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.

 

In fact, the boundaries were hardly as severe as those in Oregon and Washington. The "acre-an-hour" sprawl was destroying vast swaths of central Arizona and its quality of life. And if Pollack was right, then the local economy was dangerously dependent on housing and spec retail/commercial/industrial construction.

The fear campaign succeeded and Prop. 202 was defeated by 70% voting no. But this was when I coined the phrase Real Estate Industrial Complex to show the dangerous influence of these interests.

Second, some poking around found that the clusters had nearly all failed. Metro Phoenix was real estate, call centers, other back-office work for LA, retirees, Intel, and a few legacy assets mostly on the way out, especially Motorola. I wrote about it. At a GPEC meeting, I had it on good authority, someone said, "My god, Talton is right."

The corporate bigs that made GPEC effective in the early 1990s, when it was led by Ioanna Morfessis, has faded away. All the local banks had been purchased by out of state institutions, most devastatingly Valley National Bank by Bank One. Dial was attacked by Wall Street in the 1990s and became a shadow of the powerful civic steward run by John Teets. Gannett bought Central Newspapers. What was left of corporate Arizona migrated to north Scottsdale.

"North Scottsdale" and its talismanic hold on the aspirations of other suburbs was among the shocks I encountered on returning. When I went to high school in the 1970s, Scottsdale ended around Lincoln Drive (we launched model rockets in empty desert around Bell and Scottsdale Road; target practiced near Pinnacle Peak). Now it extended for miles. My old high school, Coronado — once among the state's best — was considered a stressed inner-city school (same with Camelback High).

Not all was lost in the cityscape. The Papago Freeway Inner Loop had been forced into a six-block tunnel as it passed under Central. This helped the historic districts rebound beyond our hopes when this needless, destructive expressway was coming. Eric Brown’s Artisan Lofts on Central, across from the Burton Barr Central Library, showed an appetite for living in the core.

___

Lack of leadership was widely bemoaned. ASU President Lattie Coor held sessions with invited people with money, trying to engage them. But they were here for sunshine and golf. Like so many others, "home" was where they came from, paid their taxes, made charitable contributions. What Phoenix lacked were civic stewards who could knock heads and write checks, as had been the case in the past. A couple of ghosts remained: Scandal ridden former Gov. Fife Symington, now a chef, and scandal-ridden former developer Charles Keating, who occasionally haunted Durant's.

Unlike the other large cities where I worked, downtown and even once-lively Midtown were dead in those early years and showed no signs of coming back. It was heavy lifting for Mayor Skip Rimsza to lure Phelps Dodge's headquarters there. But it merely relocated from an older tower in Midtown. This was a metropolitan phenomenon, Tempe stealing from Chandler and vice versa and all the suburbs grabbing from Phoenix. The competition for sales-tax dollars was also a "blood sport," as former Mayor Terry Goddard told me.

This zero-sum economic game played out among Phoenix and so-called supersized suburbs, satellites much more populous compared to the central city than in any other metropolitan area. The latter also held a veto against much that Phoenix once led in regional action. This extended to the name: "Valley," never Phoenix. Mesa, already more populous than Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Atlanta, had nothing to show for it — except veto power. Mesa so overloaded on "master planned communities," that it exported workers elsewhere in the metro area.

Sports was another field for destructive competition. Glendale nearly bankrupted itself to steal the Phoenix Coyotes NHL from downtown, dropping the city name. Then it snagged a taxpayer-funded NFL stadium that should have gone downtown or at least to Tempe for the Cardinals. The hidden agenda was to use these Glendale sports venues to turn cotton fields into land development. Everywhere I lived, the pro teams all played downtown. But not Phoenix.

Suddenly, the national recession rolled into Phoenix in 2002, finally upending the brags that we were recession-proof. Unemployment rose to 6.2% and scrambled the gubernatorial election. Democrat Janet Napolitano, former U.S. Attorney and state Attorney General, upset Republican Matt Salmon, 46% to 45%. Napolitano talked about a "sensible center" of voters who had put her in office. Although she spent much of her terms playing defense against a GOP-controlled Legislature, Napolitano was Arizona's best governor since Bruce Babbitt. Her signature accomplishment was universal pre-K education.

The same year, Michael Crow became president of Arizona State University. Promising to build "the new American university," he began a quest not only to revamp ASU but work around a stingy Legislature to fund it. Although Napolitano and Crow had some legendary fights, they were leading city and state out of a rut.

