We're Number _ ?

The most telling aspect of Phoenix being surpassed by Philadelphia as the fifth-largest city in America — news that was broken first on Thursday by this humble blog — was the utter silence at the time in the local media. The Arizona Republic story on the Census numbers merely stated that Philadelphia had "retained" its position as No. 5. That's it. The situation was far different in the early 2000s when the Census Bureau officially stated that Phoenix had overtaken the City of Brotherly Love. The Republic had front-page growthgasm stories. My pal Montini, who came from near Pittsburgh so already had a grudge against the big city in eastern Pennsylvania, wrote a gloating, twist-the-knife column with a "Yo, Philly," headline. Now...silence. Cue chirping crickets. Philadelphians were not fooled. One tweeted: "Suck it, Phoenix." Indeed. (Update: the Republic finally produced a non-page-one story on Sunday...or was it Monday?).

When Phoenix began its brief reign as No. 5, the local triumphalism was loud and deep. I tagged along with Mayor Phil Gordon and City Council members who traveled to Philadelphia to meet with their counterparts. The latter were full of praise for my hometown, full of contrition about their corrupt, underclass-ridden city. Full of hubris, we had a grand time in the Center City's restaurants, shopping, parks, historical landmarks and architectural splendor. Back home, top officials talked about Phoenix inevitably overtaking Houston as No. 4 and soon catching up with Chicago. I am not making this up. "Then we'll be a world city," said one economic development leader, and then, presumably, Phoenix would magically create all the elements of such a place.

I take no pleasure in this development, although I warned about it last year. It's hard to shake the culture one grew up in. Bored in school in the 1960s, I would draw maps of the Salt River Valley and sketch avenues, freeways and developments yet to come. It was as inevitable in my ten-year-old brain as in those of John F. Long and the other Phoenix leaders that we would, indeed, become something great. As if a mass of people alone would make that happen. It's tempting to shrug this milestone off. A blow to what little prestige Phoenix enjoyed, to be sure, but what do these rankings really matter? In fact, this is a profound turning point — and not merely because the Texas cities have yet to have their counts revealed and Sheryl Sculley's San Antonio might still surpass Phoenix and knock it down another notch. (Addendum: Phoenix is officially No. 6: San Antonio came in at 1,327,407; this is cold comfort).

On the surface, Phoenix's step back means less federal money and less political power. Beneath that something ominous stirs. True, Phoenix grew by 9.4 percent for the decade, but the population came in 150,000 below the Census Bureau's estimate for 2009. Simply put, there's never been a time since perhaps the pre-Newlands Act crisis years of the 1890s when Phoenix fell back in the rankings compared with other American cities. It was No. 99 in 1950; No. 29 in 1960; No. 20 in 1970; No. 9 in 1980 and 1990. By 2000, it was America's sixth largest city, passing San Diego. Now it has not merely stayed in place, as the local media would have us believe, but lost a notch. More downgrades are on the way. In 1930, Cleveland was America's sixth most populous city. This year it's far down the list, under 400,000, some 60 percent below its high water mark.

This might not matter if population growth was not the only economic development strategy, if such an honorable term can be applied, of Phoenix and Arizona. Seattle's numbers have yet to be announced, but they will probably be around 600,000 in the city's 83 square miles. In 1960, Seattle had 557,000. Denver will probably be around the same size; in 1960, it was 494,000, just ahead of Phoenix. Both cities, Western competitors of Phoenix, have broad economies, corporate headquarters, high incomes, and are magnets for talent and capital. They add population slowly. It's not their main focus. And as we have discussed before on this blog, raw population is a double-edged sword, bringing costs as well as benefits, particularly when the growth is in the demographic cohorts that have flocked to Phoenix. The city's carrying costs have only increased as the economy has narrowed, remaining assets have fled to the suburbs, the city is increasingly weighed down by an underclass and the working poor, infrastructure ages, and it lacks the means and leadership to address urban problems. This burden has grown to crisis proportions with the loss of revenue because of the recession.

Obviously the Great Recession and resulting Phoenix depression took their toll. Despite underfunded state assessments of unemployment and the spin of Bob Robb and Elliott Pollack, the state likely saw an out-migration from a mid-decade high. After all, it was ground zero of the housing crash, America's last big factory town (making houses), and depending on untold thousands more jobs associated with housing, from home improvement to mortgage boiler rooms. Poof. Gone. Phoenix has always suffered from high population churn; nobody counts out-migration. So thousands of people likely left for opportunities elsewhere. I also find the poo-pooing of a potential undercount unconvincing. The climate of anti-Hispanic hate exemplified by the Jim Crow SB 1070 came along at precisely the moment when Census takers were out. Phoenix may well be the No. 5 city, but thousands of residents were afraid to fill out their Census forms. It wouldn't be the first time that the poor and marginal were left out of Census counts. Then there's the white-right antipathy to the Census that goes back to the birth of the John Birch Society.

Speaking of the white-right, their paranoia will only grow. Those Hispanics who did complete the Census showed an increase of 46 percent from 2000, totalling 1.6 million out of a state population of 6.4 million. That's now 30 percent of the state's population. The Anglo population grew by only 20 percent. "The Mexicans don't vote." But what if that changes?

Arizona grew by 24.6 percent in this troubled decade, far below the 40-percent growth of the 1990s. One must go back to the war years of the 1940s to find such a low performance. This would actually be good news if the state had an economy that didn't depend on adding 100,000 new residents every year. With a real economy and real leadership, it would represent a welcome pause where years of infrastructure deficits could be made up. It might be a whack across the head with a two-by-four to rethink the misbegotten sunshine-and-growth complacency of past decades. None of that is happening. Instead, the Kookocracy wants to hamstring city development fees in hopes of restarting the real estate machine.

Being No. 5 was never enough in itself, proud as I was for Phoenix, hopeful as I was that it would cause some big-city serious thinking. And indeed, light rail and numerous downtown projects were moving ahead mid-decade; most importantly, it seemed the city would use the downtown biomedical campus, ASU and UofA to create an economic engine that would allow Phoenix to leapfrog. As my friend, Mary Jo Waits, then at the Morrison Institute, said, "Imagine if the cure for cancer were discovered in Phoenix." It was not to be.

