Rogue Columnist

The model modern city manager

One joke around Phoenix involving Frank Fairbanks was that he could never retire as city manager, because then all the scandals would come out. Of course, everybody loves Frank. Except for the ones who don't. Given the lack of curiosity and resources in the local press, we'll never know how true the joke might be. I never ran into evidence that Fairbanks was anything but clean. His problems were more complicated. Since most will be offering rapturous praise as Fairbanks is apparently stepping down, a more serious assessment is necessary.

The zeitgeist of Frank Fairbanks' City Hall was to move across the waters without making waves. He was not a creative thinker or a risk-taker -- think of the guy on the Shredded Wheat ad who says, "We put the 'no' in innovation." His career spent with the city led to an unavoidable parochialism, along with perhaps a fatalism that the city's trajectory couldn't be changed, or a willingness to drink the booster Kool-Aid by the gallon. He was in an awkward spot in a systemically dysfunctional city government, mostly trying to keep the peace, even as Phoenix hit a grave turning point. All this would have profound consequences for Phoenix and its future.

Phoenix 101: The Mormons

Growing up in Arizona, I found the Mormons neither strange nor mysterious, much less threatening. They were part of the wonderful mosaic of a state still tasting of the frontier, before it had been overrun by immigrants from the Midwest and miles of lookalike crapola subdivisions.

We had a Book of Mormon in our library, more a testament to my mother's insatiable curiosity than any desire to convert. My great-grandparents were among the first non-LDS farmers to settle near Mesa, and Grandmother reveled in telling the story about how the Saints pestered them to convert and "seal" their marriage in the temple, much to the horror of these former Presbyterian missionaries. But it was a story told gently and with affection for all.

The Mormons were revered among the great Arizona pioneers. They were known for their generosity, including to "gentiles," something our family experienced. Mormons were hard-working, reliable, self-reliant, patrons of education and the arts. Mesa in those days was a beautiful small city, a monument to the energy and far-sightedness of its LDS founders. We would regularly drive down neat and prosperous Main Street to see the beautiful Arizona Temple. The Mormon kids with whom I went to high school were among the most talented in one of the country's top high-school fine arts program.

The Mormons were also powerful. That was clear even at an early age.

Phoenix 101: Rugged individualism

Phoenix is built on many myths. Perhaps the greatest is that of the rugged individualist, standing in opposition to the statist and collectivist tendencies of "the East" and Europe. It's a familiar myth of the West, but it reaches levels of hilarious dissonance in my hometown.

In reality, Phoenix is the largest-scale example of government social engineering and public ownership of the commanding heights of the economy -- i.e. socialism -- in American history. Without massive government intervention, Phoenix would be a benighted little farm town of a few thousand, instead of a benighted migropolis of some 4 million, many raging along the public highways in their SUVs imagining themselves as 21st century range riders.

Modern Phoenix began with federal reclamation, the Newlands Act, which would begin the dam building that tamed the Salt River. It envisioned a Jeffersonian yeoman farmer democracy, with plots of 160 acres cultivated by citizens liberated from the dark satanic cities of the East. It didn't quite work out that way -- rich farmers emerged and poor farmers (like my family) struggled. But all were being subsidized by federal tax dollars long before the New Deal. Their endeavors would not have been possible without the federal investment.

Phoenix 101: Lost opportunities

My chief goal in writing the Phoenix 101 post about the old city was to dispel the notion that “there’s no history here,” spoken by the transplants as they file into the tract houses of their so-called master planned communities. More, to fight the canard that “Phoenix has no soul.” Well, maybe now in most places, but it wasn’t always so. Yet the post was so popular, it seems logical to follow up with a brief history on choices made and opportunities missed.

It’s important to make a distinction. People have sometimes dismissed my observations with words such as “well, everyplace changes” and “my hometown isn’t the same any more, either.” At the risk of being pedantic, that’s not my point. First, while every place changes, it doesn’t necessarily change mostly for the worse. Cities such as Seattle, Portland, Denver, Charlotte, San Diego and even Oklahoma City have undergone massive changes. Yet they have managed to preserve and revive their center cities, their civic spaces and enhance livability (and they have plenty of suburbs, so Phoenix isn’t special there). I miss the old railroad yards in downtown Denver – but what an amazing city it is now. It’s gotten better. Second, Phoenix is not just any city – so who cares if it’s no worse than Fresno or Youngstown? It sold its magic for dross. And its choices have set the stage for crisis, whether sudden or lingering.

Much was out of the control of Phoenicians and their leaders. Phoenix grew large after the City Beautiful Movement, so it lacked many great civic spaces; it was a modest farm town during the 1920s, so it had relatively few art deco towers. Worst of all, it came of age with the automobile, Levittown-style suburbia, and the savage city planning and dehumanizing design ethos of Robert Moses and Le Corbusier. Still, Phoenix made choices. It lost opportunities. Here are a few.

Phoenix 101: The old city

If I sometimes seem to have a chip on my shoulder, it's true. I carry a memory of old Phoenix -- and feel its loss profoundly -- in a way that's probably unusual even for natives of my generation. It's not nostalgia; I know too much about the place for that. It's a more complex reaction, to history thrown aside, opportunities lost and the destruction of a very flawed paradise, but a paradise nonetheless.

It was not really captured in the Channel 8 documentaries on Phoenix in the 1950s and 1960s. As popular as those shows were, they were a classic example of telling history through the lens of the present. Hence, we saw much about sprawl (the start of Maryvale and Sun City) and Sky Harbor. They missed so, so much. What they missed are the things I describe in talks when I say, "If you arrived in Phoenix after 1970, I feel sorry for you."

I was fortunate to grow up in central Phoenix in the late 1950s and 1960s, fortunate, too, to be the offspring of a mother and grandmother who were Arizonans with history in their bones. We lived in a house built in 1928, in an old neighborhood close to downtown. I attended the same grade school as Barry Goldwater, Paul Fannin and Phoenix Mayor Margaret Hance. It was different from growing up in suburbia.

Phoenix 101: Water

On the mountain tops we stand
All the world at our command
We have opened up the soil
With our teardrops
And our toil
--Gordon Lightfoot (Canadian Railroad Trilogy)

That people can move to the Salt River Valley from the Midwest and turn on a reliable tap or jump in a shimmering swimming pool, never even wondering where the water originates, is testimony to the mighty acts and sacrifices of previous generations. Their spirit and grit are lost, not only in Arizona but probably all around an enervated America.

Today's transplants would never know it, but they live in one of the world's great fertile river valleys. But unlike the Nile and Euphrates, the Salt is dangerously unpredictable. It floods. It dries up to nearly nothing. In the end, it destroyed the most advanced hydraulic society north of the Aztecs, which we call the Hohokam.

