem and Lindon cities.

Lindon is a lesser-known city in Utah and could be considered idyllic and comfortable for some, but for those who live there, it’s an area filled with a lot of flaws. It has become home to nearly 11,663 people as of 2022Opens in a new tab. and is still growing. So, with all the individuals and families residing in this city, what are some reasons they should have considered before moving here?

There are often many different factors that should be considered when deciding which cities to move into. Here are 17 reasons not to move to Lindon, Utah.

17. Litter

At any given time while driving down the streets of Lindon, you may come to notice how much garbage has been discarded on the side of the road and walkways.

Due to the construction within a mile of almost anywhere you go in Lindon, you will almost always be welcomed with debris from projects that are currently being built or were just finished. This garbage litters the streets and walkways.

However, it’s not just the building departments that cause so much trash to be thrown about. The residents are the biggest cause of this issue. I’ll be walking my dog and often come across cans, glass, papers, clothes, wrappers, bags, etc. littering the roads, stuck in weeds, and gently blowing in the breeze, going every which way.

16. Freeway

Lindon is in a perfectly imperfect location in regard to the I-15 freeway. The closest entrances are either Pleasant Grove or Orem, a nearly 15-minute drive either way. Depending on where you’re headed, some might just consider taking State Street since short distances would be just as convenient, if not more since you’d have to take it anyway to get to either entrance ramp.

15. Universities

This city is right up the street from two of the biggest colleges in the state of Utah: Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University. With these two being so close to one another, it causes a lot of issues when it comes to housing students while leaving space for residents. Lindon, being so close, has opened itself as a median for the two.

A lot of students have chosen to move to and rent in Lindon. They tell their friends and colleagues to move to Lindon and even live with them, cheating renters out of money, as people stay in apartments that their friends are renting for free.

This also increases traffic and fills up parking spaces that could be used by other residents, which is a problem.

14. Renters

Renters are hard to put up with. They stay in basement apartments, normal apartments, backyard casitas, and homes, dropping the values for everyone else and unnecessarily increasing local traffic.

They also obscure neighborhood unity with regular turnovers and do not utilize opportunities to meet the neighbors in conventional ways. This can come from the students having their main focus on the people they attend school with, or newlywed couples just looking for a place to stay temporarily while they finish school and make enough to move somewhere else.

13. Animals

If you are an animal lover, this could be the place for you, but you should be aware that everyone else here is as well. One can almost always guarantee a dog will bark right as you are trying to go to sleep and continue to do so sporadically throughout the night until it’s almost time for you to get up in the morning.

There are also issues with neighboring deer and raccoons that come down every day to leave little surprises in your yard for you to pick up. This, along with the literal hazards of the deer’s mere presence whenever you’re trying to drive at night, makes the animals in the area an issue that can’t be avoided.

Provo, Utah, USA view of downtown from the lookout during dusk.

12. No Variety

Most Utah neighborhoods are very similar in the sense that the residents are white, conservative, and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints most of the time.

Most of Lindon follows this trend as well. Though there may be a handful of students from the universities that are of different races or members of the LGBTQ+ community, it’s easy to notice there isn’t much of a variety in the city.

12. Pollution

Some of the businesses and factories in and around the area cause debris and smoke to fill the air. The pollution that comes from these places is bad for the environment and makes it hard for the people living here to enjoy a quality of life.

11. Bad Drivers

Expect to be cut off, honked at, flipped off, and tailgated at any given time while driving in Lindon, Utah.

There will never be a point in time where the drivers cease to amaze me without disrespectful and rude they can be. Due to a lot of them coming from different states and not knowing the style of driving around here, many will demonstrate childish road rage, nearly causing accidents, because they don’t like the way you did something.

I’ve personally had more than enough personal experiences of simply merging lanes, legally, and then being greeted with hatred that comes completely out of nowhere.

10. Restaurants

Lindon has about the worst choice of restaurants available with price ranges only from dirt cheap to overly expensive.

Not to mention the options available are very limited, with only virtually identical places to eat. Call me crazy, but I don’t think you need six similar Mexican restaurants within a mile of one another.

9. People

There are thousands of decent people in Lindon, but some of the most unpleasant people live there as well.

They can be the most judgemental, conceited, and self-righteous individuals on the face of the planet. It’s hard to make lasting friendships and relationships with any of them because you’ll never know what their true intentions are.

Annoyances that didn’t use to be here since the invasion of so many changes have caused the people that have been living here, as well as the ones now moving in, to be more exclusive, irritable, and disrespectful. They take it out on one another behind each other’s backs, in person, and while driving.