At the time, I added to the pressure that would eventually lead to my ouster as a Republic columnist by writing in July 2006 about all the ways Phoenix was not No. 5:

• Houston, No. 4 in population, was home to 23 Fortune 500 companies. Philly had seven inside its city limits, the same number as No. 20 Charlotte. Phoenix hosted only two Fortune 500 headquarters. Not one Phoenix company made the Hispanic Business top 100 companies.
• That year, No. 6 San Diego brought in $319 million in venture capital in the first quarter; Phoenix, $5 million.
• The fifth best showing in the Beacon Hill Institutes's exhaustive and definitive report on competitiveness went to Denver (Seattle No. 1); Phoenix dragged in at 30th.
• Phoenix ranked 29 in median family income, while the fifth best ranking went to San Diego.
• In air quality, congestion, land-use planning, the green economy and public transit, SustainLane ranked Oakland No. 5 (Portland No. 1) and Phoenix No. 22.
• Seattle, the nation's 23rd most populous city, gave $60 per capita to the arts, while Phoenix provided only $12.
• Cincinnati was ranked the fifth most-literate city in a survey by the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (Minneapolis No. 1, Seattle No. 2). The report on educational attainment, library resources, booksellers, magazine publishing and newspaper circulation listed Phoenix as No. 60.
• No 5 in people with a bachelor's degree was Minneapolis (Seattle No. 1), while Phoenix stood in 49th place. No Phoenix university made the US News & World Report list of the 120 best national universities. Atlanta, Philadelphia and San Diego each had two institutions.
• Pittsburgh, not even a top 40 city in population, enjoyed the fifth-best health care system, with 46 hospitals and 336 physicians per 100,000 people. Phoenix: 38 hospitals and 199 docs per 100,000.
• In biotech, the Brookings Institution ranked Seattle No. 5 and San Diego fifth in National Institutes of Health funding. Phoenix wasn't even in the same county as the ballpark.

All these critical performance measures have only fallen for Phoenix since then, propelled by complacency, the Kookocracy, failure to put in place policies to enhance competitiveness and the Great Recession.

Meanwhile, the growthgasms continue. Pinal County's population more than doubled (pumping precious groundwater, lacking employment centers and infrastructure)! Maricopa grew by 4,000 percent (to 43,482 people commuting long distances on two-lane roads, adding to sprawl, pollution and unsustainable water consumption)! Gilbert's population nearly doubled (full of tribal Mormons, a bastion of the extreme white-right, adamantly opposed to regional transportation — beyond freeways — and other urban solutions)!  The West Valley grew by 70 percent, 300,000 people (no transit, poor infrastructure, destroying precious cropland and adding to the heat island)! Yavapai County, up 26 percent to 211,033 (profaning some of the most magical country with subdivisions, no infrastructure and, say it again, unsustainable water supplies)!

Even the most denial-pickled alcoholic might look at this and have a, em, moment of clarity. From the goings-on at the state Legislature and even Phoenix City Hall, it looks as if the realization of hitting bottom is a long way off. Tragically, the consequences aren't.

 

Comments

[AWinter]

"Degree sprawl"
Phoenix may come in subpar for degrees in the usual measures such as absolute number of, or degree density. But this tabulation ( http://blog.robpitingolo.org/2010/05/where-smart-people-live.html ) shows that on the county level (Maricopa) it's got ~60% more degrees per sq m than what population density would predict. Not bad at all! In fact, that's #2 after (you guessed it) King County. Maybe Phoenix could somehow densify that education into employment centers, e.g. central Phoenix. That could be a productive step forward but who is coming? The existing heavy high-tech industries won't suddenly move from the outskirts to the center. So new blood it must be - that includes workable higher education.

[azrebel]

For those who question the under-count of the Hispanic population, legal and illegal, all you have to do is drive through Mesa. The apartments, homes and businesses that catered to that crowd are gone, empty, abandoned. I see it with my eyes, I don't need a report. In addition, I have multiple friends and family in the education system in New Mexico. They say every school in New Mexico received many, many students who had relocated there from Arizona. The migration started after SB 1070 or what ever it's number is. Bottom line, they're gone, not uncounted.

[Jim Hamblin]

Last night as the sun began to sink, I was sitting in the Morrison Institute's offices, listening to Anne Mariucci from the Board of Regents and thinking about the cosmic changes that have occurred downtown. I was wondering, "what could possibly be wrong with this picture?" Then I talked with an Ivy League type who told me what the new Intel fab plant would mean for "restarting" the growth machine! What's wrong here, as Jon asserts, is the pervasive denial. Same dude was also waxing rhapsodic about the Navajos and their enlightened approach to alternative energy sources. No mention about their pollution-belching power plant! To me, it is like these folks just parachuted in from the land of Ooo-bop-she-bam!

[phxSUNSfan]

I've heard the same Jim; from people that have been educated in the best universities in the nation! What happens to some of them when they move to Arizona? I think, at first, it is a decompression. They feel "free to move" and not claustrophobic and stuck in a mass of humanity from whence they came.

However, things will have to change in Phoenix and Arizona. As we can see, there is no future in sprawl. Will we use our good points to restart real, sustainable Center City development? That is the real question and my short answer is, yes; there is no other choice. I like AWinter's idea and that should be the plan.

Off topic here, but I am home tonight waiting to hear from friends in Japan. This should be a hard reality check for cities in our "ring of fire" as well; they are little prepared (from an engineering standpoint) compared to Japan and Tokyo for such a quake.

[soleri]

The first time I saw Chicago I became aware of something my hometown utterly lacked: legacy greatness. That is, for all the scariness and rust-belt dysfunctionality, Chicago glowed from the jewels of its amazing history - the parks, the monuments, the universities, the art-deco towers, and cultural institutions. Phoenix, by comparison, was modern, clean, and completely uninspiring.

We are virtually unique among American big cities in this way (even Houston and Atlanta have some significant legacy). Our strategy as a city was to let growth and newness tell the story. It seemed like a no-brainer since there weren't going to be any great men endowing Phoenix with the artifacts of great cities. That era was over and Phoenix came to the party late.