It very nearly did the same to the Americans who found the valley after the Civil War, having sat there empty for centuries as if providentially awaiting them. Even some of the Hohokam canals were intact, needing only to be cleaned out by the newcomers. But the river had its own harsh logic. The territorial "lifestyle," as related by my grandmother, was unbelievably primitive, even at the end of the 19th century -- always dependent on the river's tricks. Phoenix might never have risen from the ashes.

Phoenix 101: Power primer

Phoenix has no history. Why are things so screwed up here? It's just like every other place...

Such are some of the statements, whether inane and inaccurate or plaintive, that I often hear from Rogue readers, or just folks down in "the Valley" when I sneak back for a journalist-guerrilla raid. So, a new occasional feature, Phoenix 101, to try to fill in the gaps for a place where even natives my age have never even ridden a city bus, much less know a rich, corrupt and even inspiring history. Let's start with power.

From the era of the Hohokam, power in the Salt River Valley flowed from water. Whoever controlled the water -- and how it was used -- sat upon the commanding heights of the society. Even today, the divide between Phoenix and the East Valley is partly an echo of the old war between the north and south side of the Salt River over who would get the precious, and fickle, riches of its stream. Even today, the Salt River Project remains, very quietly, the kingdom and the power and the glory.

Arizona unemployment: Grim reality

Here's a reality based report that won't be discussed by the local viziers of boosterism in Phoenix, much less the editorial pages of the Arizona Republic. The job losses from the recession that began in 2007 are much worse in Arizona than the 10 previous major recessions since the end of World War II.

The Minneapolis Fed crunched data nationally and for 50 states to come up with this fascinating interactive presentation. Although Arizona's unemployment appears to be relatively low compared to some states -- for reasons I've previously explored -- this comprehensive report puts all the wishful thinking and ideological twisty games to bed. No other downturn comes even close. The "legendary" 1991 recession? Beanbag compared with this labor market bloodbath. The truly nasty 1973 recession? Not even close.

The Yankee Castro; cancer in Gilbert

It's hard to believe in the Arizona of Peyton Thomas, Joe Arpaio and "sweeps" -- interesting how those trailed off after the sheriff was re-elected -- but once upon a time the state elected a Hispanic governor. Raul Castro won office in 1974, a milestone not only for Arizona but for the child of immigrants who grew up in hardscrabble Nogales. His new autobiography, Adversity is My Angel, was written with Dr. Jack August Jr., who has established himself as the dean of modern Arizona historiography.

It was a different state, a small town in many ways. Castro was the first Democrat my mother voted for -- as an old Arizonan, she trusted "Judge Castro"... "even though he's from Pinal County." (That he was Hispanic didn't matter). He also benefited from the early-1970s exhaustion with longtime Gov. Jack Williams and sectarian tensions in the state GOP that led to the bloodbath between John Conlan and Sam Steiger. Castro never had an executive temperment, and left the governor's office to become an ambassador. But Arizona has rarely had transformative governors -- the Progressive-era constitution vested most power in the Legislature and the uncovered-by-the-media Corporation Commission. Castro's is a life worth study, reflection and celebration.

Jan and the floating diaphragm

Non 'Zonies will have to endure one more Phoenix-centric post before I end my visit. The Republic did a piece this morning on the first 100 days of Gov. Jan Brewer, the Republican secretary of state who replaced Janet Naploitano when she blew town to become secretary of Homeland Security. To say it's a puff piece would be too severe; it merely reflects the inexperience and lack of deep sources on the staff now, as well as fear and lack of curiosity, skepticism and leadership by the meeting-addled editors.

My sources give me this portrait of Brewer: A conservative Republican, but not an extremist ideologue; hard-working and well-meaning; not a mental giant; not very organized and served by a staff that pales in comparison to Saint Janet's "West Wing" stars; may not run for the office. She can be arrestingly tone deaf, for example, leaving the governor's arts awards dinner after delivering an early speech -- the first time that has happened in memory, including chief executives of both parties. This benign annual do has plenty of Republican arts trustees, so it's not as if she were fleeing the socialists (excuse me, SOCIALISTS!!). As for her advocacy of a tax hike -- more courageous, and realistic, than Saint Janet -- but a roadblock to my hopes that the Kookocracy gets to rule, and then be rejected as their policies run the state even more into the ground

Phoenix, Dubai and other heat dreams

On the ground in Phoenix, and sometimes green sprouts arise even amid the ugliness of the cityscape and thuggingness of the politics. A woman on a walker watched me struggle into CVS; on the way out, she said, "I've been praying for you." It keeps me aloft. Tuesday night saw an overflow crowd at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore for the launch of my new mystery/suspense novel, The Pain Nurse. Today I was on KJZZ with Steve Goldstein, where my friend Grady Gammage and I reprised our good cop/bad cop routine with Phoenix in the interrogation room (guess who plays bad cop).

I got to read the Arizona Republic on blessed, relaxing paper this morning, a welcome break from the Information Center. Today's Phoenix Laff Riot is Mayor Phil Gordon concluding some kind of economic partnership with Dubai. It's hard to know where to begin with what's wrong with this deeply unserious distraction. For one thing, rhetoric about solar power, sustainability, etc. is a joke considering Phoenix is a basket case in all categories. It let solar research and enterprise get away after the 1950s and now has nothing to offer the Mideast kingdom, other than a model of worst practices. Meanwhile, Dubai is in a deep recession, partly caused by overbuilding. So the benefit is, what...?

How'd that boom work out for you?

The data are in and most Phoenicians have to show for the Great Real Estate Boom...not much. The federal Bureau of Economic Analysis this week released its comprehensive survey of per-capita personal income for metro areas and counties in 2007. It's the gold standard yardstick for measuring how the average person was actually doing after the Bush "boom" and as the nation prepared to slide into recession.

In metro Phoenix, per-capita personal income totaled $35,185, an increase of 1 percent from 2006 vs. the national average of 4.9 percent. From 1997 to 2007, income growth was 3.9 percent, vs. 4.3 percent nationally. More context: Phoenix's 2007 income was only 91 percent of the national average. Although Phoenix is the nation's 13th most populous metro area, it ranks 134th among metros in per-capita personal income. In 1997, it ranked 126th. This should be astonishing, if any one takes note.

Let's drill down deeper. Phoenix doesn't compete for talent and capital against the national average that includes Mississippi and Alabama. It competes against other big cities (here and abroad), whether it wants to or not. How did its competitors do?

In the kill zone

We don't know the details yet. But I imagine Doug Georgianni as another struggling, underpaid guy trying to find that illusive Arizona dream. Now he's dead, a young 51. Three months ago he took a job servicing the speed cameras on Phoenix freeways. Sunday night, while parked on the Loop 101 near 7th Ave. in a marked Department of Public Safety photo enforcement van, Georgianni was shot multiple times. The suspect, since arrested, is a white male (of course) driving a Chevy Suburban (of course).

