In Arizona, small quivers of an impending quake?

Despite the mandate to "say something positive about the community," sometimes the Arizona Republic can’t avoid saying something truthful about the community. Today there’s an ominous story about emerging evidence that in-migration "slowed sharply last year."

This matters because "growth" is the overwhelming (legal) economic driver of the state economy. There’s tourism, too — hardly a way to sustain a populous, urbanized region in the 21st century. The few other assets, such as the chip plants, would be big for, say, Tulsa. But for a region Phoenix’s size, the technology sector is actually smaller as a proportion of the economy than it was 20 years ago.

That leaves "growth" — meaning population growth, not growth of venture capital, IPOs, Ph.D.s, patents, per-capita income, foreign direct investment, research grants, college graduates, etc. If this even slows for long, the urban Arizona economy will face a recession the likes it hasn’t seen in modern times.

It’s not just that so much of the economy is based on catering to newcomers — from housing to retail to contractors and landscapers. It’s that each company’s business plan is predicated on the addition of some hundred-thousand or more residents each year. Even slower growth means trouble.

It’s clear from the evidence, and my sources, that metro Phoenix is in a nasty recession already. Not only was it a hotspot for subprime mortgages, liar loans and fraud — all the things that go with the region’s desperation-clad, low-wage economy — but its major industry, building and selling houses, is in the toilet. The only hope had been that "people will keep moving here, no matter what."

I heard that all the years I was warning about the dangers of the narrow, bottom-feeder economy. It’s so dangerous to base your future purely on the rear-view mirror. Indeed, it’s long been clear that the Ponzi scheme would one day collapse. In this Arizona is a proxy for the whole unsustainable suburban/exurban Sunbelt mess.

Massive sprawl never paid for itself, despite huge subsidies by government in the form of freeways, water, power and flood control. The costs in terms of infrastructure, environmental damage and eroding quality of life keep growing. Urban problems multiply. The summers keep getting hotter and longer, with global warming only beginning. Water risks are multiple and growing. Gasoline prices keep rising making that cheap house in Eloy seem like not such a smart move after all. All those low taxes also meant rotten schools, inadequate infrastructure, a looming underclass and an uncompetitive economy. All this and more is the bill for "growth" coming due, and, ooops, there may not be enough fresh suckers coming into the state to keep the whole fraudulent scheme from wheezing to its tragic end.

This may only be another warning and soon enough Arizona and Phoenix can continue their self-destructive ways. But the end-game is clear.

Meanwhile, Mayor Gordon is off to Dubai, seeking foreign investment. Dubai? Where is the serious effort to attract foreign direct investment from Europe and Asia that paid off so handsomely for Ireland, Singapore, even South Carolina. Or even to seek quality companies from California? The steps Arizona needs to take have been laid out endlessly, by me and others. It just doesn’t want to change. We just want to be left alone! We’re here to retire! This is the way it is and if you don’t like it, leave! It can’t be too bad because people keep moving here! The world keeps changing anyway, and not in Arizona’s favor.

Of course, the captains of the 21st century economy can’t think very much of investing in Arizona when its face to the world is the likes of the state senator who wants guns in schools. Is this a state or a joke?