Questions for Arizona in 2014

So many myths, so little time or brain cells. I suppose that is why malign falsehoods carry us forward. The latest was a story I read where a UofA professor is having a loud growthgasm over Arizona's spectacular income growth and how 2014 will be even better.

I don't mean to be unfair or pick on people, but when these ideas enter the public square through the most powerful media outlets they reinforce the "everything's fine" lie that keeps Arizona backward.

To be sure, "staying positive" on the party line is a good way to keep one's job. I am proof of what happens to dissidents.

About income: Unless something radical has changed, Arizona is an underperformer and will remain so. The snapshots of "growth" are statistical noise caused by the large population churn. A certain right-wing columnist has ridden this for years to say, in essence, "Arizona does not suck, Talton!" — even though reality is quite different.

Reality: Arizona ranked 41st among the states and District of Columbia in median income in 2012, using a rigorous three-year average in inflation-adjusted dollars. The number: $49,689.

The data are not hard to find.

In per-capita income, another gold standard of how people are really doing, Arizona ranked 41st in 2012, down from 35th in 1990.

Interestingly, the five top-performing states are all blue: Maryland, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Arizona trails its high-quality peers in the West: Colorado, Washington, Utah, Oregon — even low-quality Nevada.

But "the cost of living is lower!" Not really. Comparing Phoenix or Tucson to a major technology center is apples to diamonds. Few people from the latter would come to the former. Groceries and gasoline are average to somewhat more expensive. Housing is average to somewhat cheaper. But wages are very low, especially for a populous state and such a large metro as Phoenix. And Arizona draws a large number of working poor.

Facts are stubborn things. Unwelcome things, too, among the Kookocracy and the booster class.

Now to the New Year and some markers to watch:

1. Politics. I suppose we must care, even though the Big Sort keeps adding to the New Confederacy majority and the Democrats seem toothless.

The Legislature remains the biggest impediment to Arizona's progress. Until Democrats can rebuild from the school-board level up, tell a compelling narrative and retake the Legislature, nothing much will change. And even St. Janet had bend to the Real Estate Industrial Complex and NO TAXES!! crowd.

Who will run for governor? Who cares? See the above paragraph. Maybe drafting the Badged Ego and letting him do a Mecham would be the only way to be rid of him.

In Phoenix, we avoided more inroads by the nihilist Kooks on City Council. But two are enough and a critical question is whether the body, which worked with mostly comity and consensus for decades, is hopelessly stymied. As we know from national politics, "gridlock" is the friend and goal of the reactionary nihilists.

Phoenix will name a permanent city manager. This will be a big deal.

2. The economy. In truth, Arizona and Phoenix continue to struggle even by the boosters' favored metrics in housing and raw job creation.

Consider the latest report by the Milken Institute, which was kind to state and metro during the go-go bubble years. Its Best Performing Cities 2013 ranks 66. Better than the previous year's 122, but hardly escape velocity from the lesser depression. Tucson ranked 115, up from 150.

Lacking an established tech hub or energy center, without major connections to the world, this is going to be hard. Sunshine is not enough.

There's no housing boom coming anytime soon. Indeed, the froth in Phoenix is heavily dependent on banks buying rentals and bundling the rents into securities to sell to investors. That's a prescription for a mini-crash at worst, and neighborhood decline at best.

Federal austerity is hurting a state so dependent on federal dollars, all the red-Rand posturing notwithstanding.

An ominous sign comes from the 2012 data on migration, so desperately needed to keep the Ponzi scheme going. Arizona gained a net 25,615 residents from other states. This is an improvement from the worst of the recession, but far below the 100,000-plus of the past.

As usual, the churn is astonishing — and a major impediment to building a civic culture. Last year, 232,457 came, but 206,842 left.

Americans are moving less often, one of many signs of a middle class under siege. And many, including empty nest baby boomers, want to live in vibrant cities rather than gated properties with championship golf.

I see few signs that Arizona leaders are even discussing these issues. Maybe cheap-and-dirty can build a powerhouse economy. It hasn't happened under decades of Republican rule in the state, growing ever more extreme. But maybe...

3. Environment. The frogs/lobsters/crabs in the slowly heating pot won't even begin a conversation about climate change and Arizona's future, or a reality based assessment of water resources.