I never completely understood the loud controversy over speed and red-light cameras. Metro Phoenix has a horrendous problem of major traffic violators, fatal and often spectacular wrecks and pedestrian killings, many hit-and-runs. Meanwhile, the religion of tax cuts and Arizona's unwillingness to fund its public sector to keep up with population growth mean there aren't enough traffic officers. The problem is made worse, of course, by sprawl, huge freeways and eight-lane "city streets," plus a population driving giant vehicles they can't really control on streets with increasing numbers of pedestrians. Even the former Catholic bishop came to grief this way, and in his character-revealing response of driving away from the victim like so many other 'Zonies had done.

Yet to the Kookocracy the speed cameras were the worst kind of "big brother." It's funny, they didn't have a problem with their party's implementation of torture and rendition as American policy, or with the tactics of "America's toughest sheriff." I wonder if any of them -- from the pols to the talk-radio "hosts" -- now regret the years they have spent fighting the cameras with the usual intemperate language?

The conscience of the Kookocracy?

They wish they knew how to quit me. Even though it's been two years since I wrote a column for the Arizona Republic, I keep popping up on various Web sites as the devil that's missed by the Kookocracy. After all, who can they now denounce as a SOCIALIST!! -- Clay Thompson? The pretty-in-pink Moms Like Me page? Anyway, this was brought home again in a story last week about a conference on the flatlined-in-a-body-bag Arizona economy.

One commenter generously wrote: "Jon Talton preached this for nearly a decade, yet no one believed him. In fact, the GOP-led Legislature and the Real Estate Industrial Complex put a lot of pressure on The Arizona Republic to silence him, and in the end, Talton was run out of town. Perhaps if those idiots had actually paid attention to what Talton had to say, then the state wouldn't be in this mess. And legislators wouldn't have to solicit advice from ordinary Arizonans, as they did just last week. Fools." This was followed by -- I am not making this up: "You mean John Talton the corporate socialist shill?" Etc. Spelling has never been their thing.

Back to this big summit, convened by the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. Chairman Michael Bidwill "said that...the state relies too much on retail and contracting revenues." Yes, he of the Arizona Cardinals whose taxpayer-funded stadium in the cotton field was meant to be a magnet for contracting and retail. Glendale Mayor Elaine Scruggs said, "It's overwhelming. It's really overwhelming when you look at all the areas where we are deficient." Duh, ace, as we said in fifth grade. You get the picture. Deeply unserious -- another summit to nowhere. But rather than go back to discuss the real problems and solutions, which you can find here, I want to encourage the Kookocracy to use Teabag Day to redouble their efforts.

Arizona's mysterious jobless rate

Why is Arizona's unemployment rate relatively low? The national rate in February was 8.1 percent, while Arizona's rate was 7.4 percent. This was 2.9 percentage points higher than in the same month last year, but well below California's 4.3 jump (to 10.5 percent) or Washington's 3.7 increase (to 8.4 percent).

This was the question that the Arizona Republic political columnist Robert Robb claimed to set out to answer in a recent column. I tend not to pay attention to Robb because he pretty much always says the same thing: status quo good, government bad, etc. Robb, the only editorial columnist for the paper, is not a journalist and came out of the "Goldwater" Institute and right-wing/growth machine political world. So one knows where he's coming from.

Not surprisingly, he uses this question to set up a straw-man. He disputes the notion that Arizona is too dependent on real estate, asserts that the state has "a fundamentally solid underlying economy," and deplores "various advocates of various dubious schemes to 'diversify' Arizona's economy." (A graceful stylist, no). So that's it. Move along. Nothing to see here.

Central Phoenix: Good, bad, ugly

Because I know the fragile self-esteem of Phoenicians is at stake, let me begin my observations about the state of the center city with the good stuff. I smelled the orange blossoms -- even stepping out into one of ugliest urban spaces anywhere, the pedestrian loading zone at Sky Harbor. Many of the Midwestern transplants dislike the scent, which makes me dislike some of them even more. But this small, fleeting thing reminds me of my often magical city that is gone forever.

Some of the projects begun under former Mayor Skip Rimsza and spearheaded by people like former Deputy City Manager Sheryl Sculley, retired Deputy City Manager Jack Tevlin and Ed Zuercher, now a deputy city manager, have turned out quite well. As I wrote before, the starter light-rail line is great. Now lots of places are clamoring for LRT; the trick will be to avoid using light rail when commuter rail would be more efficient. A metro area the size of Phoenix needs both. The Convention Center is such a startlingly attractive set of buildings that you wonder if the design was approved by mistake, given Phoenix's ability to erect such ugliness. The ASU downtown campus, Mayor Gordon's signature accomplishment, is more of a reality, and thus will be more difficult for the Legislature to destroy. The lovely oasis of Arizona Center remains, shady and cool.

Read on if you want to know "the rest of the story," as the late Paul Harvey would say.

How Arizona can feel good

Random observations from my trip to Arizona:

'Zonies, particularly Phoenicians and the Real Estate Industrial Complex, are always after cheap praise. "Make the community feel good about itself," as the diktat from the Arizona Republic to its "information center" goes. This is usually a license for boosterish fraud and an extended holiday from reality. Real accomplishment must be earned. I saw some of that on display.

    * This past weekend's inaugural Tucson Festival of Books was a wonder. Sponsored by the Arizona Daily Star (what a concept: a newspaper supporting reading and printed media) and the University of Arizona, it was the first big-time book festival to happen in the state. The crowds were large and enthusiastic (people even came to see me speak and sign books). Big-name authors came from around the country. What was most amazing was the cohesive community support behind the event, from the array of corporate and philanthropic sponsors to the army of smiling volunteers. Tucson took its best-practices from the world-class Los Angeles Times Festival of Books and gave the state something magical. It's also important: a community push to improve literacy in a county where one out of five residents is functionally illiterate. Eat your heart out Phoenix.

Phoenix and Mesa dementia

As the Great Disruption rolls across the globe, changing everything, Arizona slips ever deeper into unreality. And that's saying something. Mesa's notoriously anti-everything voters approved -- by 84 percent -- using tax incentives to lure what the Republic calls "two massive upscale resort projects." Meanwhile, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon is due to "outline an ambitious strategy to make Phoenix the first carbon-neutral city - and the greenest - in the entire country." And what will the strategy, to be unveiled in today's State of the City speech, include? Providing bicycle rentals. Installing solar panels on city buildings. "Developing Phoenix's canal system for recreation and business use similar to the Tempe Town Lake area."

Where to begin? What's most remarkable is how Arizona is willfully ignoring three mortal perils: water, global warming and the rising possibility that it could have one of the world's failed states on its southern border. Oh, the relatively lesser perils remain as well: the growing underclass, the horrible schools, linear slums, income inequality, inadequate infrastructure, serious environmental damage and the health consequences that follow, etc. There's little realization that the props that held up the old growth machine are gone, done, over. I know: Let's build "two massive upscale resort projects!"

