Mesa rising

Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, right, with federal officials at the new Able Engineering facility, announcing an Obama administration initiative to boost manufacturing.

Mesa has landed an Apple factory and 2,000 jobs (provided the Gilbert school board goes along with the tax incentives), the latest in a series of triumphs as Phoenix falls into eclipse and the big issues are "pension spiking" and the "food tax."

Is "the city of wide streets and narrow minds" finally starting to punch at its weight?

Unlike most of the "boombergs" that have encircled Phoenix despite the aggressive annexation intended to prevent just that, Mesa always had a special identity. Settled by Mormons, Mesa had a distinctive set of small-businesses and agriculture-based industries and was surrounded by miles of citrus groves.

This began to change in the 1970s when the Superstition Freeway, as it built east, killed Main Street shops. Worse, the city inflicted a series of wounds on itself even as it notched huge population growth.

It allowed the city's tallest tower to be built outside downtown, along with the Maricopa County Courts buildings and other important assets. It allowed its lovely former Southern Pacific depot, which would have made a great multi-modal station today, to burn down.

What was lost: Mesa's Southern Pacific depot downtown.

Instead of balancing industrial land use with residential, Mesa plowed under the groves for subdivisions. By the 2000s, most Mesans had to commute outside the city limits for work.

Mesa very nearly was left out of the starter line of light rail (WBIYB), but then-Mayor Keno Hawker persuaded a reluctant City Council to help fund one mile from Tempe into Mesa. The Mesa Arts Center was completed in 2005 in an effort to undo some of the damage to downtown, but it struggled.

By 2010, Mesa's population was more than 439,000. It was more populous than Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Minneapolis but had none of those cities corporate or cultural assets — or great bones. The municipal building, an ugly office on Main, seemed to exemplify its lack of ambition.

That has changed under Mayor Scott Smith, the most effective and interesting public official in Arizona today.

Smith led the recruitment of five liberal arts colleges, four of which will be located downtown near light rail — which the city is extending through downtown.

Smith also presided over the creation of a Mesa-centric economic-development strategy rather than relying on the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. This includes the HEAT initiative – Healthcare, Education, Aerospace, Tourism and Technology — as well as StartUpMesa.

Mesa has retained the Boeing helicopter factory and also has taken over the former military laboratory at Falcon Field.

In addition, while Phoenix was losing baseball Spring Training, Mesa sprang for a new Cubs stadium. This is an important leg of tourism, but, importantly, Smith is not trying to make Mesa "the next Scottsdale," which seems the only aspiration other Arizona municipalities can manage.

Smith's impeccable LDS background — he's a BYU graduate — helps. Even though most Mormons with means have relocated to Gilbert and Chandler, the Saints still exert great power in the city and through a close-knit East Valley business community. He's a Republican, but he's not a Kook.

He's also had help thanks to the Real Estate Industrial Complex's lust for the former GM proving ground land. Thus, DMB is building the ambitious Eastmark development and has been a reliable partner in economic development.

Smith is also a regional leader. He doesn't hate the name Phoenix for the region, but embraces it.

So effective has Mesa become that my sources tell me Phoenix Symphony President Jim Ward seriously considered moving the orchestra from Symphony Hall in downtown Phoenix to the Mesa Arts Center.

Downtown Mesa will also be the home of the $30 million Barry and Peggy Goldwater Library and Archives. Some of you might say, "Good riddance, Barry gave birth to the extremism centered in the East Valley."

No, this is an astounding blunder by Phoenix leaders, if they exist. Goldwater went to Kenilworth School just north of downtown Phoenix, managed the downtown Phoenix Goldwater's department store and was a Phoenix City Councilman. The library and archives of the most prominent Phoenician in history will be in...Mesa.

To be sure, Mesa faces serious problems. Much of its older construction — including miles of east Main Street — is facing the same linear slum problem that has hobbled Phoenix.

Most of its assets, including Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport and ASU Polytechnic, are spread far from each other and almost all are totally car-dependent. The "city," at 136 square miles, is mostly a collection of "master planned communities," a suburban form that works against creating a cohesive, connected city.

Although the city is more Hispanic than in the past, it was more than 77 percent white in 2010, hardly the diversity associated with a competitive city in the global economy. Only 23.5 percent of the population over the age of 25 had a bachelor's degree or higher, below the state average (in Seattle, it's nearly 56 percent). Median household income was below the state's dismal average.