So, here we are poking through the ashes and searching for any salvageable heirlooms that could assuage our sorrow. None. We're a hypertropied car town with huge sunk costs in its infrastructure and no real center that could remind us why we're even here.

Virtually every American city has self-inflicted damage from thoughtless, car-based sprawl. We're nation that grew obese from gluttonous overdevelopment, which has been slowly killing us. The energy fiesta, as Kunstler is always reminding us, is just about over. The great cities can retrofit themselves for straitened circumstances. Phoenix, on the other hand, can only sell itself off to the lowest bidders.

[cal Lash]

Unlike Jon, I am not upset about Phoenix’s drop in the competition of cities. I remember how much I liked Phoenix in 1950. But then I am the guy who doesn’t shop at Costco on Saturday. I worked the Valleys fields in the 50’s and 60’s and hitchhiked to the movies in downtown Phoenix. A place where you could listen to old timers sitting on the park benches talking about how the recent freeze would reduce the black widow population. Outside the Westward Ho there were few houses over one story and some really cool adobes. As to the great amenities, like art and theater that Phoenix doesn’t have. I occasionally travel to places like New York and Washington DC and marvel at all that stuff but do we really need all that in the middle of the Sonoran desert. Maybe high density well planned cities are the answer to the future but with regard to Arizona (Sorry about your dam Teddy) I think we should declare Arizona a wilderness, enter on foot only, and let everyone move back to Utah or Iowa.

[phxSUNSfan]

I guess being the optimist, I see one benefit to the sprawl in metro Phoenix. Since Phoenix grew in a grid pattern and most of the homes cheaply built in the suburbs, all we need to do is run bulldozers from the Central City outward. The homes would fall easily and we could return those areas to the desert or convert them back to agriculture.

There may not be numerous "legacy," towering structures in Phoenix (save a handful) but there is a "place" in the oldest sections of the region and the Center City (Tempe, Glendale included); they have great little, old downtowns that are underutilized.

[cal Lash]

Now U R on a roll phxsunfan, I'll summon up the spirit of Edward Abbey and his gang, monkey wrenchers that they R

[Phx Planner]

The Census estimates population annually, but only counts every decade. The estimates are done by tracking building permits and using an algorithm to estimate household sizes. The counts tally actual people. The population estimate for Phoenix mid-decade was higher than the current count.

So, Phoenix either lost population, or built housing with artificial demand - or (likely) a combination of both.

During the peak of the housing bubble, I remember reading a market report in which the analyst concluded that roughly 25 percent of housing in Phx was being purchased by investors, not residents. It didn't take a Robert Schiller to predict what would happen once the music stopped. However, there were very few "experts" in the media who projected a decline in housing prices in Phoenix. Even on less propagandist shows like Horizon, ASU economists and quasi-economists like Elliot Pollack uniformly predicted disinflation - that is only a slowing of price increases - not deflation. I have yet to hear or read a single mea culpa among these experts for being so wildly wrong. Was it just an honest "group think" led mistake or something worse? I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but I'm also not naive enough to discount Phoenix's various good ole boy clubs.

Some of the newly constructed neighborhoods are now only 3/4 occupied and some are less than half built. While Phoenix did grow by over 9% that's only about 1/3 of what the forecast was for 2010 - shattering countless business plans. The housing market is overbuilt in Phoenix but the silver lining may be that it's oversupplied really only in the sprawl format. We don't really have any urban neighborhoods that the national real estate market is demanding. The question is - can our local real estate industry reform to build what people actually want (and therefore, what talent-based employers want)?

[phxSUNSfan]

Cal, the part of my plan you won't like is that we offer urban housing to all those displaced suburban types; concentrating along the 20 miles of light rail. We'll have them consider the benefits of walking, not having to own 3 cars for a four family household, being social again, and breathing much cleaner air...

[azrebel]

Oh my, pSf !

You play me like a cheap fiddle.

First you get me excited about bulldozers, machine guns and flame throwers as we clear out all the invaders from the state.

Then you turn around and allow the invaders to be housed in a new Arcosanti at 19th ave. and Bethany Home.

You heart-breaker you !

[Rate Crimes]

"Phoenix, on the other hand, can only sell itself off to the lowest bidders." - soleri

Cheap land, a proximity to a large market, a willingness to unsustainably consume water, a relatively stable geology, a history of lax regulation, a history of extraction, a fear of stranded assets, and an increasingly desperate populace: I'm betting that we will see a strong tsunami-like push for an Arizona 'nuclear renaissance'. Sayonara.

[Rogue Columnist]

Get out the bulldozers.

I've long thought that Phoenix's only sustainable future was to pull back into the footprint of the Salt River Project and rebuild high-quality density of 3-5 story buildings. Let the population fall. Focus on a real economy. Blade the outer suburbs, as Cal would say, and either let it return to desert or return it to citrus groves, flower fields and other agriculture. Not at the 500,000 acres of the mid-1960s, but a sustainable 200,000 acres surrounding the city. Then, desert. Saguaros grow on higher elevations, not everywhere. From pre-history, Phoenix was always an agricultural center.

[Rate Crimes]

Agreed.

"Focus on a real economy." - Rogue

"Get out the bulldozers." - Rogue

Who will be the Arizona bulldozer magnate? :)

[koreyel]

That's not a pretty face you paint Jon. And if I read you right, Brewer is the perfect reflection of Phoenix and Arizona, no?

Past her prime...
Unable to think off script...
Unable to adapt to a new world...
Hopeless overmatched by breaking contingencies...
And getting sucked drier every day more by the sun...

Stange the way a People will sometimes accurately define themselves by their cast votes. I guess, in a sense, democracy really does work.

And I see from reading your comparison stats that Seattle rates high in a lot of cool ways. I imagine you did some careful comparison shopping before you left Dodge, Miss Brewer, Doc Pearce, and Marshall Arpaio behind for... shall we say... greener pastures?

[Jim Hamblin]

To me, and I suspect to many of us, much of the "growth" has been malignant. But there's seemingly no chemo or surgery with which to address it . . except for harsh economic realities that will dictate changes in our habits. Won't that take a loooong time?
Kunstler and other soothsayers have a sort of "Moondog"(the end is near) mentality. I wonder!