Arizona: Deeper into the Kook zone

The Kookocracy continues not to disappoint. Their draconian cutbacks mean that new state archives building will be closed less than two weeks after being dedicated. State parks have, or are on the way to being, closed -- with no provisions being made to protect these priceless sites from looters. Meanwhile, the Kooks are rushing a bill through the Legislature that would bar Arizona from participating in the Western Climate Initiative -- a mild but promising effort by states to begin curbing greenhouse gases.

This is what you get when you don't vote. This is what you get when you have an ineffective opposition party, which made few noticeable gains in local and legislative offices during the reign of Saint Janet. This is what you get when the party of Lincoln, TR, Eisenhower -- even of Coolidge, Hoover, Reagan and George H.W. Bush is taken over by a nihilistic bunch of extremists. They want a radical individualistic law of the jungle, where the strong rule and profit, and devil (or Arpaio) take the hindmost.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg -- the press in the state has been suffering its own draconian cutbacks, and fear of crossing the right-wing thugs by reporting on their activities.

Phoenix stumbles into an epic reshuffle

A reader passes along word of a sign seen in Phoenix: "Please God, let there be one more housing boom and this time I won't piss it all away." Yes, you would. To paraphrase Linda Hamilton in Terminator: It's what you do. It's all you do."

The bad news isn't just that Phoenix continues to lead the nation in house-price declines -- down a stunning 32.7 percent for 2008. It's not just that the bubble is only 60 percent deflated nationally, by some estimates -- so good luck with that spec house in Maricopa. It's that the whole Ponzi scheme is over.

Urban theorist Richard Florida calls cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas out in an influential article in the March issue of Atlantic magazine. The title: How the Crash Will Reshape America. "The boom itself neither followed nor resulted in the development of sustainable, scalable, highly productive industries or services. It was fueled and funded by housing, and housing was its primary product. Whole cities and metro regions became giant Ponzi schemes." In other words, pissed away. Now it may be difficult for Phoenix to avoid being one of the biggest losers as the competitive geography shifts decisively because of the Great Disruption.

Say you want a revolution?

One of the greatest dangers to peace lies in the economic pressure to which people find themselves subjected.

--Calvin Coolidge

You can't handle the truth!

-- Jack Nicholson

The honorary Page One Editor of Rogue Columnist and I have been in a friendly argument of late over when, or whether, the riots will begin. He sees sooner than later, as people are faced with the worst economic crisis in 80 years -- perhaps in the history of the nation. Things will not turn around soon, and may well get much worse. And having worked around the world in some miserable and boiling hot-spots, he offers observations that should be discounted at one's peril. Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski echoed this on MSNBC's Morning Joe, saying, "Hell, there could be even riots" as the unemployed take aim at the rich bastards that caused the calamity and are still doing fine.

I've tended to say later or never -- the nation is too narcoticized by American Idol, Grand Theft Auto, endless driving, limitless digital distractions, the deadening civic isolation of suburbia. Human nature is unchanging but Americans have changed. They have become easily led. Short-changed of an education in history, civics and the humanities, too many Americans are just plugged into the matrix, sucking Wal-Mart subsistence, waiting for their next cog assignment.

Now, I'm not so sure.

I told you so

Every time the Arizona Republic's journalists manage to sneak in a story about the depression ravaging metro Phoenix, I am deluged with emails from people, telling me how "I called it" years ago -- "You were so right." They are generous about my seven years as a columnist in my hometown. It didn't take a genius to see where Phoenix was heading. And, both to preserve my job and keep some alliances for the greater good, I pulled my punches way too often.

Sunday's story was headlined "Growth pattern crippled Phoenix." (Is it just me, or does the Republic usually use "Phoenix" in a headline about "bad" news, but "Valley" in every other reference to the metropolitan area?). It focuses on the disaster in the newest fringes of sprawl, but also calls into question the entire growth model. Or, as the story puts it, "Phoenix grew into the nation's fifth-largest city through a reliable pattern: Build affordable homes on the metro area's edges, welcome waves of new buyers, and then roads, schools and retail centers follow." It goes on:

One reason the current housing collapse has been so brutal in Phoenix is how suddenly that pattern broke down. In only a couple of years, the breakdown trapped people in unfinished communities much like a fast-moving landslide buries people in their tracks.

Be sure to check out...

The new Kookocracy Watch, updated several times a week. Add your own Kook follies, corruption, lies and thuggish encounters.

More beer saves Arizona economy

Today's installment of the Phoenix Laff Riot begins with Tuesday's truly pathetic story in the Arizona Republic headlined "Big game proves a winner for state economy." Ordered up, no doubt, by the "say something positive about the community" bosses, here's the gist:

Consumers who had been watching their pennies splurged in celebration of the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl, giving the state's ailing economy an unexpected shot in the arm. Fans bought hats, T-shirts, televisions, snack trays and beer. They partied at sports bars and in homes around the state, cheering on the Cardinals.

Let's apply a little critical thinking not allowed in news meetings. The story has no data to back up this claim. And even if people spent more on beer and chips for the game, it simply changes the shape of the water balloon. In other words, that consumer spending was diverted from other areas; the Big Game didn't represent an increase in purchasing power or living standards. That would require, oh, a diverse economy with well-paid jobs and an educated workforce. In any event, even Super Bowl economic impact reports by real economists are always suspect, requiring a skepticism that was once required of journalists.

Joe and Peyton go after, gasp, real-estate crime!

Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley's legal troubles provide an instructive window into much of what's wrong with Arizona. He was indicted by a grand jury on 118 felony counts for properly failing to disclose his real-estate dealings. The first "tell" on the case is that it's being pushed by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Peyton Thomas, who are hardly the most reliable figures in law enforcement. As New Times' Sarah Fenske pointed out:

Seven years ago, as my former colleague John Dougherty first reported, Arpaio obtained a court order to purge his real estate records from county files. Arizona law allows judges, cops, and prosecutors to petition the court to keep their home addresses and telephone numbers out of county records.

That's right. The sheriff of one of the most populous counties in America had deals for shopping strips going on the side. 

Kookocracy lies about university cuts

Fact and fiction about Arizona university funding, per Michael Crow (and I agree):

Based on some of the responses I’ve received recently regarding the state budget proposal, I wanted to forward a few key facts to counter the lingering inaccuracies and misperceptions I continue to encounter. The information below provides important clarification related to pending budget concerns and the magnitude of the challenges ASU is facing.

Fiction: The cut to ASU in the proposed legislative budget is a small fraction (between 4 and 12 percent) of the university’s overall budget.

Fact: The actual percentages are 35 percent of the 2009 state General Fund budget that is remaining for the year and when the proposed 2010 cuts are added, it totals 40 percent of the university’s state General Fund appropriation in 2008 on a Full-time Equivalent (either a full-time student or its equivalent of two part-time students) basis.