8. Accidents

Utah as a whole has been experiencing a lot of newcomers in the last few years from other states, but it would seem a lot of those people find themselves migrating to the Orem-Provo area, which in turn leads to people moving to Lindon.

Now, I’m not saying that drivers from other places are inherently bad compared to Utah drivers, but it’s very clear they have different styles than what the people around here are used to. This causes a lot of issues in terms of accidents on the roads.

There are accidents all the time, a lot of which can also be due to the proper laws that aren’t being followed by people who are unaware and don’t bother to check for cars behind them. The road rage doesn’t help either.

7. Construction

With Lindon being a fast-growing area, it’s pretty much a guarantee that frequent construction will be involved. As someone that grew up in and around this city, I’ve never seen so much construction as there has been in the last couple of years, and it’s only going to get worse.

That, along with the sheer amount of noise that the machinery makes, it’s nearly unbearable to step outside because a new house is being built in the next neighborhood over.

On top of all that being annoying and inconvenient, construction around here also takes forever to be completed. There’s never a specific deadline, at least none that’s given to the public, so it always feels like once they start something, everything around it will be out of commission for the next several months at least.

6. Expensive

There are plenty of wealthy people that live in this area, so it’s no surprise that many of the homes are incredibly overpriced and expensive. Within the last several years, multimillion-dollar homes within the boundaries of Lindon have become exponentially more popular.

Lots of people have been moving out lately due to the now almost unbearable environment with the influx of people and construction. With this, people have been selling their homes for almost triple what they originally bought them for years prior.

With the housing market being the way it is, this has only been increasing the prices of houses in each of the neighborhoods and overall city.

Sun shining down amid lush trees in the Utah Valley at Orem, Utah. A view of the Utah Lake and huge mountain can be seen in the background.

5. Confusing Roads

It’s hard to drive down any street or enter any area without there being a “road-closed” or “detour ahead” sign blocking the path you’d like to take, promising to make you late on any commute.

A trend that comes into effect every couple of years is the need to expand the roads and/or redo them. This causes so many issues in the traffic and makes it harder for drivers that don’t know the area extremely well to find where they’re supposed to go to make up for the time lost looking for a different route.

On top of that, it’s not like the roads are even that easy to follow in the meantime. The roads are confusing, street names don’t have any rhyme or reason, and a road you think should lead to a certain destination can drastically turn and take you in the opposite direction if you’re not careful.

4. Too Much Turnover

It may be shocking to know that in a place with so much growth and potential that there would be turnover in businesses here, but it’s true. There are businesses popping up left and right, but several of them shut down within a year or two. It’s hard to live here when there’s always a chance someplace you enjoy going to could very well be in the midst of shutting down.

3. There is Never Enough Parking

There is never enough parking close to where you need to be. It doesn’t matter what the business is, the decent parking spots seem to be taken every time.

With construction also being a factor, a lot of places and roads that once had parking could be shut down, so you will be out of luck for a while.

There’s also the issue of the city being so overcrowded with university students at busy times in the day that you can just forget about being able to drive. You might have to stick with walking or try to carpool.

2. Traffic

State Street passes directly through Lindon from Pleasant Grove to Orem and Provo, and with the consistently growing population and evermore vehicles coming in and using this road, the traffic has simply gotten out of control.

There are so many stop signs and stop lights that everything is constantly backed up more than necessary, and the fact that a lot of Lindon, aside from the major road, consists of neighborhoods with children that could run out at any moment, doesn’t help, as the average speed limit is around 25, even on main roads.

Drivers also just pass through to get to other cities or to partake in some of the amenities here, so there are more than enough cars to back up every intersection.

1. Overcrowding

The state of Utah as a whole is growing at an exponential rate, as are the cities within. Lindon is one of them and is experiencing a lot of the same issues as more major cities. It’s an area that once had a lot of room because of the beautiful farmland that is now being overrun with people.

There is constant construction and too much emphasis on building as much and as fast as possible to the point where everything is almost on top of one another.

Not only that, but with this city being part of the Orem-Provo metropolitan area, it gets a lot of traffic from the university students on the roads.

The more buildings and homes are built, the more charm Lindon once had is lost in the craze. Those of us that have lived here wish some could have just left well enough alone and miss the peaceful community we used to have. However, we are all well aware that it’s not a thing of the past.

Nathan Aydelotte

Hello! I'm Nathan, the lead editor for Suggested by locals. I grew up in the Boise, Idaho area and have lived here most of my life. I enjoy being close to the mountains where I can go hiking, camping, and mountain biking.

Recent Posts