So were two Phoenix mayors, Rimsza and Phil Gordon. Rimsza leapt on the chase for T-Gen, which was ultimately successful and anchored a downtown Biomedical Campus also housing a UA Medical College. The Flinn Foundation played a major role here, too. Rimsza pushed two light-rail votes on the city, ultimately prevailing. He also laid the groundwork for a new convention center. Gordon carried these initiatives to completion.

Both mayors were successful thanks to a City Council majority that knew a healthy downtown was essential to a healthy city. Grassroots activists such as Kimber Lanning, Greg Esser, Cindy Dach, and Wayne Rainey saved buildings that formed the basis of Roosevelt Row. First Fridays became popular. City Hall caught up on historic reuse and preservation. The progress attracted new private investment, too, with CityScape. Much more infill would come in the next decade. And working with Crow, Gordon assembled the land and funding to create an ASU campus downtown.

Reclaiming downtown also meant dropping the ahistorical name "Copper Square," apparently tried because so many newcomers didn't know where downtown Phoenix actually was (other than some scary place they avoided). Of course downtown Phoenix never had anything to do with the copper industry.

————

ASU downtown and the light rail starter line — the latter facing thuggish opposition — proved transformative in the years to come. Hence, We Built It, You Bastards (WBIYB). The two worked off each other providing an easy link between the Tempe and downtown campuses. Light rail surpassed expectations and Mesa, which only joined for an initial one-mile segment, eventually extended the trains through downtown Mesa to Gilbert Road.

Meanwhile, subprime loans and abundant Fed credit goosed a huge housing boom. Most of this was in sprawl that extended into Yavapai and Pinal County. When housing crashed in 2007 — me calling the downturn was among the reasons I lost my column — Phoenix was at the epicenter. Recovery took years. Metro Phoenix growth during the 2000s was half what it was during the 1990s. Still, Phoenix temporarily passed Philadelphia to become the nation's fifth most populous city, a benchmark officially achieved in the 2020 Census.

Gallery (Click for a larger image):

One of the most contentious issues was building light rail. But WBIYB, the starter line opening in 2008. It has since been expanded in Phoenix and Mesa with more to come.

A light rail train moves northbound through downtown. 

One of Roosevelt Row's anchors was Modified Arts, Kimber Lanning's gallery and performance spaces. The Row began to flourish in the 2000s.

Lanning was the most astute Phoenix urbanist, working with City Hall to nurture the core and preserve/repurpose historic spaces. She went on to lead Local First Arizona to champion locally owned businesses.

The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications on Central Avenue. The ASU downtown campus was one of many new assets that transformed the city core in the 2000s.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon at the groundbreaking of CityScape.

CityScape's reality didn't measure up to the soaring renderings. But it was a major leap to bringing private investment and density back to downtown.

Light rail running west into downtown, soon to be transformed by new towers.

The park created on the ASU campus downtown.

Midtown and newly renamed Piestawa Peak from the Willo Historic District.

The skyline in 2009.

———————————————————————————
 

My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.

Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copper Square

 

 

 

Comments

[James Becker]

Great series - very informative. The author certainly knows this town.

[Stephanie Oliver]

This is a keeper. I'd like to read the columns you wrote during this period from week to week.

[Rogue Columnist]

Thanks, Stephanie. You can find them with a subscription to newspapers.com

[AzRebel]

Stephanie, WARNING: it will break your heart.

You will find sensible suggestions from Jon, followed by the titans of the city and county doing exactly the opposite.

Personal side note. As my ancestors did 800 to 1000 years ago, my wife and I are preparing to vacate Arizona and relocate to the western slopes the Rockies in Colorado.

I can't take the craziness anymore.

Also, that drought thing.

[Cal Lash]

Ruben i recommend Uruguay.
Very small percentages of cultists.

[Ramjet]

Ruben,
Victoria BC is very nice. Canada worked for Sitting Bull

[Cal Lash]

Reading Taltons Seattle Times column posted in Rogue Front Pages. I think Musk is correct and Im betting on Arnold.

[Kevin in Preskitt]

During the 2000s, there was a major acceleration of decline in west Phoenix, particularly the areas just west of I-17, from Camelback Road to at least Bell Road.

I was going to write a detailed analysis of the causes and effects of these demographic changes. However, I'll just keep this to my main point:

In what healthy society are well-located neighborhoods of well-built brick and block homes abandoned by the middle class, who move into frame-and-chicken wire homes in distant suburbs, and then drive past their former neighborhoods on their way to and from work every day?

[Allan Starr]

Another great column of historical significance!