Clickbait, climate, and more

It's no coincidence that I've lately taken refuge in historical photo galleries. This is a dangerous time to write. Yes, my pen is still warmed up in hell, but fearless commentary is risky, as illustrated by the resignation of Bari Weiss from the New York Times and Andrew Sullivan being nudged out by New York Magazine. We're in a time of hysteria and thoughtcrime, made worse by social media.

So, a few nuggets that stay within the guardrails (I have a day job to protect).

• Clickbait news releases fill my mailboxes every day. I don't use most because they're based on questionable premises and shoddy data. Unfortunately, too much struggling media do. Hence, the recent story ranking Phoenix as "the best city in the U.S. for working remotely." It was carried unquestioningly by KTAR and the Phoenix Business Journal, among other local outlets.

The tiny thread of this press release came from an outfit called HighSpeedInternet, claiming to rank cities or metro areas. "We looked at things like internet connectivity, cost of living, and commute time savings. We also looked at cities with access to coffee shops, libraries, and coworking space, which gives remote workers a chance to work from different locations – when a pandemic isn’t occurring." Phoenix was No. 1, followed by Atlanta, Kansas City, Raleigh, and Toledo.

Here's why the "survey" doesn't pass the smell test. If you don't have an economy geared to remote work (e.g. Seattle with tens of thousands of highly skilled Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook workers), you couldn't possibly get that rank. Res ipsa loquitur.

Phoenix's economy is largely divided among 1) Real estate/construction; 2) Services for the large retiree population; 3) Tourism and hospitality, and 4) Back office/call center work. It has a relatively small slice of legacy tech/advanced industries, such as Intel and Boeing Helicopters, much smaller than peer metros.

None of these sectors lend themselves to working remotely.

So let's say the headline is misleading and the story really is about Phoenix being cheap. Again, that would assume a large labor force that can work remotely or would be attracted to Phoenix (in the summer). It gives no gold-standard citations (federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, St. Louis Fed FRED, Liberty Street Economics, etc.) for these assertions.

Also, part of Phoenix's supposed low cost is directly associated with low wages (this is why housing affordability is so problematic here). One point being that claims about Phoenix's "low cost of living" must always be taken with suspicion. And based on these airy criteria, why wouldn't Durant, Okla., or Tupelo, Miss., be even more appealing?

• "How America's Hottest City Will Survive Climate Change" was the headline of a Washington Post thumbsucker from earlier this month. It's part of the Post's Climate Solutions series.

It describes Phoenix as a city where "a cocktail of climate change and rapid development has pushed temperatures into the danger zone." And in the mandatory tip of the hat to wokeness adds, "The threats are greatest in black, Latino and low-income communities, which are significantly hotter than wealthier, leafier parts of the city."

It's a decent story for "parachute journalism" — where a reporter from out of town drops in and attempts to apprehend what's going on and write about it with authority. Read it. But note how it elides over Arizona's real water problems and accepts with childlike credulity the "100-year water supply" for developments nonsense.

But here's the deal: I'm suspicious of "solutions." The axis, to paraphrase Steve Jobs, is between constructive and destructive. Constructive actions are planting thousands of real shade trees (not palo verdes) as was the case in old Phoenix, returning to awnings instead of architecturally twee "shade structures" that provide no shade, banishing gravel and reducing pavement, and investing in grass and other cooling landscaping in the central core and elsewhere. And: Stop. Sprawl.

Otherwise, it's the same old scam.

• Arizona's Rugged Individualism Poses Barrier to Mask Rules is the headline of an Associated Press story on our state's stunning rise in Covid-19 cases (at least we're No. 1 in something, dear boosters). Resistance to masks, it asserts, "continues a visceral opposition to government mandates, a fierce individualism that has endured among some in Arizona since the days of the Wild West."

That's pretty neat were it not only crass reductionism but simply wrong.

The Anglo population of Arizona has only the most tenuous connection to pioneer days. Most are from the Midwest, including Gov. Doug Ducey (born in Toledo). Anyone who does have deep roots should know that "rugged individualism" was a myth. The government pacified native tribes, provided incentives for railroads, built massive reclamation projects and saved the state during the Great Depression. The feds stepped in again after World War II with Cold War industries, the Central Arizona Project, flood control, and subsidies for suburbanization.

I can find no debate about requirements to wear masks during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, the deadliest in modern times. Pioneer Arizonans weren't fools.

What we're seeing today is not the Wild West but, for too many, the Wild Midwest — a disposable place for waves of newcomers who are there to make a quick buck or retire. Pay for schools? Hell, no. They "already did that back home!" (How many times I heard this refrain when working as a columnist for the Arizona Republic). The sprawled, car-dependent, walled-off layout further weakens civic connections. And “resort culture” — where some would do all sorts of sociopathic acting out they would never do “back home.”

As for the pandemic, Arizona rushed to reopen and is now paying the price. And Ducey, and his puppetmaster Trump, owns it.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Jon7190]

Cal, thanks, that Baltimore article was certainly interesting and illuminating!

[AzRebel]

The changing climate is going to make all our other "issues" look like minor irritants.

900 years ago my ancestors had to move to Colorado.

Is there room in Denver for me and 7,000,000 of my AZ neighbors?