Super Bowl of steaming dog poo

Pardon me if I'm not excited about the Arizona Cardinals going to the Super Bowl. This is a team deliberately from nowhere. It doesn't have the city's name. This is more than a matter of Phoenician pride. Cities are the competitive players of the 21st century, and if the sun-addled residents of the Salt River Valley don't even know their city name -- and what a magical name it is -- it's one more indication of how unprepared the region is for the future. Hell, call them the Glendale Cardinals -- except they don't really even play in Glendale, a place so amorphous that it lacks an "in."

The team plays in a stadium plopped into a cotton field. The stadium was built with taxpayer money as part of a land deal to enable sprawl development and enrich sprawl developers. It's virtually inaccessible by mass transit. In other words, here's a team that embodies everything that's wrong with metro Phoenix. As for taking the name "Arizona," the Cards sound like a college team -- and to the rest of Arizona Phoenix is an expanding cancer, ruining what's left of a once magical place. Go Steelers!

Sweet irony: As the network searches for lead-in shots -- which in real cities show shimmering skylines by downtown stadiums -- they will be left to show endless crapola subdivisions creeping into the fields, the "deliverables" financed by Wall Street swindles that caused the recession now hammering the NFL.

Arizona don't need no book learnin'

It was probably not a good sign when the email from ASU President Michael Crow -- subject line "Proposed budget cuts and the future of Arizona" -- landed in my spam folder. Of course, this was not an email from Crow's private address, but a mass mailing to Arizona State University alumni and supporters. Still, not a good omen.

The Kookocracy is now in charge, from the governor's office right down to Arpaio's gulag lite. Whatever the budget situation, their antipathy to education, especially those "socialist professors," is well known. While Janet Napolitano was governor, their worst tendencies were constrained. Now the extreme reactionaries have total power and the excuse of a budget deficit. They want to slash $600 million from Arizona universities, singling out higher ed to take the biggest hit from state cutbacks.

Crow is not overstating the stakes when he says the cuts threaten to give Arizona a "Third World education and economic infrastructure." Yet despite an emotional backlash against the Regents, I wonder if the extremist juggernaut can be stopped. Even without the further cuts, the damage is deep -- and couldn't come at a worse time.

Dead town walking

Do even the most sober-minded Phoenicians realize how deep a hole they're in? The depression caused by the housing collapse is undeniable. So the answer is merely to reinflate the housing bubble and happy days are here again, right? More "master planned communities." More paving over Pinal and Yavapai counties and rolling over Wickenburg with lookalike tract houses. More boobs from the Midwest who will put up with anything as long as they don't have to shovel snow.

Indeed, a major effort will be made to craft the Obama stimulus to do just this. Sustainability has no powerful political base. Sprawl does. Even the nominally progressive radio talker Ed Schultz is pushing for a bailout of the house builders -- and no wonder: he also owns a small construction company and drives 50 miles each way to work from his suburban home. With progressives like these, who can understand that the old sprawl model is hopelessly broken? Trying to revive it will only increase and lengthen the pain of transition -- or leave the country too bankrupt to even get there. Reviving it in Arizona will only hasten the inevitable water emergency.

But Phoenix faces crises beyond the housing depression. As one of America's least literate and most poorly educated big cities -- if it can even be called a city -- it's not surprising that no one is talking about them. And even the "smart people" assume the growth machine will revive, simply because it always has. Call them the road kill of the Great Disruption, the new era of discontinuity.

Phoenix's light-rail hope

I shed much blood professionally for the Valley Metro light-rail system, as the only columnist, or even journalist, to consistently stand up against the lies, myths and misconceptions that might well have killed this essential project if Phoenix is to have a future. This, as much as my outing of the Real Estate Industrial Complex and illuminating Arizona's looming water crisis, led to my demise at the Arizona Republic.

The opposition was powerful, ranging from suburban developers to right-wing thugs who didn't even live in the city. Some opponents were merely ignorant. Others were happy to see the central city die. They failed. So forgive me, as Metro prepares to open, for a moment of crowing.

We built it, you bastards.

Say goodnight to CityNorth

The Arizona Court of Appeals is doing Phoenix a favor by essentially killing its $97 million CityNorth project. Phoenix just doesn't know it. The Republic reports:

A major economic-development agreement between Phoenix and the CityNorth development has been ruled unconstitutional, meaning the project may not grow into the once-envisioned second downtown on the city's north side.

Part of the problem lies in the thinking encapsulated by that sentence. A real city has one downtown: the economic, cultural and retail heart of the city. By that definition Phoenix doesn't even have one downtown yet -- but it wants a "second downtown"? But the bigger problem with CityNorth has always been that it is based on a dead business model. The old land-speculation economy is not coming back. These are problems not unusual to American cities. But Phoenix's case is extreme and instructive.

To the barricades? Can we find them?

I started out the day cranky and sad. Sometimes it's the little things. A Republic story, apparently confined to the "neighborhood news," tells of a poor soul jumping to his death from the 26th floor of "a downtown office building." Unfortunately for the credibility of the "Information Center," the aforesaid building is the Phoenix Corporate Center, in Midtown Phoenix. (As with many stories now, this does not even include what was once a journalism basic, the Where, the address.)

It's hard to make progress when reporters for the state's largest news organization don't even know where the hell downtown is -- and, no, you can't just make up the boundaries because you rolled in from the Midwest yesterday and think Phoenix has no history. It could be worse, I suppose: I've heard radio stations refer to 24th and Camelback as "downtown." A little thing perhaps, but to me another sign of the total civic sickness in Phoenix, this reinforcing of a numbing, disowned, neglected "geography of nowhere." Almost as maddening as the Republic's cloying use of "the Valley." Alas, cities are the 21st century competitive units, and one that doesn't even know its own name (and such a beautiful one, too) won't go far.

And I suppose it's necessary to note the latest scaling back of CityScape, the office project that really is located in downtown Phoenix. Sigh. Every city is being affected by the real-estate bust and credit collapse -- but just from my downtown Seattle window I can see five new skyscrapers going up. I won't retread familiar ground about Phoenix's unique challenges downtown. I will add that these major-mega projects won't work when they are built largely on spec, without a real business community that will create demand for such space. (And how sad Wells Fargo put so many jobs in the burbs, rather than downtown, to use one example of how the tiny existing biz community fails downtown). And it's unfortunate that land speculation and the apparent powerlessness of City Hall to do anything but throw down gravel makes it difficult to build more small projects, organically connected to the city scape around them.

In such a mood, I receive this link and read, from the Business Journal, a story headlined: "Ariz. police say they are prepared as War College warns military must prep for for unrest; IMF warns of economic riots." Seriously?