Is there the activist muscle to push back against the continuing destruction of the state? What fresh hell will the developers bring to the New Year in what was once pristine desert or High Country?

Make no mistake, denial about this doesn't make it go away. Just as people were surprised by the deadly Yarnell fire, each year ahead promises to be one where there's a hard slap about what is coming. (It doesn't have to come, at least with such severity, but that's another discussion).

4. Downtown and central Phoenix. Forgive me for not standing at the barricades as Harkins prepares to demolish Camelview. Scottsdale is rich and can take care or itself — or not. I still mourn the loss of what would have made great indie houses: The Fox and the Palms.

Here, I'll stick to what is doable.

In the new year, I'll be watching to see if the core, especially Midtown, can make some progress beyond restaurants and coffee houses. (And no, unnamed reporter, Seventh Avenue and Campbell is not "downtown Phoenix").

Councilwoman Pastor, please read Jane Jacobs and James Howard Kunstler — and buy copies of their books for your colleagues and the city staff.

Downtown, the light-rail line and the central city desperately need to get in the economic game against the suburbs. Phoenix needs to continue the progress at ASU and keep CityScape alive. It needs the walkable critical mass in its heart that is one key to quality urbanism.

Most arts organizations continue to struggle, brave faces notwithstanding. Let's hope they can do better in 2014. The problem is not lack of money in the metro — it is lack of stewards. The one exception is a guy that funds a museum — but one far from the museum district, all on private land and inaccessible by transit. That's not stewardship. It is merely another flavor of white-right apartheid, or, to be more generous, cluelessness about what makes a great city.

Meanwhile, fight for shade trees and grass in the heart of the city.

I welcome your Phoenix and Arizona markers for 2014 in the comments section.

Happy New Year.

 

Comments

[Ron Friesen]

The current Phoenix mayor and council members have no articulated vision for the city. There are no "Future Forums" calling the citizenry to dream of what might be. There continue to be crumbs thrown to various neighborhood organizations to shut them up lest they get uppity. There are no plans for for creative infill of the city core. We are being lead by managers and not by leaders.

[SD Mittelsteadt]

I've lived in Phoenix for almost 18 years (with a century-long sabbatical in Las Vegas for 4 years), and I have noticed two things. One....there are a lot of very smart, very clever, and very talented people in this area that could make a lot of positive magic happen if given half a chance. Two....the level of kookacracy is so deep and so widespread that any mention of "community" will be answered with hair-brained response of "Commie!!!" or "Socialist!!!" All the while, every thing that needs fixing gets a little more broken. All great ideas, Jon....but I have lost all hope that this state can reform unless a large influx of blue state people move here, or enough of the kookacracy generations die off that things begin to even out a bit. Or......something really bad happens that forces serious change. Can you guess which of those I think will happen??? Hint....I've decided to move back to Wisconsin in February.

[SD Mittelsteadt]

One quick tidbit about jobs. I read that Phoenix has a decent job growth rate, at least compared to other cities. However, 90-some percent of those new jobs require a high school diploma or less.

[cal Lash]

Best improvement of 2013:
Phoenix City fathers painted the bike path on Grand avenue,Green.
But just for 8 blocks? Guess no more $$ for green paint.

[Donna Gratehouse]

I just want to thank you for making "championship golf" the term of mockery and derision it so richly deserves to be. Best wishes to you and your family in the new year.

[cal Lash]

CHUMP ionship golfff
Its hard to think about children dying violent deaths all over the planet when you are lined up for that birdie.

[Rogue Columnist]

A number of people have written me about this article in New Times:

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2013-12-19/news/claims-metro-phoenix-is-doomed-because-of-climate-change-are-exaggerated/

I have been reluctant to write about it because instantly the topic would have shifted to me ("Talton hates Arizona"). But to be brief, it is shoddy pseudo-journalism at its worst. Hope it helps them sell some ads. One of Phoenix's problems is the lack of serious journalism and analysis. If one can't get it from the "alternative" press, it is indeed sad.

The writer makes some rookie mistakes. One is using sources that are highly suspect and compromised/biased by the growth machine. Another is setting up a straw man that doesn't exist. Neither Ross nor I (nor any critic of Phoenix unsustainable Ponzi scheme) argues that "Phoenix is doomed." But by using this as a straw man, the writer can avoid addressing the serious, complex and nuanced issues that the city and state actually face and how the consequences will (are) play out.