[phxSUNSfan]

Well it seems the Republic is getting on board with the Central City/Central Ave living thing. I wonder if they'll sponsor our bulldozer drive?

"High-rise living on Central:
Central Corridor condo market shows signs of revival"

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/style/hfe/articles/2011/03/10/20110310high-rise-living-central.html#ixzz1GQyDKylz

[azrebel]

Who will be the Arizona bulldozer magnate??

Tex will lease it out.
Wolfswinkle will carry the lease.
Keating will re-lease it.
McCain will co-sign for it.
Arpaio will guard it at night.
Colangelo will set up weekend races for it.
The Bidwills will claim they own it and try to get Glendale to pay for it.

Goodness, MAGNATE-ing in Arizona can get complicated.

[cal Lash]

The Monkey Wrench Gang is alive and well and making a comeback. Ed may rise up out of that well planned desert place wherein he rests and the sun blazes away.
From Ed, "Black sun, Heart's sun, Black raging sun of my heart, Burn me and take me, And let me sleep, Down by the river I know, In the land of stone and sky, Until we wake again, In a new and bolder day."

[soleri]

http://www.grist.org/article/2011-03-11-guess-what-else-the-gop-wants-to-cut-tsunami-monitoring

No shock here: suburban living is heavily subsidized.

[soleri]

Oops, wrong link. Try this one:

http://www.grist.org/article/2011-03-11-its-the-suburbs-stupid-on-the-ezra-klein-tom-vilsack-dustup

[CDT]

There are two things that will keep Phoenix from ever being a first-class or world city, and they're both probably insurmountable. The first, as Soleri mentions, is the near-complete absence of any legacy. There's not much there there. Second, is there any great American city that's not located either on a coast or a Great Lake?

The niche for Phoenix was always to be a pretty good place, with nice weather, and a reasonable number of big-city amenties without big-city hassle. Now we've ruined that.

[soleri]

CDT, indeed. I don't think Phoenix would ever have been anything more than a medium-sized city without cheap energy. By 1960, the city had already outgrown its maximal sustainability size. The seduction and perils of hydraulic civilization soon swamped even that modest hubris.

An economy based on growth is a catastrophe waiting to happen. It's happening in Phoenix now.

[phxSUNSfan]

CDT I can think of a few not on the coast or along the banks of a Great Lake (these are in terms of historical significance, "legacies", etc): Denver, Dallas, Minneapolis, Philadelphia...

There is plenty here, just too much linear development overshadows that fact. Too many red-tiled roofs. It never fails that when out of state friends or coworkers come to Phoenix and they see the older neighborhoods and light rail (even the different Center City neighborhoods in Midtown) and only expect a North Phoenix/Scottsdale like sameness, they are taken aback and surprised.

Now that the red-tiled roof, linear development had its heyday, it is time to concentrate on the area with all the amenities in place to make the city a more dense environment. I've always been intrigued by the "hanging" gardens of Babylon and think it would be fitting for Phoenix to invent a modern version in city squares. Just one idea to make the city unique.

[Rogue Columnist]

I would add Cincinnati, admittedly on the Ohio River, but in its day one of America's richest, most powerful and largest cities. Churchill thought it was America's most beautiful inland city. That legacy persists, in many ways magnificently, despite years of white flight.

[soleri]

Phoenix's claim to not-quite greatness doesn't come from its river but the watershed it and the Verde River drain. Minneapolis' claim was based on the power of the Mississippi River turning the millwheels for a major agricultural region. Denver's claim was mining wealth. Dallas had oil, which has had a powerful legacy effect. Likewise, Houston.

Great European cities often sit on rivers. Indeed, relatively few on sit directly on the coasts or big lakes.

For downtown Phoenix, the absence of water is a severe negative. It means there's no focal point for public spaces and pleasure. San Antonio faced a similar issue before it dammned its smallish river and creating the enchating Riverwalk. Tempe's strategy is well-known. Had downtown Los Angeles planted itself where either Santa Monica or San Pedro is located, it might have changed its urban history to the better.

Denver's future is less problematic than Phoenix's, but it is not assured, either. Denver is dry and sits on a minor river. Like Phoenix, it's suffered metastatic suburban growth. Even so, its urban core is much better than ours. I think it's a near-great city now but the challenges of high-cost energy future will be considerable.

[phxSUNSfan]

I think the lack of water is the easy answer to why downtown Phoenix, in the present, lacks large focal points. But one only needs a sense of place, design, and imagination to make a difference. How does one create a great civic space away from surface water? By creating an oasis. Civic Space Park, Arizona Center Gardens, and even Encanto are good starts. Civic space has a built in gray water system that collects runoff and it last an amazingly long time even after brief downpours. Flagstaff has a great irrigation system built with the use of gray water as well.

[cal Lash]

Well, given the ongoing catastrophes around the planet I have to admit begrudgingly that phxsunfan and Jerry Colangelo may be on target. The housing boom may come on strong once again in Arizona given the lack of exciting natural phenomenon.

[Rogue Columnist]

Anyone who thinks Phoenix has an advantage because earthquakes there are rare should (re)read:

http://roguecolumnist.typepad.com/rogue_columnist/2009/07/phoenix-101-vulnerabilities.html

I would add that climate change appears to be making the monsoons much more violent.

[Rate Crimes]

"We're Number _ ?" - Rogue

We are 'Number Six'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_Six_(The_Prisoner)

[Rate Crimes]

"Anyone who thinks Phoenix has an advantage because earthquakes there are rare" - Rogue

I was careful to qualify AZ as having "a relatively stable geology" compared with that of the major nearby market, California.

[cal Lash]

I had read that blog Jon. Another reason I sold it all in Phoenix and try and hang out in eastern Cochise County in my motor home, with my dog spot.

