We have lived in EM for 1 1/2 years, but are now renting out our home. My husband and I both absolutely loved it out there and would move back in a heartbeat. We are probably going to move back once our work situation stabilizes, actually. It's relatively rural, extremely quiet and very family oriented. Lots of kids. I mean A LOT. It's not unusual to see kids playing outside in groups on every street corner. The city itself is actually pretty tolerant of many things. Most HOA do allow fruit trees, gardens, etc. The HOAs are not very strict on many things, and many do not care what you do in your backyard as long as it's legal. They are legalizing chickens there pretty soon as well, if you're into that sort of thing. All of the utilities go through the city, so it's nice that way. Our HOA was with quality managment and they were hard to get a hold of. The only upside was the HOA was cheap (only like $15/mo), they aren't extremely picky and if you do have to ask them a Q it's just a mile up the road to their office. You can have up to 4 dogs per home and everything is easy to check on at city hall.
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There are two different parts to the city - the Ranches, which is more suburban. And City Center, which is actually in the Cedar Valley and is more rural. The homes in City Center are cheaper than the Ranches, but pay more on garbage services (like $20 more a month). Just down from the city (about 7 miles) is a gigantic shopping center with a Smiths grocery store, a brand new (and probably the nicest I've ever seen) Walmart, dollar store, dry cleaners, walgreens, etc. The downside to living there is the roads. The main road into and out of EM is SR-73, which gets very busy. They are widening it right now, which can be a headache because of traffic delays. In the winter it isn't unusual to have bad weather along that part of the road going into the city and can be dangerous. The town has been snowed in a couple of times in the past 10 years for a couple of days when big winter storms come in. The wind storms can be brutal in the fall/winter/spring. It's knocked down our fencing once.
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Overall, I think the positives outweigh the negatives to the city. When you're out there it feels like you're in another world. Very serene, quiet and peaceful. It's about a 45 minute drive to SLC and about 30 to Provo/Orem area by Pioneer Crossing. Some people absolutely love it, like we did. And others think it's the worst place in the world. If you're not LDS it could be awkward living in the town, since something like 98% of the city is LDS. Lots of military families live there as well.
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If you have any other questions, please let me know. I can probably answer them. :)
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- Natalie