Little of the city is walkable and quality urbanism is a high hurdle. I'm not sure Mesa leaders are even thinking about this as they risk being bedazzled by DMB's bulldozers. But real cities are attracting the most talented young people, as well as many empty nest baby boomers.

Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport (note the smart naming) will likely not become another Ontario Airport (which is now struggling, too). Sky Harbor beats it on low costs and the already sunken-cost investments of the major carriers. But who knows? There is much whistling past the graveyard about the potential negative consequences to PHX from the USAirways-American merger.

One test for Mesa will be if it can expand the pie of quality assets for the Phoenix metropolitan area rather than merely poaching from the city of Phoenix. Another will be if it can control the lust of the Real Estate Industrial Complex for the vast so-called Superstition Vistas land.

This latter isn't just a huge mistake for sustainability, but risks keeping the economy dependent on schlock tract housing.

Mesa has a chance to do great things. At the least, it can assume its place as capital of an East Valley where most of the metro's wealth and economic power has shifted. It can be a partner for regional progress, for example in pushing for commuter rail.

But Mesa can and should do more, acting like a real city.

It would be nice if it could build a real city hall, especially one with retro grace and inspiration rather than another ghastly sculpture by a starchitect.

Let Phoenix beware. Mayor Greg Stanton can be a nice guy all he wants — and he faces a dysfunctional Council — but the big city is in noticeable decline. It's not just failing against its peer competitors, such as San Diego, Austin, Denver and Seattle. It is failing against its own suburbs. "Better call Sal" to demagogue about "protecting the taxpayers" is not an economic or civic strategy.

In the news is the Atlanta Braves abandoning Turner Field, a relatively new and very nice stadium near downtown, in favor of suburban Cobb County. Several arts organizations are also leaving the "chocolate city" (which is actually smaller in population than Mesa) for whiter suburbs.

In self-segregating America, this should be yet another warning sign for the city of Phoenix. Without Jerry Colangelo, the Suns arena and Diamondbacks stadium would not be downtown. If the East Valley had its act together in the 2000s, Glendale would not have been able to essentially mortgage its future to get the taxpayer-funded football stadium and hockey arena.

Phoenix has little time to turn itself around or it will become the Mexican Detroit that north Snottsdale toffs have long been predicting, only with fewer cool buildings downtown. It certainly lacks the corporate and higher education assets that the city of Atlanta has, Braves or no. This should be an emergency of the first order, but I'm not sure elected officials in Phoenix even get it. Gotta supervise filling potholes, ya know.

In the meantime, Mesa deserves credit. And if only more Arizona Republicans could be like Scott Smith.

 

Comments

[soleri]

Mesa may be one of the most forgettable places on planet Earth. That's not to say there isn't value in parts of it. The old city shows a sweetness you can sometimes find in small Mormon towns. But Main Street is mostly inert now, and there really isn't anything about a Goldwater museum, or its natural history museum, which alleviates the bone-crushing boredom of it all. For better or - more likely - worse, this is what happens when agriculture suddenly gives birth to autocentric suburban development. Nor is there a retrofit possible. This place may be prosper but not because there's anything cutting-edge going on. Mesa has one strong suit: its cheapness.

Recently, Tyler Cowen, a libertarian economist, wrote a cover story for Time Magazine extolling Texas as the new paradigm for America. God help us, but if he's right, let's remember Mesa is what this America will look like. Jim Kunstler is always writing about the impossibility of real patriotism is a country so marooned in suburban sprawl. My own sense is that the costs of this nightmare are incalculable. Edmund Burke (right-wingers, look him up) once wrote that "to make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely." You don't love Mesa except for a few old houses in the center city, the Temple, and maybe the performing arts center. The rest is mostly interchangeable schlock, pictures of which would confound the average viewer. Albuquerque? El Paso? Moreno Valley? Who knows and who cares?

Kunstler gets that America's basic problem is material in this sense: you don't revere abstract principles or ideas. You revere what moves you to tears. That's why when Mormons depict scenes of the heavenly afterlife, it seems like illustrations from Heidi: alpine meadows and snow-capped peaks. When our picturesque small towns and stately cities have become degenerated into drive-by crapola, what will we love? I think our Tea Partiers have an answer: white skin.

[SD Mittelsteadt]

I heard about the Apple news and the possibility that a couple other tech manufacturers are looking at the area for factories, but I have to wonder.....is that because the US (Phoenix area in particular) is again the best place to make things, or because the cost of labor is finally low enough to compete with other countries???