The water situation is especially misunderstood. Water directed to agriculture can't simply be re-routed to more subdivisions. One is that many farmers won't give up their rights. Second, these allocations largely live on paper and don't represent real water. The Colorado is oversubscribed. The renewable supplies of the Salt River Project are under stress by reduced snowfall, a situation likely to grow worse. Finally, the farms-to-houses formula is deeply flawed. It doesn't account for the affect an increased heat island and longer, hotter summers have on evaporation, or the use of pools, artificial lakes, etc. It doesn't account for the frauds and lack of enforcement involving water resources.

Arizona is past a healthy carrying capacity of population. It doesn't need more people, especially in single-family-house sprawl. It needs to grow startups, venture capital, incomes, educational outcomes, pathways up for the working poor, a quality economy and connections with the world. It needs to grow tolerance and develop real cities with the urban amenities demanded by talented workers. It needs to grow political diversity and an environmental ethic. It doesn't need to grow population.

The large population, urban form, stresses on the environment, a low-wage economy in a transformed global economy and, yes, climate change all represent a turning point. Not talking about it or writing propaganda for the Real Estate Industrial Complex won't make this reality go away.

The next 30 years won't be a replay of the last 30 years of the 20th century. Arizona is tragically unprepared for this discontinuity.

[AzReb]

That was a very well written article by Stern. If a person has a problem with the article it is because the person had an agenda going into the reading of the article.

The key point here is that Phoenix should not be here in it's current state. It's a desert. IT SHOULDN'T BE HERE. Arguing about the details after the fact is, well, too late.

There shouldn't be 330 million people on this country. There shouldn't be 7 billion people on this planet. But, there are.

Mother Nature will fix everything in her own time and God help the people who will suffer and die in the process.

When you were born, the only guarantee you had was that you are going to die. So, have a beer, enjoy your family and friends. Really look at that sunset. Look in the mirror and laugh at the folly that is your species.

Happy new year. You survived one more year. Now enjoy the next one.

[cal Lash]

Gezz Reb your depressing. I was looking forward to another year of complaining and griping. And another year of sobriety. Now U and Petro want me to drink and smoke intoxicants and be happy?

Actually I thought the article was a comedy. It was actually serious?

[cal Lash]

REB, I just sent U a cheer U up card.

[headless lucy]

Your senior Senator just reported on television the other day that when he visits Russia he'd like to "take off his shirt and do some things together." with Vladimir Putin.

You may be becoming more socially forward-looking than you think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmu0m_FayY0

[cal Lash]

Here u go reb. Google this, phillip levines "they feed they lion"

[jmav]

2014- Another year of burn and churn for the great armpit of the American Southwest. The temperature has risen an average of 10 to 15 degrees in Maricopa County since 1990 and the collective IQ has fallen 10 to 15 points during that same period. Expect that trend to continue in this showcase of reactionary mainstream Republican Party values.

Bring your suntan lotion and leave your brain behind as you enter the land of low wage stupidity. Not a real city at all.

[Drifter]

Going Back to Wisconsin, the land of the famous Tea Party Governor Scotty Walker, and one of the best displays of racially divisive politics America has to offer. One step down from Arizona. The land of white power without ever uttering the "N " word.

[Pat]

Don't worry about Arpaio being Governor, Mr. Talton: he has no choice but to try and remain Sheriff until he dies, rather than have an incoming administration do a clean audit.

[cal Lash]

Speaking of audits (secret files on your enemies, or everyone) (oh thats NSA and CIA)I watched Hoover last nite.

[headless lucy]

"Meanwhile, fight for shade trees and grass in the heart of the city."

Exactly. It's not brain science or rocket surgery. But to water the trees and grass in the heart of the city might take away from some of the water set aside for all of that championship golf.

A good way to frame that story would be that the 'elites' are stealing the city's water for their private golf courses.

[AWinter]

The New Times article says that the Hohokam could have stayed if they had really, really wanted to: "What the Hohokam teach modern Phoenicians about the future, then, is that the greatest sustainability challenge for this area isn't its environment — it's whether there's the desire to live here."

This seems analogous to the Peak Oil issue where peak production is regularly confounded with the Peak Demand issue. Yes it will be peak demand that stops growth but not in a nice way.