[phxSUNSfan]

Rate Crimes, New York City has a more unstable geography than Phoenix; so too Memphis, St. Louis, Little Rock, etc on the New Madrid Fault. However, Jon brings up good points. On the other hand, one of my tasks while in the military was a knowledge of emergency preparedness/response procedures. Although Phoenix does not have passenger rail it does have working track. In the event of an emergency, commercial traffic would halt and evacuations (if roads impassable or too congested) would begin. There is actually an example of this in metro Phoenix in modern history, the Hattie B: http://www.azrail.org/1980/

The Hattie B is also a good example of why commuter rail in metro Phoenix would work today. This train only traveled from the East Valley to downtown...imagine an East Valley and West Valley commuter line. This train alone, in the 80's, carried more passengers than the Sounder Commuter Rail in metro Seattle today:

"To everyone’s surprise, the service became the “Sardine Express” as commuters quickly quit their autos; the train carried 24,788 passengers in the first week (or 12 trainloads a day). A sixth coach became necessary, and requests were heard to continue the service after the crisis."

Phoenix is no more isolated then Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco in the event of a natural disaster/catastrophic event. The Cascades provide a wonderful natural barrier for emergency responders in an emergency like a Cascadia Event.

[phxSUNSfan]

Here is another interesting commuter rail story for metro Phoenix:

"Based on MAG's computerized travel models, the tracks to Queen Creek, Chandler and Wittmann would each pick up more passengers per mile in 2030 than the national average. By that measure, the Queen Creek track would outperform Los Angeles' Metrolink threefold."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/12/03/20091203commuterrail1203.html#ixzz1GXlflzTP

[Jim Hamblin]

On the subject of water, we need to remember that the tribes own rights to just under 50% of Arizona's share of the Colorado River flows. This is based on a deal Sen. Jon Kyl brokered several years back. It is rarely mentioned now but will become a huge factor in the future. (good time to be James Running Bear Hamblin!)

[phxSUNSfan]

That's true Jim. What Jon says is also true about evacuations and help arriving. It would take an uncomfortable while to get any kind of mass scale rescue and evacuation plan going. We all assume risk where we live.

[jmav]

Will Phoenix suffer a long economic decline similar to rust belt cities? Not a pretty sight. Most were one industry towns that lost out to globalized manufacturing.

It might be best to view Phoenix as a large suburb where residents earned their wealth elsewhere.

My surprise is that influential people in Phoenix believe their policies and behavior will accomplish anything other than maintaining Phoenix as a suitable base for snowbirds and retirees.

[Rate Crimes]

"Will Phoenix suffer a long economic decline similar to rust belt cities?" - jmav

It is more likely that it will be a short, rapid decline. Detroit was established before the Age of Oil and became The Motor City at its dawn. Phoenix was built as the apex of oil production was approached. Phoenix will not have the luxury of energy to maintain the sprawl.

While Detroit will continue to have the natural resources needed to transform itself into something vital, Phoenix has far fewer natural gifts.

[Emil Pulsifer]

"Focus on a real economy / Get out the bulldozers" may not be a bad suggestion. Arizona may once more be known more for mining than for home construction.

Northern Arizona has a heavy concentration of rare-earth elements in its red-painted northern deserts: with China's moratorium and world demand expected to boom, mining once boring (and unprofitable) rare-earth elements will become an important domestic industry.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/10/rear-earth_metals

(Incidentally, the Mountain Pass Mine in California mentioned in the article has since secured the necessary permits to begin full operation in 2011 or 2012.)

Not just rare-earths, either: also copper mining should make a comeback. There are many mines that became inactive because copper prices weren't high enough to warrant the extra efforts needed to recover the ores. No longer. Copper recently reached an all-time high of $10,000 per metric ton, thanks in large part to demand by China. (Speculators piggybacking on real commercial demand have no doubt also driven copper prices up, as they have for other commodities.)

True, Governor Jan "I'm Ready For My Close-Up Now Mr. DeMille" Brewer and the other right-wing wackadoodles in the state legislature did recently kill funding for the state Department of Mines and Mineral Resources, "which helps companies looking to dig for minerals in Arizona".

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2011/01/20/20110120arizona-department-of-mines-and-mineral-resources-to-close.html

But surely they can't pass up the chance to turn the painted desert into a gigantic strip mine, cutting environmental regulations and other overhead costs in order to compete with California?

If they do, there's at least a chance to turn it into a huge source of state revenue, like Wyoming does (it has no personal or corporate income tax or personal property tax and has a 4 percent sales tax, instead deriving a large portion of its state revenues from property taxes on the mineral industry -- as well as from taxes, levies, and royalties from its oil and gas industry).

Right?

Or will Arizona legislators, fearful of a functional government -- which might send the terrible and absolutely wrong message to its residents that government works and can improve their lives -- fail to do this, AND trash northern Arizona?

[phxSUNSfan]

"While Detroit will continue to have the natural resources needed to transform itself into something vital, Phoenix has far fewer natural gifts." -Rate Crimes

Very untrue. While Phoenix does rely heavily on gas for transportation, there are other troubling concerns for cold regions in terms of energy efficiency. What natural gifts will they use to heat their homes and power their plants? Do they use some kind of gas that isn't available in Arizona? Also consider this; it takes many times more energy to heat a home to a comfortable level than it does to cool one...

[phxSUNSfan]

Great stuff Emil...eventually the Kookies will crumble. It is an unsustainable governing body and there is only so much craziness a populace can handle; or so I would think.

And why is it that some of the most valuable metals and resources are located in the most beautiful regions in the world? Seems unfair...

[Rate Crimes]

"Very untrue." - phxSUNSfan

Very untrue. When Arizona's summer temps become unbearable, not only will Arizona no longer have two growing seasons, but Arizona will no longer be able to maintain its poorly-built sea of ramshackle, increasingly leaky, climate-inappropriate McMansions. Detroit will be enjoying a warmer climate, proximity to fresh water, richer soils, and natural transportation routes.

[phxSUNSfan]

So you are conjecturing on future global events that are still highly misunderstood. For instance, new data shows that Arizona might actually be colder in the winter and wetter in the summer; suffering from arctic blasts due to warmer sea temps in the northern hemisphere. Even us liberals become confused with the term, "Global Warming". Detroit, may in fact, become colder for a longer period of time and snowier as a result...

