Rogue Columnist

The 2000s

I'll wrap up the series of decade history columns (twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, and 'teens) with a look at Phoenix from 2000 to 2009.  This one is different because I was an active participant in many of the events, having returned home as a columnist for the Arizona Republic. Caveat lector.

Phoenix and Arizona roared into the new century on a historic wave of growth in the 1990s. The city's population topped a million for the first time, clocking in at more than 1.3 million in the 2000 Census and surpassing San Diego as the nation's sixth most-populous city.

All seemed to confirm the near constant, mysterious levitation of growth, despite the downturn in 1990 foreshadowed by the 1988 Barron's "Phoenix descending" report. The Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) had established high-end clusters to cultivate. But having worked in San Diego, Dayton, Denver, Cincinnati, and Charlotte, I was concerned and started asking questions.

For one thing, the big local election issue was Prop. 202, an initiative that would have required (very loose) growth boundaries. Early polling showed it leading among respondents. And the real-estate interests went crazy, labeling it "the Sierra Club initiative, ripping down supportive signs, and economist/developer Elliott Pollack darkly warning that if it passed a devastating recession would result.

The warpath ahead

Illustration by Carl Muecke.

One of the interesting parts of Michael Crow's empire is the Center on the Future of War, dedicated to exploring "the social, political, economic, and cultural implications of the changing character of war and conflict." With a faculty led by Peter Bergen, a CNN analyst and leading scholar on terrorism, and Daniel Rothenberg, former Managing Director of International Projects at the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University, we're a long way from little Tempe Normal. The UA — or UArizona as they would have it — has nothing to compare.

Crow has a genius for going where the action is, particularly where money can be found in a state that shamefully underfunds higher education. And even with the end of the "Forever War" with President Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan (that and Iraq were not our longest conflict; that prize goes to the Indian wars of the 19th century), America's seeming hunger for war isn't going away.

The Pentagon, think tanks, and cottage industry of military journalism have us aiming at China, with runners up Russia and Iran. As for the first two, war with nuclear-armed adversaries: What could go wrong? Brown University’s Watson Institute estimates direct costs from the “war on terror” to be 929,000 deaths and a federal price tag of $8 trillion.

Downtown through the years

Follow this visual history of downtown Phoenix through the decades. I use the historic boundaries of downtown: Fillmore Street to the north; the railroad tracks to the south; Seventh Avenue and Seventh Street to west and east respectively. Click on a photo to see a larger image.

The early 1900s:

Looking east on Washington Street from the Ford Hotel. Redewill's music store was owned by the family that built the 1914 bungalow where we lived in Willo in the 2000s. We placed an Interior Department National Register of Historic Places plaque on it, the A.C. Redewill House.

The twenties:

Central Avenue heading south from Monroe Street, with the Hotel Adams the multi-story building on the left, and Central Methodist Church (ME, South), Heard Building, and Luhrs Building on the right.

Second Avenue and Washington in 1929. The awnings are on the red-brick Fleming Building. From left to right in the distance are the new Hotel Westward Ho, the Professional Building, and the Hotel Adams annex (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Read more about this decade here.

How to read the news

Penelope Abernathy at the University of North Carolina has been tracking the expansion of "news deserts" in the United States — counties with no local newspapers at all, and those with only one. Even the survivors are hanging on.

U.S. newspapers lost 48 percent of their journalists between 2008 and 2018, and the losses are now accelerated by the pandemic. More than 1,800 newspapers have closed since 2004. Arizona newspaper circulation dropped by 37% between 2004 and 2019. The Arizona Republic's circulation fell from nearly half a million at the turn of the century — 10th largest daily in the country — to 82,861 at the start of 2021.

Much of this this is because of the collapse of the old business model because of Craig's List and self-inflicted wounds. The trends reach further back. Circulation of all dailies peaked at more than 63 million in 1989. It was down to 46 million by 2009, then 26 million by 2020.

Many newspapers are now being sucked dry by hedge-fund owners. As a result, the most experienced journalists are being pushed out. What's left are cub reporters while institutional knowledge is lost. The alternative is television news/entertainment, which is typically a shooting, an auto collision, and Heather-with-the-weather. (An honorable exception is Brahm Resnik at 12 News, a newspaper-trained newsman).

Meanwhile, a gray area of news also exists. In Phoenix, this includes Cronkite News out of ASU, KJZZ, and AZ Big Media. Flagstaff and Tucson are served by Arizona Public Media. Each of these have plusses and minuses.

This situation has profound implications for a self-governing society. Only real journalism exposes corruption, shines a light on self-serving politicians, explains complicated issues, and knits together civil society. Let's look at how to read the news — I've been a reporter, editor, and columnist for nearly four decades.

Growing up, in photos

I wrote a column in 2010 about growing up in central Phoenix in the 1960s. Along with the old city column, they sum up an experience that few had, fewer still remember. Now I have enough photos to show a bit what my lost world looked like. 

Me around the age of five, taken at the Ramada Inn on east Van Buren.

The house on west Cypress in today's Willo Historic District, looking much as it did when I grew up with my mother and grandmother. It's also David Mapstone's house in the Mapstone Mysteries (Willo Historic District photo).

Central and Palm Lane looking south. I was baptized and confirmed in Central Methodist Church in the foreground, and spent hours in the central library, middle left (Brad Hall collection).

The Census

So Phoenix is officially the nation's fifth most populous city, surpassing Philadelphia in the 2020 Census. Much information and analysis awaits unpacking.

Phoenix grew 11.2% over the decade, the biggest increase of the 10 largest cities. Yet this was the second-slowest percentage growth rate in the city's history; only the 9.4% from 2000 to 2010, hobbled by the housing bust, was slower. By contrast, the city grew by more than 34% in the 1990s.

The contest with the City of Brotherly Love was close. Phoenix clocked in with 1,608,139 only 4,342 more than Philly. The latter also continued to reverse its population loss, growing at 5.1 percent. Philadelphia benefited from the "back to the city" movement, where talented millennials and empty nest boomers chose vibrant, high-quality cities and corporate headquarters followed.

Maps of Phoenix

When I was a child, I loved to get the maps from my Great Aunt's monthly National Geographic magazines. And the Arizona Room at the Phoenix Public Library had more maps, but of the state and city. 

Now Phoenix is the nation's fifth most populous city and runs nearly into Yavapai County. Here's a snapshot of how it got there (click on the map for a larger image).  

1867: No Phoenix yet, and no railroads. The Overland Mail Route follows rugged country to the south past Maricopa Wells.

1881: The original. township. with two public squares. The north-south streets are named, not numbered.

1892: The Salt River Valley with platted land and canals (Mostly Hohokam).

1884: Phoenix in the center of a multi-county map. The Gila and Salt River Base Line is prominent. It governed the surveys of Arizona Territory and became Baseline Road.

Phoenix's Art Deco gems

Art Deco architecture flowered in America in the 1920s and 1930s, epitomized by New York's Chrysler Building and the Los Angeles City Hall. Phoenix, population 29,053, was too small to gain as much as Deco fans like me would have wished. But it managed to preserve most of its masterpieces of the era.

Here they are (click on the photo for a larger image):

The Luhrs Tower:

When most people think of Phoenix Deco they think of this 14-story masterpiece, the brain child of George Luhrs Jr. and connected to the Luhrs Building by an arcade. Located at First Avenue and Jefferson Street, it was designed by Trost & Trost of El Paso.