Which leads me to believe that this show will cease to be attractive long before hard physical limits are encountered. Is there a reason to move to Phoenix except of cheap housing and heat? Phoenix has been able to grow while acquiring the roles of overheated slum sink, sprawled desert dystopia/utopia etc. There will be a tipping point when the heat just becomes too much, energy prices escalate, and the unpaid bills of sprawl become due (probably during the 2020s, a generation after the biggest boom). Eventually used up and exhausted, people won't see the point of reworking a fabric under stress if there is not much worthwhile to preserve. Why bother? Better pick up and move.

[cal Lash]

AWinter: Heat Map suggests move to Portland.

Jon, ABSCAM made the movies in American Hustler. Pretty well done flick. But not a lot of surprises if you understand cons.

The women stole the show.

[josap]

Great blog for Phx Metro.

Low wages will continue to be an issue for years to come. Hedge fund rentals at least keep the rent low, though not helpful to the small investors.

I've lived here since 1964, seen lots of changes and will see more. Phoenix, like most cities, has always been a city in transition.

[morecleanair]

One comment on "championship golf" and the water it requires: most courses use effluent; only the old ones are grandfathered in with potable water. Overall, golf is slumping as the rates go up and the clientele shrinks.

[cal Lash]

Chasing little balls around on green grass with huge clubs has become passe the new sporting events include blowing coke up your ass while playing screw everyone and the planet we live on. Theses games are currently depicted in the movies.
The Wolf of Wall Street
and American Hustle

[headless lucy]

morecleanair -- "One comment on "championship golf" and the water it requires: most courses use effluent...."

I knew that and I was hoping someone would repeat that old chestnut. Do you think that trees and grass in downtown Phoenix could survive on the same type of water?

Also, since you seem to know a bit about the issue, could you clarify what is meant by 'effluent'?

It's not water and poop as the term would seem to suggest.

[headless lucy]

One other comment -- for now.

The undercurrent of defeatism that I am detecting from some commenters is the same sort of attitude that gave us 35 years of destructive conservofascist government in this country.

As my WWII veteran father would say: "Stop crying and be a man."

[Happs]

Even though it would be great if more boomers moved to the center city, developers don't think they will as evidenced by the new large development targeted for boomers in Verrado.

http://www.azcentral.com/business/realestate/articles/20131211boomer-community-victory-high-end.html

[Rogue Columnist]

http://www.edwardjensen.net/tags/downtown-phoenix-year-in-review-2013

[AzReb]

headless,

effluent water is water treated at a waste treatment plant that is safe to use for irrigation, but not safe to drink. In college I worked on a golf course that used effluent water. I didn't get sick, but my clothes and work boots crumbled into dust after being exposed to the effluent water.

The only effect it had on me is that it made me allergic to Democrats and Republicans. I get a real bad rash on my ass when I'm around them. ( : - )

[Emil Pulsifer]

The Arizona Republic had an article in its Saturday edition about changes in the local housing development model. The essense of the article was that a shift is taking place from home building in the suburbs to home building in the central city. But two things from the article stand out:

(1) "Real estate reports show infill projects in 2013 now make up almost 13 percent of the estimated total of 11,500 new-home permits issued through November."

(2) "Available lots for new homes inside the boundaries of Loops 101 and 202 have fallen to about 2,350."

http://www.azcentral.com/business/realestate/articles/20131120phoenix-housing-market-core.html

I suppose that "available lots for new homes" includes lots suitable for apartment or condominium development. But the bottom line seems to be that the vast majority of available residentially zoned lots exist in the boonies, not in the central city, much less the downtown.

Rezoning could perhaps change that, but I don't know what the economics are with respect to homebuilders.

One of the facts brought out in the article is that infill residential projects typically involve higher-end homes marketed to young urban professionals who are willing to pay more to live in the central city. Apparently, home developers more typically rely on economies of scale (e.g., large numbers of tract homes) to make an attractive profit.

Whether West Phoenix is really going to become the next homebuilding mecca as widely claimed remains to be seen. Mr. Talton points out that immigration into the state is well below historical standards. Right now the state's unemployment rate is higher than the federal rate and seems to be moving in the opposite direction.