[Rate Crimes]

"it takes many times more energy to heat a home to a comfortable level than it does to cool one..." - phxSUNSfan

That depends on the design of the home, the HVAC system, the local climate, lifestyle, and a number of other factors.

[phxSUNSfan]

Some food for thought:

"It's still cutting-edge research and there's no smoking gun, but there's evidence that with less sea ice, you put a lot of heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, and the circulation of the atmosphere responds to that," Serreze said.

"We've seen a tendency for autumns with low sea ice cover to be followed by a negative Arctic Oscillation."

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-global-snowstorms-scientists.html

[phxSUNSfan]

Unless they are building some great, efficient homes in the Upper Midwest (which they are not), then your theory would be correct. But the ticky tacky boxes in suburban Detroit are no more efficient than those in Phoenix...

[phxSUNSfan]

Off topic, but during these awful times in Japan, it is a little comforting to know that another nation can still reach out to us (U.S.) and ask us for help that doesn't involve the military. We are sending our nuclear scientists and experts from the NRC to try and avoid a devastating meltdown from occurring at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. Hopefully it is not already too late.

[phxSUNSfan]

I apologize for my string of posts late in this thread, but I had a friend from Detroit, I mean Farmington Fields, sent me this link:
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1864272,00.html

Most devastating are the losses of Michigan Central Station (designed by the same firm and architects of NYC's Grand Central Terminal) and The Michigan Theatre (turned into a parking garage!

[phxSUNSfan]

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089_1850973,00.html

And the story:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1925796-1,00.html

[cal Lash]

Given the choice of living in Detroit, Bagdad or Cario, Detroit would be the place I would not live. Makes Phoenix look like paradise, just no virgins, not even the Sonoran desert, any more.
Cal Lash and his dog spot in their motor home somewhere in the great Sonoran desert, what's left of it?

[eclecticdog]

Emil,

The Kooks won't tax mineral extraction or the corporations that do it as that would be counter to the "free market". It's up to us wage slaves, consumers, and property owners to be thankful for letting the legislature create this business friendly environment so the "engine of growth" will take all it can from the landscape and leave the citizens with the bill.

[Rogue Columnist]

pSf, love your optimism and don't want to over-simplify your argument, but a couple of things:

1. I've lived in the Midwest, and one can keep warm through a variety of means beyond the furnace. In Phoenix, for increasing months, air conditioning is life or death for most people, and it takes energy.

2. The last thing we want — even if Arizona somehow were blessed by climate change (highly unlikely) — is more climate refugees. People who only came for the weather are part of the problem. The challenge: How to change the Big Sort that has turned Arizona deep red.

[phxSUNSfan]

I'm not really optimistic about any type of climate change. True that natural cycles of heating and cooling occur, but man induce these changes much more quickly and unnaturally. A colder and wetter (in the summer) Arizona does not mean a more inhabitable place. Have you ever over watered cacti or seen one frozen too many times? Not pretty. Likewise, heavy summer downpours do little for the cities in terms of replenishing drinking water and our storage capacity to collect these quick summer rains, much too low. The precious water for the west is made in the winter.

As for heating in the Midwest, if winters do become colder, longer, and snowier the economic impact would be devastating. I've lived in the cold regions of the U.S. and have family in Minneapolis, Chicago, Madison, etc and their bills for heating (furnace, wood stove, etc) are exceptionally high; even compared to a Phoenix summer-time bills. In Minneapolis, for example, the poorer residents live with the phenomena of "spring cut-off." This is were the power companies turn off their sources of energy in the spring because of unpaid balances, some hundreds and even thousands behind. It is illegal to turn off power in many Midwest states during the winter, but not in the other seasons.

[soleri]

Phoenix is already one of the hottest places on Earth. Once high-energy costs really kick in, the monetary pain will outweigh the sensual pleasure of heat. There's a reason Phoenix was quite small before WWII. Air conditioning had been invented in 1902 but it was too expensive for most people up until the 1950s. Phoenix has only gotten hotter since then thanks, mostly, to the urban heat-island effect.

Last year, I paid $200 electric bills for the first time in my life. I kept my thermostat high (around 85 degrees) and relied on ceiling fans. I started to become aware just how close to the edge this is getting for people. We have these various, high-cost amenities we have to pay for: AC, a car, and the absurdly expensive infrastructure costs that low-density urbanism entails. When energy costs really take off, the danger to Arizona's economy becomes acute. We need cheap water, gas and electricity to live here. They're all going up.

People managed to live in cold-weather places before technology enabled Sunbelt escapism. I suspect they'll survive colder winters better than we will much hotter summers.

[phxSUNSfan]

If we look at world history and ancient civilizations most cultures and population centers gathered in warmer climes (deserts hotter than Phoenix). True that energy costs will rise in Phoenix, but the story is no different for those places that stay cold for a very long time. To think an escape as a result of climate change is available is naive and ill advised.

[phxSUNSfan]

One advantage Phoenix may have over other regions is the ability to place solar panels atop individual roofs to power cooling systems in the summer. My parents switched to this type of system last year and you don't want to know how much their bill was not.

[soleri]

I would hate to replicate the Sumerian experience here. It was fairly hellish for most of the workers. Ditto, that of the Nile and Indus river valleys. They also suffered from malnutrition due to a restricted diet of grains.

The Hohokams left fairly abruptly about 600 years ago. Either drought or excessively salinated soil was the likely reason. You do what you have to survive, of course, but I suspect most of us would just take a pass here on their experience.

Solar is the way to go, needless to say, but we have yet to reach an economy of scale where it either amortizes its expense in a reasonable amount of time or becomes an affordable investment for the average homeowner. That day is coming, but it's not here yet. Here's another area where Arizona's corporatized political representation essentially let individuals do the heavy lifting. Big Oil may have little presence in this state but their money still buys the best hacks. In Germany, solar is literally everywhere. Not having political parties distort energy policy to favor the big players helps, of course.

[Rogue Columnist]

pSf can always one-up me on places he's been ;-)

Actually, the most advanced modern civilizations have thrived in temperate-to-cold places, such as Europe, while the hot places, from the pre-AC American South to Africa have lagged.

