Phoenix 101: Power primer

Phoenix has no history. Why are things so screwed up here? It's just like every other place…

Such are some of the statements, whether inane and inaccurate or plaintive, that I often hear from Rogue readers, or just folks down in "the Valley" when I sneak back for a journalist-guerrilla raid. So, a new occasional feature, Phoenix 101, to try to fill in the gaps for a place where even natives my age have never even ridden a city bus, much less know a rich, corrupt and even inspiring history. Let's start with power.

From the era of the Hohokam, power in the Salt River Valley flowed from water. Whoever controlled the water — and how it was used — sat upon the commanding heights of the society. Even today, the divide between Phoenix and the East Valley is partly an echo of the old war between the north and south side of the Salt River over who would get the precious, and fickle, riches of its stream. Even today, the Salt River Project remains, very quietly, the kingdom and the power and the glory.

But water is a subject for another day. Who runs Phoenix now?

In the city, power has become much more concentrated and, at the same time, less effective. The rich businessmen, diverse corporate interests, affluent creative-class workers, private-sector unions and wide array of important activists one finds in Seattle are almost completely missing in today's Phoenix. This is a startling development, and one at odds with the city's history and rise to prominence. It is also unheard of for a city Phoenix's size.

Consider City Hall, where a weak (by city charter) mayor and council members try to dispense the spoils of tax dollars and federal largesse across 500 square miles of "neighborhoods." It can't be done strategically or effectively, so it's not. Meanwhile, the city manager and staff exert tremendous day-to-day influence, mostly maintaining a status quo, except when it comes to throwing down more gravel and concrete. City workers are pivotal at the ballot box — they're reliable voters. Activist groups tend to be neutered by their dependence on city money. Gadflies from the historic districts make noise. In such an environment, it's amazing the city has pulled off light rail, the downtown ASU campus and the convention center — three signal achievements.

But this arrangement has terrible downsides, such as the lack of private sector investment (both money and devotion) and independent activists with some heft that would, say, fight like hell against the racist policies of certain county officials. Major corporate headquarters, run by local stewards, would have gotten a CityScape off the ground much sooner — to use one example. A robust, well-funded entrepreneurial sector (and I don't mean your neighbor's garage-door business) would have been essential in everything from filling in Roosevelt Row to demanding the downtown biosciences campus be filled out. The loss of Valley National Bank and Dial were especially catastrophic, as was the city's inability to grow replacement giants that could deploy capital, attract talent and tip the scales for the civic good.

One other power center in the city is worth noting. It is in the city, but not really of it: Sky Harbor International Airport. Sky Harbor is nominally run by the city, but with its independent funding stream is really a city-state unto its self. It has done tremendous damage, such as its ongoing and questionable clearing of historic barrios from 24th Street westward, and replacing some of them with office "parks" holding employment centers that should be downtown. It has repeatedly vetoed, using debatable arguments (but no one has the power to debate them), what could have been signature skyscrapers downtown. Sky Harbor is also happy to be the airport for the rising suburbs. It provides the city revenue. But it is under no mayor's control.

It's out in the suburbs where the power equation gets even more interesting. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wields vast influence, especially but not only, in the southeastern suburbs. This comes not only from the Mormons' cohesion and reliable stance with the state Republican Party, but also from the tight business ties among members and the church's significant land holdings and other wealth. The old Christian Coalition essentially took over the Arizona GOP, so the suburban megachurches are another power center. In both cases, the influence extends beyond social issues to, for example, the groups' secretive business interests in charter and private schools, and their successful steering of precious tax dollars away from public schools.

The suburbs suffer from the same concentration of power at city hall as in Phoenix, with poisonous consequences. Because most are sprawled out and relatively populous, they fight endless battles against each other, and especially Phoenix, for limited economic assets. Economic development efforts have been so poor in recent years that the pie wasn't really growing much in the 2000s "boom." So the coup involved, say, Tempe stealing a business from Phoenix. This extended especially to the blood sport of competition for retail, and its sales-tax dollars. Regional planning becomes a joke.