The Kookocracy gets its moment

Now Janet Napolitano heads to Washington, leaving not much of a legacy in Arizona, despite what the Sewing Circle cult of personality would have us believe. She was a victim of her native caution and the unwillingness to take on issue No. 1 (land use and all its permutations, including sprawl and water) -- to do otherwise would have caused the Real Estate Industrial Complex to destroy her ambitions. Michael Lacey has some further trenchant thoughts on immigration policy and deals with devils. But the biggest reason for Napolitano's failure is simply that the Legislature is by far the most powerful branch of government (the second being the media-ignored Corporation Commission). And the Legislature is dominated by kooks.

Now they will have one of their own as Secretary of State Jan Brewer ascends to the governorship. This is change I can believe in. Brewer is a member of the Kookocracy, having politicized the office charged with the integrity of elections. Except for Attorney General Terry Goddard, Arizona will now have an all-Kookocracy leadership. And I say, go for it. I want no Jane Hull-like temporizing or moments of sanity from Gov. Brewer. I want her to lead Arizona into the brave future that the minority who actually votes has consistently demanded.

This is the state where the most popular politician is Joe Arpiao, the civil-liberties-optional sheriff of Maricopa County. The state where Andrew Peyton Thomas won a resounding re-election as Maricopa County Attorney. Both have waged a thuggish war on the poor, underclass and minorities in the guise of "fighting illegal immigration." Funny, I have yet to see a big construction mogul or developer do a perp walk for hiring them by the hundreds.

It's time for Arizona to get the government it deserves.

Did you hear the one about sustainable Phoenix?

This week's Phoenix Laff Riot comes from the Arizona Republic, in a story headlined "Striving to be Green:

The Valley is lashed in national surveys for its poor air quality, derided for its urban sprawl and mocked for its searing temperatures and growing heat island.

But, despite these challenges, city boosters, business owners, environmentalists and academics all say Phoenix has a unique opportunity to become truly sustainable. They also say the Valley could squander that opportunity if it fails to make smart decisions now about growth, open spaces, wildlife and the economy.

Later in the story is the kind of cliche sentence editors wouldn't allow, if only they weren't in endless meetings and trying to put together graphics and assorted crap: "But only time will tell if the Valley can pull it off."

I hate to break the news, but time has told and "the Valley" can't pull it off.

Napolitano moves on?

If Janet Napolitano becomes President Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security, the only shame will be that the cabinet post was not eliminated. The very name sounds un-American, like something out of 1984. The department has represented more bureaucracy, more money for politically connected private contractors, more dangers to civil liberties...and, gee, I don't know about you, but I don't feel safer.

The ambitious Arizona governor has long hoped to get an escape route through a Democratic administration in Washington. She had little hope of winning a Senate seat, and Arizona is more hopeless than when she came into office, as a surprise winner because of the state's scary downturn at that time -- by today's standards it looks like a upswing -- and a weak GOP rival. She won and retained her office by never taking on the Real Estate Industrial Complex.

On the other hand, she mentioned inconvenient truths, turned back the worst excesses of the Kookocracy, and did some good for poor children. Until Arizona Democrats take the Legislature, this is probably as good as it gets. That may be a long time coming, because outside of congressional gains -- largely due to national issues and extra-crackpot GOP rivals -- the Arizona Democratic Party seemed to gain little from having a  "popular governor." As for Napolitano, perhaps she learned that even if you are the smartest person in any room, that isn't necessarily a career builder in today's Arizona. Now she joins a large cohort of fortunate ex-pats with means, who can come back to the state in the declining number of pleasant days, but not have to actually live there.

And I guess Kookocracy darling and Secretary of State Jan Brewer, who brought extreme partisanship to a job that oversees the integrity of elections, will get to run for governor as an incumbent. You go, Arizona.

Los Arcos memories

I was recently interviewed by a graduate student at Arizona State University, who is writing on the history and prospects for the area of south Scottsdale around the former Los Arcos mall. Zonies might find the exchange of some interest:

What are your memories of Los Arcos growing up?

I lived about half a mile away during high school, from 1970 to 1974. We had moved there from central Phoenix. It was very much a cohesive neighborhood. Like most of Phoenix then, it was very lush with grass, trees and landscaping. It was homogeneous: middle-class Anglo families, many of whose fathers worked at Motorola.

It was fairly new, and much of McDowell didn’t even have sidewalks. You could still see farming going on a quarter mile north of Thomas Road. Scottsdale Road was barely developed; we have a stunning view of the buttes out the back of our house. Scottsdale itself was still partly rural, with a rustic/touristy downtown. There was not much north of Chaparral Road.

The neighborhood was centered on Coronado High School, which then was a very fine school, including one of the best fine arts departments in the country.

Why Arizona can't 'retool' its economy

Even under the ownership of Gannett, with a publisher whose command to the newsroom is to "say something positive about the community" and a huge loss of talent and institutional knowledge, the Arizona Republic -- er, Information Center -- still does its occasional "let's do the right thing" stories. The latest appeared Sunday.

This is not investigative, "put-em-in-jail" journalism. Rather, it represents a white paper on the things the "community" needs to do to get better. The Republic has been doing this at least since the 1980s, when it became clear that Phoenix was headed for a trainwreck. I certainly wrote my share. And nothing ever happens. Now I read them, as the real power brokers must do, for entertainment value.

Editors must have been on vacation to allow Chad Graham, one of the small cadre of real reporters, to write:

The Valley's economy could start to recover in 2010. That is when some economists believe the glut of excess homes will be absorbed and new residents will spark new construction.But if history is a guide, metropolitan Phoenix will only seem to rebound. Despite decades of real- estate run-ups, quality-of-life measures for the region continue to fall.

That's the truth. But, then, the paper sometimes allows such unpleasantness on its pages. After all nothing will happen. Then the usual-suspect "experts" talking about "wake-up calls" and "initiatives" for biotech or solar power. There's just one problem with all of this:

They don't wish they knew how to quit him

Like the mistreated girlfriend who just can't quit the abusive fighter jock, the national press is again scritch-scritch-scritching at John McCain's door. His concession speech -- actually fumbling and average before a typically thuggish Phoenix crowd -- was "dignified," "his best speech of the campaign," and "where was this guy during the campaign?". Now the media are busy predicting the re-emergence of the "old McCain" to do good things for the republic, maybe even build bridges between the conservatives and the Obama administration.

Illusions die hard. John McCain worked hard throughout his career to cultivate the national media -- and for all our bravado, even the toughest in the working press can be seduced (whether they bend their principles as a result is another matter). He called them "his base" before the campaign required him to run as a hard-right extremist, right down to the media-blaming rhetoric.

Unfortunately for the media, they finally got a taste of the real, real McCain: a rather undisciplined, herky-jerky, shoot-from-the-hip opportunist, and most of the time a doctrinaire gunslinger for bankrupt, discredited conservatism. When he supported George Bush on torture after opposing him, he cut the last thread of my willingness to believe he was a "maverick" even on a few issues.