[cal Lash]

Migration! The two American Indians I married, advised their people moved with the seasons trying not to squat in their own shit. One also told me her people didn’t put up a teepee in a river bed and call the corps of engineers when it flooded. I highly recommend the book “Cadillac Desert” by Hydrologist Marc Reisner, the one with a picture of a dead Cactus on it (there are several editions).
I once got to meet and tour a house under construction by a guy named Hudson or Dodge that was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright that built two houses in Scottsdale. Both houses have an underground tunnel that cools and heats the house using very little energy. Also when the Scottsdale Fire department approached him for not having a building permit from the fire department he challenged them to find one thing that was combustion able. They left no fire approval necessary.

[soleri]

Cal, that "ugly" Sunnyslope house I grew up in had an underground air tunnel, too.

Al Beadle explored the idea himself with those two small office buildings on 3rd Street. Mostly underground, they save a bunch on energy costs.

Mary Ellen Gleason, president of the Phoenix Symphony, has taken a job with the Milwaukee Symphony, so her house on 3rd Avenue & Almeria is for sale. It has a 700 sq ft basement that once included a tunnel to the synagogue next door (now a pawn shop). The house was originally built for the rabbi of the congregation. It's a beauty, too.

Jon's old house on Holly had the high-pitched gables, so when it got remodeled in the mid 90s (some guy named Darwin, as I recall), it was a given that the attic could be easily converted to living space. He did a great job but I was concerned how high the energy costs would be in the summer.

Most older Phoenix houses had a basement if only to put the furnace. It wasn't easy to dig in the clay-like caliche but it was well worth it. It was one way to escape the worst of the summer heat. Another method was sleeping porches were people would hang wet sheets up and let the breezes serve as convection cooling. My mother did the same thing in the 70s when hard times hit her and Dad. She wrapped herself in a wet sheet and managed to get some sleep that way.

[phxSUNSfan]

Jon, the benefits of a military lifestyle; from birth to a few years ago. ;-)

And yes, the Sumerian lifestyle was a bitch, but nomadic and barbaric pre-History cultures of Europe fared no better. Same with Jon's comparison of modern (last few hundred years) Europe. The most advanced and thriving civilizations have not always been in Europe. I also think a distinction between Mediterranean climates and Northern European should be made. Athens, Rome, and the long ago Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations had temperatures similar to Tucson.

I agree Sol, the people (voters) of Arizona do themselves no favors by being so "anti"-government. I say "anti" because as Jon has demonstrated, Arizona is very reliant on government subsidies to exist. If we had a smarter legislature, one that was truly for the people, we'd have advanced our solar technology years ago.

I've never understood why home builders in Maricopa County didn't incorporate solar panels into new homes. Even having a homeowner/power company cooperative in which homes fed into the grid. Any excess energy could then be sold off to California or Nevada.

[azrebel]

What a great conversation. You folks have covered every corner of the world forwards and backwards, give or take a thousand years. And all because Phoenix fell back one spot on the USA top ten. Lots of very smart people on this blog.

An update for cal-zone. Get it, cal from Arizona? (Also a great Italian meal)

I have used the (Mother/combat boots/ mattress/ coin changer on belt) comment on AZ Central several times and have found the comment to be 100% resistant to any kind of a comeback. It is so potent, I am careful to use it only on deserving parties. It's kind of the nuclear option of conversation enders.

[Rate Crimes]

Yep, Cal, it's terrible to witness how badly a car-dependent culture can damage a community. No wise man would venture there today. Give it a while. In a few gnerations, when we're gone, Detroit will be rediscovered and reclaimed. Though, even today, I have friends there who are farming on what once were burbs.

[soleri]

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10943629/4/4-most-beautiful-us-airport-terminals.html

This little puff piece on beautiful airline terminals is something of an eye-opener. Detroit has 20 international destinations!

The tragedy for Detroit is that for all its stunning legacy buildings and institutions, it couldn't find a way to re-invent itself fast enough to capitalize on them. Someone once proposed turning downtown Detroit into Skyscraper National Monument. Its glorious art-deco towers are simply treasures that need to be cared for until they can find their proper economic role again. Some pics to whet your appetite:

http://www.merit.edu/~jimmoran/detphot/detroit.html

[azrebel]

Rate,

What drives me bonkers is the lop-sided response to the Supply - Demand equation.

From the President on down to the lowly consumer, it's all about SUPPLY. Increase SUPPLY. Find more SUPPLY. SUPPLY. SUPPLY. SUPPLY.

Well, you dumb, SOB Americans, do something about demand. That part of the equation is within your control.

But then again, that would be like asking the drug addict to address his demand problem. Or the obese person to address his burger demand problem. Or the child molester to address his child demand problem.

It looks like an American trait is to be very, very demanding of everything, except ourselves.

[phxSUNSfan]

Detroit has some of the most beautiful old buildings in the country. Michigan Central Station is stunning from the outside. Yet, many of these buildings are rotting from the core due to a lack of weatherization and oxidation of the steel and iron fabric. Many of these buildings have developed gaping holes, allowing nature a way in; a devastating and powerful force.

Detroit is a dichotomy. There is the city itself and the suburbs where most of the population has gathered and grown. Metro Detroit hasn't really shrunk, it has grown some unlike the city proper which has lost more than half of its population. Because of new suburbanization of metro Detroit, the traffic nightmare only gets worse. Public transit is highly insufficient and would be extremely expensive to retrofit because of the way in which the suburbs have grown.

Here is an interesting piece on Detroit, autos, and light rail:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/15/smallbusiness/detroit_m1_light_rail/

[soleri]

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/blog/business/2011/03/phoenix-the-poster-child-for-suffering.html?ed=2011-03-15&s=article_du&ana=e_du_pub

This is funny/pathetic. The construction industry is blaming its downturn on - guess what? - "government regulations". And their spokes-hack is using Hotel Monroe as an example. Good on the Phoenix Business Journal for calling bullshit here.

[Rogue Columnist]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106697286

[phxSUNSfan]

Thanks for posting that link Sol, I'm going to pass it along! It is amusing that the "construction industry" is blaming taxation and regulations as a reason for their demise and using the Hotel Monroe debacle as an example; never mind the unsustainable business model of Mortgages Ltd...