As suburban power has grown in the Legislature, Phoenix has been at more of a disadvantage (even Phoenix's own in-city suburbs contribute to this). Behind this is a daunting reality: Phoenix is in relative decline that will soon become absolute. It has most of the metro area's poor and underclass, most of the destitute, most of the first-generation, low-skilled immigrants, most of the aging infrastructure and linear slums. Most of the costs and less of the wealth creation. This was why the downtown biosciences campus, and the new industries it could spawn, was so important. Phoenix's struggles will become more pronounced in the future.

The lack of significant mainstream corporate interests, particularly with high-value employees based in the city, plays heavily into political extremism. It also creates a "veto elite" where a few cranks or special interests can stop needed improvements — such as commuter rail or addressing the growing underclass — while being under no obligation to offer alternatives.

A rare, relatively independent power is Arizona State University. It's huge, which brings both advantages and big liabilities. Under the entrepreneurial leadership of Michael Crow, the university has swooped in to help downtown Phoenix and the Los Arcos neighborhood of Scottsdale. It attracts talent and money, and has launched some centers of excellence that could be the launching pads for new industries if the state were not so backward in economic development. It is hampered by the Kookocracy, its huge student population, too many campuses and not enough real competition.

Then there are the passive and legacy powers. Passive, as in all the rich people who could address every problem in metro Phoenix — but it's not home to them, and, with a few exceptions, they mostly want their taxes low and to be left alone. The same is true of the old coots who retire there and vote against school funding and every civic good. Or a corporate headquarters such as the parent of the University of Phoenix, which plays no leadership role and locates its new headquarters out on a freeway inaccessible by convenient transit (was anybody at City Hall even paying attention?) Legacy power in something like Intel or Boeing, what remains of a once significant technology and aerospace economy. They are tiny for the size of the metro's population now. And in any case, they are not headquartered here, are at best merely holding their own, and their presence doesn't help with the desperate need for quality place building.

That leaves the Real Estate Industrial Complex. It is less a single power than a confluence of interests. It's the land barons, developers, big house builders, real estate brokers, lawyers, agents and other professionals, and companies ranging from mega-mall operators, APS and DMB to your neighbor's garage-door outfit. Most of these most powerful people are names you've never heard — yet their moves are all the same: sprawl, ever outward. Buckeye. Maricopa. Wickenburg. Yavapai County. The damage — civic, social, environmental, economic — they have done is enormous. Now their growth machine may never come back as before. But the most interesting power dymanic is different.

It is this: At some point — maybe the 1980s — real estate started to become the primary, rather than a secondary, economic driver in Phoenix. In a healthy economy, real estate happens because of other productive, value-added economic activity. In metro Phoenix, by the time of the crash, it was fueled merely by the promise of further population growth — who cares where these people will work — and speculation. Now: ashes and denial.

Phoenix reached its maturity with a different power structure: the downtown bankers and merchant princes; the civic stewards who reformed city government and went back east to lure advanced technology industries; the agricultural interests working in the oldest human activity in the Salt River Valley, who exported a valuable product around the country; the railroads that carried that produce; the visionaries who established the Heard Musuem, the Desert Botancal Gardens and other gems; and the dedicated, hard-fisted, speed popping lawyers, politicians and staffers who fought and won the Central Arizona Project. John F. Long (a Phoenix city councilman) and Del Webb and all the Midwesterners who came to their tract houses were mere consequences of the work of these others.

But the roots of this power base were always shallow. It is a desert, after all. Once the old powers died out — and an interregnum of Jerry Colangelo, a good guy but just a sports team owner — there was nothing left. The road from Frank Snell to Charlie Keating was not that long. Unlike healthy cities, new generations of stewards did not arise. Even the old stewards themselves lacked the imagination to see the end-game of creating a city based on endless subdivisions, the automobile, conservative politics that could turn toxic, and the promise of easy wealth from land deals. The old power base did much good, but it also planted the seeds of the sick megalopolis of today, baking helplessly under ever-growing summer heat.

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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.