[SD Mittelsteadt]

Also......the game changes once the effects of Peak Oil really begin to hit home. We'll see which cities win and which lose.

[Reb]

The East valley did have it's act together. We wanted nothing to do with the Crudnals and the 'yotes.

We voted them away several times.

Cubs are a proven commodity.

I like living in Mesa. It's a stabilizing force for all the other schizophrenic cities in the valley who can't decide what they want to be when they grow up.

[Jmav]

2010 Seattle had a white population of 70% and 75% white for King County. Not much different than Mesa.

[Suzanne]

I-60(the Superstition freeway) was built to Mill Ave in the 1970’s, but it did not get out to Power Rd. until well into the 80’s. The overpass in this image http://www.azdot.gov/images/default-source/azdot-blog/us60_-2.jpg is Country Club Dr. before opening in 1979. Mesa wanted to lower I-60 below ground level and, because of cost, it was delayed many times. At that time, just about the only thing south of Southern was alfalfa fields.

[Rogue Columnist]

The only correction I would make is that the Superstition Freeway had reached Dobson by the late 1970s. We used it to reach Desert Samaritan Hospital when I was on the ambulance.

[Suzanne]

Jon, You are no doubt correct. It probably took 7 years to get the freeway from Mill Ave., past Dobson to Alma School. I got my 1979 date for Country Club from this site: http://www.azdot.gov/media/blog/posts/2012/11/29/from-the-adot-archives-the-superstition-freeway

[Chris Thomas]

To SD:

Gov. Brewer was just in Taiwan wooing Foxconn. Perhaps our low wages and relative lack of college graduates can be a feature, not a bug, when it comes to luring low-cost contract manufacturers.

[Jmav]

Low cost labor and a lack of college graduates should make Arizona more competitive with its fellow southern states such as Mississippi and South Carolina. Looks like the coming North American resurgence in manufacturing will occur mostly in Mexico.

Maybe Arizona can institute policies to repress wages low enough to compete with Mexico.

Dumb and dumber can be Arizona 's new state motto.

[Suzanne]

“If the Gilbert Public Schools board does not give the go-ahead, Apple may not be moving in.
"We have all entrepreneurs. We have all these mom-and-pop shops. They're not being given a [tax] break like this company is being offered," said board member Julie Smith at Tuesday night's [school] board meeting.” http://www.kpho.com/story/23964198/apples-move-to-mesa-could-be-stalled-by-gilbert-district

I doubt that the Gilbert school board will hold-up Apples progress. However, who was that?, saying something about “conservative profit-seekers are job creators and tax payers. Go bleed a stone.” (terry dudas) It seems that some conservative profit-seekers pay more taxes than others.

[Homeless]

Channeling the east valley ethos....the spiritual center of greater Phoenix. No hope. Run, run run young daughters and sons.

[soleri]

Richard Florida writes about the politics of the suburban/urban interface better than anyone. In this piece, he makes a persuasive argument that the cultural shifts drawing the creative class and empty-nesters to cities has broad political implications:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/11/welcome-to-blueburbia-and-other-landmarks-on-americas-new-map-98957.html?hp=l2

For Phoenix, the lack of big-city edge is an economic disaster. City leaders and planners understand the problem but you can't simply retrofit the low-density suburban pattern with a light-rail line and expect much to change. For a city with few urban amenities, it's all uphill.

Mesa, like metro Atlanta's Cobb County, has one advantage vis a vis Phoenix: whiteness. It can keep the Cubs winter home because baseball is a sport that appeals to older white people. It's otherwise not a place where the winners in a globalized economy want to be. Even its recent successes point to its longer-term problem: finding a rationale for an incoherent suburban agglomeration in a metroplex without a galvanizing urban core.

[eclecticdog]

"It would be embarrassing, not only for our district, but for our state," Board Member Lily Tram said.

What would be more embarrassing: standing up for an equitable tax policy or caving to let a corporate giant get away without paying their fare share? And not everyone wants Apple -- Motorola, Nokia, Samsung corporations will probably outlast the Apple cult in the so-called free market.

[eclecticdog]

From soleri's Florida link:

“Don’t you have a machine that puts food into the mouth and pushes it down?” he asked sarcastically.

Krushchev and LBJ would have made an interesting superpower paring.

[azreb]

I asked mesa mayor office what tax breaks had been given to apple. Answer: none.

[Second Coming]

Hey! Mesa will be the farthest away from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station when it melts down.