[azrebel]

pSf,

That would be Mortgages, Unlimited.

[phxSUNSfan]

LMAO, true that!

[phxSUNSfan]

Jon, interesting theory! Perhaps, but Brazil would beg to differ...although their economic progress has just begun. I happen to think it more a cultural extraction, however. It took Brazil decades to get over their, "save it for another day" mentality. I forgot how to translate that phrase in Portuguese.

[phxSUNSfan]

OMG! I don't know how we let this pass us by, but in a moment of sanity, the Arizona Legislature struck down the "nullification" bill for a second time last week. I really feared this bill would pass.

Jon, I really have to get some work done, can you start writing some uninteresting pieces for a while so I won't be distracted? ;-)

[cal Lash]

Soleri, OK the house is not ugly but modernly different. It's just hard for me to get beyond one story teepee's and adobe huts.I did some work for Mary Ellen when she had a little union stuff going on. Nice lady but she and the boys decided to move on. We could buy the house and rent it to phxsunfan and have az rebel come over with his boots and mattress. My family did the wet sheet thing in the 50's and after we wrapped up mom would pray for a breeze. AZ rebel my friends call me Cabrone cal not Calzone.

[cal Lash]

Get this Sunnyslope the home of Slopers and Slope Queens is having an Art Walk on April 9.
AZ rebel I hang out occasionally at the Book Gallery at 50 W Main in Mesa if sometime you want to get a taco and cerveza next door let me know, I am at 6023161755

[azrebel]

Thanks cal, I'll plan on it in the near future. I'm headed up north tomorrow for about a week. I like to stay tight with the good ole boys up there who plan to blow the freeway bridges if and when civil unrest breaks out in the valley. Remind me to mention to phxSUNSfan not to plan on using hwy 60 and 260 for any planned evacuation route out of the valley.

[Rate Crimes]

"When energy costs really take off, the danger to Arizona's economy becomes acute." - soleri

Arizona's 'extraction' (can even be appropriately called an 'economy'?) is already in a state of acute danger because of the inexorable increase in energy costs colliding with the inexorable increase in demand; due to not just overbuilding, but moreso because of insufficient construction standards. It's not only the amount of building that was done, but also the type of buildings and their construction. We can see from the example of Detroit how quickly homes decay when they are no longer given care. As all those Arizona buildings that were constructed over the past few decades begin to age in the harsh climate, the costs to maintain them will increase in a non-linear manner. The quality of materials and construction of these recently-built boxes falls far short of the once-glorious buildings of places like Detroit.

[Rate Crimes]

"One advantage Phoenix may have over other regions is the ability to place solar panels atop individual roofs to power cooling systems in the summer. My parents switched to this type of system last year and you don't want to know how much their bill was not." - phxSUNSfan

Excellent! I've been promoting this solution for the past decade: as well as explaining why the broad adoption of this sensible solution for Arizona has been delayed.

[phxSUNSfan]

Azrebel, mattress, boots, and my place? I feel like I should be asking for photos before this all happens!

On another note; could this "challenge" by Arizona's business leaders start a chain reaction of opposition against the State Legislature, and Pearce in particular?

"Sixty top Arizona executives know the reality. In a virtually unprecedented move, they sent a joint letter to Pearce urging him not to pass any more immigration bills.

These are the leaders who cross the economic spectrum in Arizona, from health care and development to tourism and automotive. Their company names are familiar: US Airways, PetSmart, Sunbelt Holdings, Intel Corp. They include The Arizona Republic."

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2011/03/16/20110316wed1-16-new.html#ixzz1GncPOhk9

[soleri]

When I read the letter, I wondered if the Chamber of Commerce, which distributed it, pondered their own role in driving Arizona to the hard right. Clearly, if they're comfortable repealing the 14th amendment, there probably arent too many other radical-right issues they won't get behind. It's only when Arizona gets a well-deserved reputation for kookiness and extremism that they seem to to get nervous. Maybe they should have thought of that before bankrolling the vessel for this craziness, the GOP.

Let's remember that the "good" things they like - low taxes, less regulation, bottom-of-the-scale wages, and "self reliance" - are balanced by the bad things like xenophobia, know-nothingism, breathtaking meanness, and parochialism. You don't get one without the other. That's the unwritten contract with America that swept the Republicans to victory last fall. Vote for us and we'll give tax cuts to the rich, hate Muslims, and make the Mexicans go home. Or did they think there's even a Republican majority without the Kulturkampf? If so, how touchingly naive these plutocrats are.

[cal Lash]

Without giving up too much info. I do some work for a biz group or two (mostly Republicans) that think the current legislators are digging our grave and throwing the dirt on our face while we are still breathing, barely.
Verily I say unto ye. WTF

[cal Lash]

Hard for me to be as eloquent as you all.Cabrone cal

[Rate Crimes]

Tidbit:

"Arizona legislature gets sneaky in its embrace of a nuclear future for Arizona's public schools"

http://cpmazrandommusings.blogspot.com/2011/03/arizona-legislature-gets-sneaky-in-its.html

[morecleanair]

Sooner or later, I thought the subject of "environmental refugees" would surface in the context of shrinking population growth. The heat, the pollution and the whackadoodle politics have driven us so spend less and less time in the Valley and more time in the Pacific NW. It is generally more tolerant, more hospitable and more affordable.

[phxSUNSfan]

When, and if environmental refugees start migrating the pattern of movement may be surprising. I don't want to take this off topic again so I won't get specific.

It was inevitable that the supporters of the kooks, like the Republic, would now be eating their words! Time to right the ship...I mean if some of you expressed such hope for Detroit (DETROIT!), then Arizona and Phoenix surely can be afforded some as well.

[Rate Crimes]

"We're Number _ ?" - Rogue

50.

(miles downwind of a nuclear power plant without an emergency supply of cooling water)

[cal Lash]

Hope! I suggest the trilogy "Dune" by Frank Herbert. I have my still suit ready is yours?

[phxSUNSfan]

I had to watch Dune over a long period of time; the book was not really my thing. I'm not too big on sci-fi. I often find them very disappointing; aren't we supposed to be flying around in automated conveyances and all that?