Do we like what we’re becoming? That’s a fair question to ask in the wake of new census data reported last week on Tooele County. The data will certainly surprise some longtime residents who’ve come to think of our part of the state as a traditional rural community.

The census report contains some points that recommend the county strongly. For example, our median yearly family income is higher than the national or state average despite the fact that we have fewer families where both parents work. (In many parts of America, supporting a family on a single income is an extreme luxury). Also, our population is growing at a brisk pace — 34.8 percent since 2000. That brings many challenges, but also proves the county is an attractive place to live.

Still, the data shows some trends that may cause us trouble down the road.

First off, the county is young and getting younger. Our average age is 28.3 years — more than six years younger than the average age in America. We’re the No. 1 county in the nation for the percentage of our population made up of young households — households headed by a married couple with children under 18. And we’re producing more babies at a staggering rate. Our birth rate of 111 births per 1,000 women is twice the national average.

Those young families equal vitality and a ready supply of labor down the road, but they also mean an avalanche of students into our public schools and, later, an unprecedented demand for jobs and social services.

Speaking of jobs, one problem with ours is that they’re far away. More than four in 10 residents leave the county for work every day, and our average travel time is 27.6 minutes, the longest commute in the state. That’s a quality-of-life issue where we lag behind most communities in Utah and across the nation.

The obvious solution is to create more jobs close to home, but the problem is actually more complex than that. If cheap housing continues to be built at a faster rate than jobs can be created, the Tooele Valley’s slow transformation from unique, historic towns to a single bedroom community for Salt Lake City will be irreversible. That would spell real trouble, since numerous studies have shown that places where people live, work and play together have fewer social ills than disconnected suburbs based solely on the common denominator of cheap housing.

Government needs to focus on both sides of the housing-work equation rather than solely on job creation.

Finally, the census data puts a bit of a dunce cap on county residents, only 18.6 percent of whom have a bachelor’s degree. That’s markedly below state and national averages. Undereducated and fast-growing is a recipe for disaster. Hopefully the growth of USU Tooele will help reverse this trend by making higher education more affordable to county residents. But, again, government has a role to play via economic development initiatives. We need to attract companies that will lead our workforce to better jobs and more education, rather than looking at the workforce as is and trying to find companies that will fit it.

The census data paints a revealing picture of what our county is becoming, but we still have an opportunity to direct that change for the better. By encouraging positive trends while managing the challenges of negative ones, we can use this data to create a better home for us all.