The mainstream media never seems to mention the big problem facing the state in the coming years: nearly a billion dollars in tax cuts recently passed are beginning to kick in, and the state will be hurting for revenue, particularly if the growth estimates prove overly rosy. Court decisions requiring money taken from education budgets to be replaced will only exacerbate the shortfall.

[cal Lash]

Dont forget Jerrys 4 million residents near Tonopah.

[headless lucy]

AZReb -- "I didn't get sick, but my clothes and work boots crumbled into dust after being exposed to the effluent water."

I have no interest in your unsupported anecdotes and I'll bet you vote Republican every time -- which means that you are a Republican -- but you lie to yourself about it.

If I were you, I'd have that rash looked at by a doctor.

[eclecticdog]

I would think the Hohokam would have preferred to stay as the shift from agriculture, in what was a garden, to hunting and gathering in a desert would be a life-style change most of us would not want to make.

[AzReb]

I'm sorry headlice, you lost me. If I disparage Democrats AND Republicans, that makes me a Republican. I voted for Nappy, does that make her/him a Republican?

Your logic is illogical.

[headless]

AzReb -- Yawn...... Forgive me if I decline to follow you into the rabbit hole.

I think that you are a concern troll.

[cal Lash]

I like it when a new god arises and starts out handing out judgments.
So first order of god work is to obliterate those dastardly trolls with a barrage of poisonous wordology.

And I thought "Real" men did cry?

"Men come an go"

[cal Lash]

Some excerpts from a good article:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2014/01/06/140106crbo_books_rosen?currentPage=all

Thoreau, in a mysteriously beautiful passage in his 1862 essay “Walking,” likens the diminishing numbers of passenger pigeons in New England to the dwindling number of thoughts in a man’s head, “for the grove in our minds is laid waste.”

Two years after Martha’s death, Madison Grant published “The Passing of the Great Race,” a warning about the threat to pure “Nordic” peoples from immigrants he viewed as invasive species. White men, Grant believed, needed protection as much as the bison and the passenger pigeon. To that end, he helped persuade Congress to keep Jews, Asians, and Eastern Europeans—the rock pigeons of the world—out of the country.

The environmental movement that emerged as the passenger pigeon was disappearing—and that was inspired by the bird’s plight to save the bison—was largely a movement of hunters. The Boone and Crockett Club, founded for rich sportsmen in 1887, by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell, morphed into a powerful lobbying group that boasted among its members John F. Lacey, the Republican congressman from Iowa, who spoke movingly about the passenger pigeon on the floor of the House of Representatives as he argued for what became the first federal bird-protection law, the Lacey Act, of 1900. These men were conservationists not in spite of their trophy hunting but because of it—they wanted vast protected forests because they wanted a vast supply of creatures to kill. The “near euphoria” of shooting things, in their case, was a key to saving them. But the patricians of the Boone and Crockett Club shared Greenberg’s contempt for market hunters, men who made a living from the things they killed.
One of the club’s members, Madison Grant, went further, moving the club toward a more strictly preservationist attitude, and the radical idea that unspoiled nature itself

[headless lucy]

Lash -- That's a commonplace argument about conservation that you can get from just about any hunting or fishing license that you buy.

I don't this particular "Gee whiz! Who woulda thunk it?" argument would extend to much of anything else.

One logical parallel to the hunter/conservationist argument is that pro-lifers really only want to raise plenty of potential cannon fodder. Another would be that the only people who will have the wherewithal to save the AZ desert is the Real Estate Industrial Complex -- because they will want to preserve plenty of additional desert to despoil with housing tracts.

Theodore Roosevelt did not propose a national parks system so that he and his cronies would have plenty of animals to kill. That's a fake argument -- as fake as the belief that unkempt hippies spit on returning Vietnam war veterans.

That may have happened in a Tom Cruise movie, but not in real life.

[headless lucy]

Lash -- "I like it when a new god arises and starts out handing out judgments.
So first order of god work is to obliterate those dastardly trolls with a barrage of poisonous wordology."

So, I take it that AZReb is authorized to spout at will and anyone who says differently is 'handing out judgments'.

[toughteri]

Headlice - "that may have happened in a Tom Cruise movie, but not in real life" - prove it.

[cal Lash]

Yes

I just posted the NY article and cant vouch for anything in the article. Just thought it was interesting.