And another...

The brutish and nasty reality of Arizona just keeps getting national prominence. Sunday's New York Times has this grim gem:

GILA BEND, Ariz. — Soon after Antonio Torres, a husky 19-year-old farmworker, suffered catastrophic injuries in a car accident last June, a Phoenix hospital began making plans for his repatriation to Mexico.

Mr. Torres was comatose and connected to a ventilator. He was also a legal immigrant whose family lives and works in the purple alfalfa fields of this southwestern town. But he was uninsured. So the hospital disregarded the strenuous objections of his grief-stricken parents and sent Mr. Torres on a four-hour journey over the California border into Mexicali.

For days, Mr. Torres languished in a busy emergency room there, but his parents, Jesús and Gloria Torres, were not about to give up on him. Although many uninsured immigrants have been repatriated by American hospitals, few have seen their journey take the U-turn that the Torreses engineered for their son. They found a hospital in California willing to treat him, loaded him into a donated ambulance and drove him back into the United States as a potentially deadly infection raged through his system.

By summer’s end, despite the grimmest of prognoses from the hospital in Phoenix, Mr. Torres had not only survived but thrived. Newly discharged from rehabilitation in California, he was haltingly walking, talking and, hoisting his cane to his shoulder like a rifle, performing a silent, comic, effortful imitation of a marching soldier.

“In Arizona, apparently, they see us as beasts of burden that can be dumped back over the border when we have outlived our usefulness,” the elder Mr. Torres, who is 47, said in Spanish. “But we outwitted them. We were not going to let our son die. And look at him now!”

To repeat: Torres was in the country legally. His crime apparently was to have brown skin and no insurance.

Just wondering...

Did the "Information Center" report that sacred cow ASU is firing 200 of its already underpaid adjunct faculty as part of $55 million in cuts?

Arizona, in a hole, calls for more shovels

It's difficult to get news out of Arizona since the state's largest newspaper became "The Information Center," pushed out many of its most experienced and talented journalists and put up a minimalist Web site that's little more informative than somebody's personal Blogspot page. But is it really true that Joe Arpaio and Andrew Peyton Thomas were re-elected? That voters approved a ban on any property-transfer taxes? That they outlawed gay marriage? That Arizona turnout was lower than the state's usually low number -- and during an election that saw a historic high of turnout back in the United States?

Apparently so. The Joe/Peyton coronation ensures that the public focus will remain on persecuting the poor and minorities, some of whom happen to be illegal aliens that allow the low-wage construction and tourism economy to thrive. Heaven forbid that the state pay attention to providing ladders up in the New Economy and avoid adding to the dangerous income inequality, linear slums and underclass already growing like kudzu there.

Gay marriage -- such a vital issue at a time of, oh, dwindling water supplies, awful schools, an economy in freefall and the state's vulnerability to global warming. One might ask, when will the tourism economy feel the brunt of a boycott by "the homosexuals" who also tend to have higher disposable income. California enacted a ban, too -- a last gasp of the suburban churchy bigots -- but voters there also passed high-speed rail and other progressive measures.

The prohibition on enacting real-estate transfer taxes ("Save Our Homes") will further hamstring government's ability to pay for the public investments desperately needed by this broiling dystopia. It won't save anybody's house, but it will keep the Real Estate Industrial Complex from paying even a modest amount into the commons from which it reaps so much profit. Meanwhile, infrastructure will be hopelessly behind, education remain at a Mississippi level and investments for competitiveness impossible to fund. All you struggling "home owners" with low-wage Arizona jobs and talk-radio-fed grievances -- you've been punk'd by the rich elites that run the state and keep you down.

It's amazingly backward looking, inward looking and tribal. Nothing in the election seems to have been attuned to helping Arizona prosper, or even survive, in the 21st century. The decisions by the voting minority don't even seem to take notice of the 21st century. And the sum of intolerance, ignorance and apathy is shocking -- even for those of us who have the battle scars from seeing what this once-promising place has become. But this is also what happens when most people don't vote.

Read more booster-busting reality about the state on Rogue's Arizona Crisis page, and past columns.

"X" marks the what?

I suppose it's necessary to note the new downtown Phoenix marketing campaign, based on "X marks the spot" -- get it, "Downtown PhoeniX." How much did the brainos at the Downtown Phoenix Partnership pay a Scottsdale marketing outfit for this piece of originality and brilliance? Journalists apparently don't ask such impertinent questions anymore.

At least the insipid Copper Square is gone -- a name I warned against when it was rolled out eight years ago and yet was flogged tirelessly and tiresomely by the Partnership -- and how much money was wasted on that? Enough to subsidize a downtown drug store? Copper Square? Who, after all, wants to live in a city without a downtown? And what did copper have to do with Phoenix (nothing)? That "branding effort" was mainly confusing. So many times people would stop me on a sidewalk downtown and ask where was "the Copper Square?"

No doubt in a metropolitan area with some of the poorest-educated, poorest-paid people, living in suburban subdivisions and voting overwhelmingly for wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III and the unqualified and dangerous Sarah Palin, there's a need to sell downtown. On the Republic's site, where the lunatic fringe holds court in commenting on stories, the "X" news was greeted with comments such as "Xtra crime" and "Xtra homeless."

John McCain: He'll always have Phoenix

Fifty-nine percent. That's the lead in Arizona for wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III, according to the Rasmussen poll. It's perhaps all you need to know about today's Arizona, already a burden on federal taxpayers and likely to become a disastrous drag on the nation in the decades ahead.

A casual viewer might think this is a tremendous vote of confidence for McCain, as "these are the voters who know him best." In fact, they are the voters who likely know him least -- with some exceptions I'll get to in a moment. McCain has rarely been a presence in his "home state." He rarely rises from his self-anointed position of national leadership to address an issue facing Arizona, unless it is to thunder "no!" As Arizona has changed and urbanized, as its economy has become more backward and it has skidded along on the bottom of almost every scale of social well-being, as its needs have ballooned -- McCain has done nothing.

For most of these 59 percent, McCain is a television and talk-radio presence. They are the right-wing faithful and "low information voters" who came to Arizona to escape "socialism" -- i.e., any obligations to society. Because of the sacrifices of real Arizonans and their leaders who came before McCain -- and vast amounts of federal money ("socialism"), they get to unthinkingly live in an air-conditioned, water-abundant (or so it seems), wide-freeway, flood controlled "resort." It would not exist if earlier Arizonans had followed the prescriptions of McCain and the rest of the Republican delegation -- but this is deeper thinking than we can expect. In this transient place, most know nothing of its history or critical issues.