[Sanjeev Ramchandra]

Although Mesa may be rising, Goodyear (located at the opposite end of the Valley) apparently is NOT per the recent announcement of Lockheed Martin closing its facility there in 2015 (plus the recent failure of Suntech solar).

[terry dudas]

Soleri - help me out with your meaning of "incoherent suburban agglomeration . . . ". Are there coherent agglomerations in suburban areas also?

And, are metroplexes with galvanizing cores coherent or incoherent? I'm confused as to your meaning.

[soleri]

Terry, you are confused, which is why you can suckle at the teat of Uncle Sam and call other people socialists.

[Linda Richman (substituting for Paul Baldwin)]

Alma School was an actual school. Discuss.

[Rogue Columnist]

Alma School and Southern was where my great-grandparents homesteaded. They were among the first "gentiles" in the area.

[terry dudas]

"Suckling at the teat of Uncle Sam" may apply to you, but not to me, Soleri. The snarky paucity of your response disappoints me.

[the guy at the hardware store]

The Dudas -- "incoherent suburban agglomeration . . . " Refer to 'Little Boxes' words and music by Malvina Reynolds

"Are there coherent agglomerations in suburban areas also?" Yes. Refer to NYC and San Francisco

[soleri]

Terry, you're enjoying government-paid health care, which means you're getting three times in benefits than the Medicare taxes you paid. I understand in Tea Party land, arithmetic is considered "liberal", so your blind spot is understandable. http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44597

As for "snarky paucity", might I recommend you look in the mirror before you before you play victim? You started this, so if you don't like the way I write, just say so. I have no idea why you're even here except maybe to critique ideas you probably don't understand. If that's true, the word for someone like you would be troll. Other than that, I'm sure you're fun at parties.

[Linda Richman (substituting for Paul Baldwin)]

"Alma School and Southern was where my great-grandparents homesteaded. They were among the first "gentiles" in the area."

I have always been aware in an almost traditionally Asian way that our lives are but the continuation of the hopes and dreams for the future that those who lived in the present of the past had for their own future and the future of their offspring.

At least, that's what I thought when I visited the old Alma School in the 1980's. The dust ground into the old wooden window sills and plank floor
from the days of yore from of use and disuse of the long gone children told a story that only the most perceptive of eyes and ears can tell.

I'm getting verklempt just thinking about it. Talk amongst yourselves....

[AzReb]

Linda/Paul

The generations before us did things "for future generations".

Our generation does things for the now, hell with future generations.

How the change in attitude came about and why, escapes me.

[cal Lash]

Jmav,it's
"A race to the bottom" Per CB

I drove past Foxconn de Mexico twice two days ago. And per my guide, El Pastor SE Juarez is set to dramatically expand with maquiladora's in the near future with investment from China and elsewhere.
A ride through the area of SE Juarez revealed the reason the factories come, extreme poverty.

[cal Lash]

For Jon: http://www.theglobalist.com/facts-high-speed-rail-where-china-beats-the-world/
a fast ride

[headless]

AZReb -- Conservatives want to make sure future generations will not be burdened with debt, air to breath, or potable water.

[cal Lash]

The haters:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/1425de23f483bd0e
Russell Pearce resemblance?

[cal Lash]

and it goes on and on:
http://www.fronterasdesk.org/content/9229/protesters-arrested-over-attorney-generals-college-lawsuit
I have often wondered if there is a correlation between body composition and racism.

[cal Lash]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20131113arizona-dreamers-appeal-ag.html
And it goes on and on:

[Rogue Columnist]

Cal, Michelle and Dylan at Portland's were asking about you tonight. They miss you.

[cal Lash]

Thanks Jon.
I will make a point of going
They make the best Portobello meal in town.

[AzReb]

Interesting that I asked an elected official, Mesa mayor, a direct question about tax breaks for the Apple plant. The answer was: none. What his office failed to mention was that the Williams air field foreign trade zone was enlarged to encompass the Apple plant thus saving them taxes.

Nice job dodging the question Mayor.

[Suzanne]

Thank you, Az Reb, for filtering that out. I was wondering where the discrepancy was.

[cal Lash]

Good work Reb!

Jared Diamond was in town. U know the guy that told us moving on was better than settling down in our own shit. Unfortunately I missed him as I wanted to ask him about the quote by Aldo Leopold from the book A Sand County Almanac.
"There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery and the other that heat comes from the furnace. "

Im up for coffee later this week. Suzanne you and other females are welcome. I have a few tales from Mexico including one about Peludo Y El Pastor.