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.

Sustainability issues go beyond poor air quality, sprawl and heat island. The big enchilada is water: there's not enough to continue growing by 40 percent each decade, particularly in "master planned communities" in places such as Greater Buckeye. There may not be enough to sustain the population there now, at least in its current "lifestyle." For one thing, the Colorado River is oversubscribed; its water was divvied out based on historically high flows unlikely to return, and global warming is already diminishing the Rocky Mountain snowpack upon which it depends. More ominously, global warming is hurting the Arizona snowpack even more, meaning the safety net of the Salt River Project is in danger. Even if Colorado water was abundant, the feds won't spring for another canal to slake Phoenix's thirst. Nor will it be likely to build desalination plants, even if they were practical.

Another big problem is Phoenix's complete dependence on gasoline, food and, to a large extent, electricity from the outside world. The scary consequences of this were hinted at a few summers ago when a gasoline pipeline broke, and later a power station burned -- you could taste the insurrection in the air. And as civil defense planners learned in the 1960s, when Phoenix was a fraction of today's population, you just can't get people evacuated -- and where would you take them if you could? The food situation is tragically ironic, considering that Maricopa County as late as 1970 was an exporter of food. Now the soil and climate that created enviable crop yields have been pimped out to subdivisions. (And re power: How 'bout that huge nuke plant upwind, consistently making bad NRC grades and slurping water?)

Yet another sustainability issue is socio-economic: much of the metropolitan area is linear slums populated by low-skilled, first-generation, non-English speaking immigrants who are cut out of the mainstream and increasingly persecuted. Then there's the struggling lower-middle-class Anglo population, filled with bigotry, talk-radio grievances and heavily armed. This is a formula for a Katrina-like collapse. Again, this is a change from Phoenix up until about 1970. It has been cloaked by a low-end housing factory economy that is over. Nobody knows how this will turn out, but one thing is sure: the real players in town have nothing to broaden or increase the competitiveness or quality of the economy.

Many more issues lurk, but you get the idea. Nothing meaningful is being done. ASU can study this stuff until it snows in Yuma or the Sun Devils win the Rose Bowl, but nobody with means is deploying the big bucks it would take to, say, create a solar-powered economy. Sad irony II: solar research began in Phoenix in the 1950s, but was lost to Europe. Reclaiming it would require large amounts of capital, in a stream running from lab to companies -- something Arizona has no means or willingness to do. Nor is there a willingness to, say, require solar panels on all houses.

Another, little-discussed aspect of solar: most of the solar plants being discussed for Arizona would require huge amounts of water for cooling -- and state water regs have big loopholes for industry. I'm already suspicious that the vaunted groundwater law is being undermined, and these solar plants would further (legally) degrade already stressed aquifers.

Wishful thinking abounds, about solar, desalination plants and magic hydrogen cars that would allow the current urban form and habits to continue, for the state and region's "success" to continue being measured by adding large numbers of people. Most of it is fanciful, or far too expensive. Meanwhile, practical steps such as investing in urban districts heavy with shade trees and grass, retaining and reclaiming agriculture, adding much more transit and, most of all, stopping sprawl are dead on arrival.

These issues will only grow more severe as global warming really begins to savage the Southwest -- and destabilize central and South American populations, many of whom will head north no matter the jackboots of Joe and Peyton. And just wait for energy costs resume their inexorable rise.

So all you can do is laugh. Until the tragedy unfolds at greater speed, or sudden calamity, where all the brutal pipers will line up to be paid. And all the rich enclaves of north Scottsdale or Chandler, or the tribal "master planned communities" of Gilbert, won't stop it. But boosters take heart: You can still sing of your millions. All around the Third World are populous urban areas living in conditions almost as awful as Phoenix will become. They just lack derelict swimming pools in the back yards and the remnants of city-provided benches on their front slabs.

Read Rogue's Sustainability archive.

Comments

[soleri]

The slippage here has been gradual enough for few to really notice until this last year. Now, anyone who knows anything is talking about it. Much of it is economic but there's also a palpable sense that there's no real destiny left except the apocalyptic kind. You'd have to be a Goldwater Institute blowhard to see real estate as an unredeemed promised land.

That said, denialism has become Arizona's political religion. Since political extremists control the conversation here, the citizens can take comfort in knowing global warming isn't real, that low taxes fix everything, and that Jesus was the first Republican.

We were Palinized before anyone had heard of the Alaskan Ditz. Understandably, The Arizona Republic is catering to the median level of information (ultra-low) but most people regard it as suspiciously liberal anyway. We'll continue to argue about weirdnesses and anomalies but it won't matter in the long run. Arizona is on fire but the metaphor has become alarmingly literal.

[Petro]

"...and the remnants of city-provided benches on their front slabs."

Ooh, good snark.

I too think that those pie-in-sky boondoggles are, well, boondoggles - luckily (?) the economy is in such a state that I doubt if any will ultimately be tried anyway in the long run.

Just focusing on being real friendly to my neighbors at this point. And there are a lot of people that willfully will not see this coming, and they're going to need some help in coping...

[eclecticdog]

You would of hit the roof if you had watched Channel 12's Faceoff on Sunday morning. There was the shrill shill for the Goldwater Institute, a finance professor from ASU (recently transplanted from Ohio), and a poor Phoenix councilman. The councilman was pushing diversity and infrastructure projects to get the economy going, but the shill and the prof shot him down.

The usual BS from the Goldwater Insti flack (lower taxes, slash budgets and government, and let the private sector invest in infrastructure and then charge us for it -- I had to wonder were these floundering bankrupt contractors and investment houses would come up with the cash to do this), but the prof basically shot down the diversity issue (hey it didn't work in derelict Ohio, so it won't work anywhere, and anyway the market should decide) AND promoted propping up the housing market so the AZ economy would rebound (at least he is smart enough to recognize the only game left in town).

It's so sad and frustrating. The only thing our politicians will spend money on are police and boondoggles. It will only get worse once Napolitano leaves.

[jerry k]

Is Arizona a leading indicator of what is happening in our country as a whole: sick economic fundamentals, disengaged and selfish elites hiding in their walled compounds, an underclass swollen by immigration non-policies designed to benefit low-wage employers and the National Council of La Raza. And now our president joins John McCain in calling for "comprehensive immigration reform" that would go far beyond legalization of 12 million. CIR would ensure that farms and restaurants and roofers have all the cheap labor they want. It would accelerate the importation not only of Mexico's poor but also of Mexico's social structure. Meanwhile, the Club for Growth smiles in phony benevolence while the glowering McCain, admonishing us to embrace all God's children, divides his Arizona quality time between the Phoenix high-rise condo and the compound south of Sedona.

[Derek Neighbors]

Seriously? Nearly every problem you describe is an issue for any major city. The only one that is moderately unique to Phoenix is lack of water, but most cities struggle there as well.

[what causes global warming]

Hi! as an ex-resident of Phoenix, I was fascinated by your article. even though now days, my only visits to Arizona is to Sun city, where my grandma lives, I still remember my days in Pheonix. It is very important to keep people aware and alert to the effects of global warming on our beloved places.