Things that can't be said in presidential debates

Barack Obama has apparently found the perfect vibe to reach the "average American" low- lower- lowest-information voters in the debates. While I am screaming at the television -- don't let McCain get away with that! mention this! -- he just cruises along and polls show him winning the encounters. Still, some thoughts for the high-information Rogue Columnist readers:

It will be interesting to see who this "Joe the Plumber" really is, (or really even a plumber) if it still matters. He seems to be a right-winger, if not an outright plant. Apparently he opposes Social Security, among other "socialist" outrages. If so, he fits a type of small-businessman or woman who is never envisioned as politicians sing their hosannas to small business. Ones like the woman in Phoenix, also owner of a very successful plumbing business, who testified before a sympathetic legislative committee of the Kookocracy. "Why should I pay taxes for schools?" was among her complaints.

The ugly small-business owner is one of the backbones of the conservative movement, believing he or she has no common obligations to society, but is a victim. Their grievances are legion. These owners rarely offer healthcare or decent wages to their employees. They employ illegal immigrants, even as they rage against the "brown hordes." They envy those who dodge taxes, if they're not doing it themselves. Why should we celebrate them? If you're making more than $250,000 a year, you owe the society that allowed you to do so. If you can't hack it, go out of business and get a job. See how all too many employees are treated in America governed by Republicans, the party that wrecked America. (spread the meme).

Downtown Phoenix update, gentle and honest

The 31-story Sheraton opened in Phoenix this week, to the predictable cheerleading that it will "revive" downtown. I hate to sun on your parade, but my recent visit "home" showed that the central city is still facing mammoth challenges, and that, of course, bodes ill for the economic and social health of the region.

Let's start with the good news, for we always have to be mindful of "the Valley's" real-estate-promoter mindset and fragile ego. The thing looks less bad than many had feared; as it was going up an editorialist at the Republic memorably likened it to an overgrown motel by the Interstate. It is absolutely essential to the success of the Convention Center, a business where Phoenix should excel, rather than being an also-ran with Grand Rapids as it was before the expansion.

A modest mid-rise is going up, just north of the Valley Center tower (I use the old name because who knows who will own the bank tomorrow), and at least one at CityScape. Not sure if there are many tenants. ASU has added a couple of buildings and is expanding the nursing college. The Grace Court development is coming along. And light rail is in -- light rail has succeeded virtually everywhere in America, so Phoenix will have to work really, really hard to screw it up.

Now, if you feel better you can stop reading now. Or read on for the unfortunate "rest of the story."

'Arizona Dreams' -- the rest of the story

At my signing last week at The Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, my editor Barbara Peters told the story about how she had stripped the last paragraph out of my 2006 book, Arizona Dreams. It was too much, she argued, and I went along. She knows much more about mysteries, having edited some 600. Such is the give-and-take in book publishing. But some readers have asked to see the "real" ending. If you haven't read Arizona Dreams, stop reading the post now.

Travels: Ohio and Arizona

A vague sadness hangs over the Ohio countryside, even though the trees hang on to their last vestiges of summer green. I flew into Cleveland's airport last week. This was once one of America's largest cities, and even though the airport remains a hub for Continental Airlines, the place has the feel of a small, regional terminal. The nice part is that people are nicer in a less crazed and crowded setting, but I keep asking myself, "this is Cleveland?"

Yes. I can see the changes as we drive out of town, on the way to my conference at Kent State University. Buildings that held large businesses a decade ago sit empty. The big Ford plant sits looking vulnerable. While I was there, Eaton, the city's largest Fortune 500 headquarters, announced it was leaving downtown for the suburbs. This is a downtown that has revived itself well and is a transit hub. Yet the Eaton bigs seem oblivious to the future of higher gas prices, as well as shameful as stewards of their hometown. Everybody talks about how bad the economy is, with high unemployment and job insecurity. The change in the vibe of this state from a decade ago is so real and raw you can't miss it. No wonder Ohioans threw out the Republicans -- the party that wrecked America -- in 2006. And yet, McCain has an edge if the polls are to be believed, and one wonders.

Still, Ohio is a state synonymous with white flight and de facto segregation. Apart from some successful downtowns and a few still-lovely upper-class neighborhoods, the big cities are heavily black, while their numerous suburbs are white. It's a class thing, but it's also a race thing. And it may well be that Ohioans won't vote for a black man. How they think Republican John Sidney McCain III, continuing the policies of 25 years of "conservatism," will help them is beyond me. But these are emptional responses beyond the reach of rational persuasion.

Weekend reading

Joe Nocera in the New York Times looks at the worst market crisis since 1929. But will Bernanke and Paulson's "hail Mary" pass connect? The Economist examines ways the torn global financial market can be put back together.

The Palin effect may be fading fast, but Sarahcudda could still be a heartbeat away from a 72-year-old man with a body broken by the North Vietnamese and repeatedly ravaged by cancer. The New Yorker checks out the peculiar political landscape that shaped the potential president. Can't get enough about the leggy governor? Rolling Stone shows, in a devastating investigation, how her reformer claim is crap.

In The Atlantic, check out "The Petraeus Doctrine." Will an Army built around counterinsurgency be ready for the next war?

Republican John Sidney McCain III quote of the week, from an article in Contingencies: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

And if you needed further proof, Salon looks at McCain's terrible record on environmental issues.

Meanwhile, back in Phoenix, Google is leaving, as I warned two years ago. As the usual cheerleaders said this was further evidence of "the Valley's" great economy, I wrote that Google was placing bets all over the country, and emphasized that Phoenix and Arizona would have to show their committment to science, research and the quality of life that attracts smart, young talent -- not just retirees from the Midwest and bottomfeeder "businessmen" from California. Of course, I was merely derided for being "negative." So how's that dependence on real estate and "business friendly" low taxes (meaning inadequate to the investments needed to compete in the 21st century) working out for you?

A suburban power grab for Phoenix's biomed future

The Republic reports that downtown Phoenix's struggling biomedical campus is in danger of losing the UA cancer center to the suburbs of Chandler or Surprise. The potential theft is being driven, of course, by an influential developer. He argues patients want a "resort setting."

It's amazing how metro Phoenix has totally reverted to a 19th century economy, where the only thing that seems to be valued is open land owned by pushy promoters. The 21st century economy is being driven by centers of innovation, which was the intention of the biomedical campus. There, researchers, educators, health-care professionals and students would work in close proximity, bringing bench-to-bedside cures, and the competitive leapfrog the region so needs. Sprawl kills that collaboration and opportunity, as has happened so often in Phoenix. More sprawl and decentralization will only deepen metro Phoenix's other challenges, from transportation to rising energy costs to global warming.

The grab shows the region's stark power imbalance. The city, especially downtown, lacks powerful private sector leaders who can write checks and knock heads -- the kind of steward-leaders behind every successful and competitive city. The stakes are high. Phoenix is struggling to avoid decline. The biomedical hub, done right, on the model of Houston's Texas Medical Center, is its best chance to do this. Much more than Phil Gordon's legacy is on the line.

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