Posted inPhoenix

Cities and ‘markets’

Bashas' filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection is a sad and telling marker for Arizona. You can forget about that downtown Phoenix store. And you can probably forget about Bashas', one of the state's last large, locally based and locally rooted companies.

Today's grocery company was founded in 1932, in the Great Depression, although its Arizona origins go deeper. That it may succumb in the Great Disruption is a tragic, but perhaps fitting bookend. I think of all the times I was out amidst the worst examples of unsustainable, desert-profaning sprawl, be it Gold Canyon, Hunt Highway or the insipid Verrado that was prematurely anointed the future by David Brooks of the New York Times. There would be a Bashas'. As the sprawl Ponzi scheme has collapsed, its not surprising that it takes down another vulnerable player.

This take-down is sadder than most. Bashas' has a great story: immigrant success, ties to Chandler when it was a real town, and keeping its base there even as the anodyne subdivisions encroached. Eddie and Nadine Basha have been civic leaders in a place where they are more rare than shade in mid-summer. This is an unforgiving business with razor-thin margins. If greater Phoenix ends up losing its only locally owned grocery chain — as, say, A.J.'s is sold off — it will only deepen the deep-bore mineshaft that is the hole the place is in.

8
Phoenix 101: Conservatives
Posted inPhoenix Phoenix 101: History Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Phoenix 101: Conservatives

Infromal_press_conference_following_a_meeting_between_Congressmen_and_the_President_to_discuss_Watergate_matters
Sen. Barry Goldwater, center, and Rep. John J. Rhodes, right, after the fateful showdown with President Nixon in 1974 when they told him he must resign.

Conservatism wasn't always synonymous with the Kookocracy. The political label has carried different meanings at different times through the state's history.

The Kooks down at the Capitol today would be anathema to the lions of the dawn of modern Arizona conservatism: John J. Rhodes, Paul Fannin and, especially, Barry Goldwater.

What later passed for Arizona conservatives could say, "Barry changed," when the senator criticized the religious right or the ban on gays in the military with his characteristic circumspection. No, he didn't. I had conversations with Rhodes late in his life — the House leader who, along with Goldwater and Republican Sen. Hugh Scott, told Richard Nixon he must resign the presidency. Rhodes was aghast at what the state Republicans had become.

Arizona conservative lions telling a disgraced president of their party it was time to go. Can you imagine John McCain or Jeff Flake showing such independence or integrity?

8
Posted inPhoenix

The model modern city manager

One joke around Phoenix involving Frank Fairbanks was that he could never retire as city manager, because then all the scandals would come out. Of course, everybody loves Frank. Except for the ones who don't. Given the lack of curiosity and resources in the local press, we'll never know how true the joke might be. I never ran into evidence that Fairbanks was anything but clean. His problems were more complicated. Since most will be offering rapturous praise as Fairbanks is apparently stepping down, a more serious assessment is necessary.

The zeitgeist of Frank Fairbanks' City Hall was to move across the waters without making waves. He was not a creative thinker or a risk-taker — think of the guy on the Shredded Wheat ad who says, "We put the 'no' in innovation." His career spent with the city led to an unavoidable parochialism, along with perhaps a fatalism that the city's trajectory couldn't be changed, or a willingness to drink the booster Kool-Aid by the gallon. He was in an awkward spot in a systemically dysfunctional city government, mostly trying to keep the peace, even as Phoenix hit a grave turning point. All this would have profound consequences for Phoenix and its future.

2
Phoenix 101: The Mormons
Posted inPhoenix Phoenix 101: History

Phoenix 101: The Mormons

Mesa_Temple

The Arizona Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mesa.

Growing up in Arizona, I found the Mormons neither strange nor mysterious, much less threatening. They were part of the wonderful mosaic of a state still tasting of the frontier, before it had been overrun by immigrants from the Midwest and miles of lookalike crapola subdivisions.

We had a Book of Mormon in our library, more a testament to my mother's insatiable curiosity than any desire to convert. My great-grandparents were among the first non-LDS farmers to settle near Mesa, and Grandmother reveled in telling the story about how the Saints pestered them to convert and "seal" their marriage in the temple, much to the horror of these former Presbyterian missionaries. But it was a story told gently and with affection for all.

The Mormons were revered among the great Arizona pioneers. They were known for their generosity, including to "gentiles," something our family experienced. Mormons were hard-working, reliable, self-reliant, patrons of education and the arts. Mesa in those days was a beautiful small city, a monument to the energy and far-sightedness of its LDS founders. We would regularly drive down neat and prosperous Main Street to see the beautiful Arizona Temple. The Mormon kids with whom I went to high school were among the most talented in one of the country's top high-school fine arts program.

The Mormons were also powerful. That was clear even at an early age.

15
Posted inPhoenix Phoenix 101: History

Phoenix 101: Rugged individualism

Phoenix is built on many myths. Perhaps the greatest is that of the rugged individualist, standing in opposition to the statist and collectivist tendencies of "the East" and Europe. It's a familiar myth of the West, but it reaches levels of hilarious dissonance in my hometown.

In reality, Phoenix is the largest-scale example of government social engineering and public ownership of the commanding heights of the economy — i.e. socialism — in American history. Without massive government intervention, Phoenix would be a benighted little farm town of a few thousand, instead of a benighted migropolis of some 4 million, many raging along the public highways in their SUVs imagining themselves as 21st century range riders.

Modern Phoenix began with federal reclamation, the Newlands Act, which would begin the dam building that tamed the Salt River. It envisioned a Jeffersonian yeoman farmer democracy, with plots of 160 acres cultivated by citizens liberated from the dark satanic cities of the East. It didn't quite work out that way — rich farmers emerged and poor farmers (like my family) struggled. But all were being subsidized by federal tax dollars long before the New Deal. Their endeavors would not have been possible without the federal investment.

5
Posted inPhoenix Phoenix 101: History

Phoenix 101: Lost opportunities

My chief goal in writing the Phoenix 101 post about the old city was to dispel the notion that “there’s no history here,” spoken by the transplants as they file into the tract houses of their so-called master planned communities. More, to fight the canard that “Phoenix has no soul.” Well, maybe now in most places, but it wasn’t always so. Yet the post was so popular, it seems logical to follow up with a brief history on choices made and opportunities missed.

It’s important to make a distinction. People have sometimes dismissed my observations with words such as “well, everyplace changes” and “my hometown isn’t the same any more, either.” At the risk of being pedantic, that’s not my point. First, while every place changes, it doesn’t necessarily change mostly for the worse. Cities such as Seattle, Portland, Denver, Charlotte, San Diego and even Oklahoma City have undergone massive changes. Yet they have managed to preserve and revive their center cities, their civic spaces and enhance livability (and they have plenty of suburbs, so Phoenix isn’t special there). I miss the old railroad yards in downtown Denver – but what an amazing city it is now. It’s gotten better. Second, Phoenix is not just any city – so who cares if it’s no worse than Fresno or Youngstown? It sold its magic for dross. And its choices have set the stage for crisis, whether sudden or lingering.

Much was out of the control of Phoenicians and their leaders. Phoenix grew large after the City Beautiful Movement, so it lacked many great civic spaces; it was a modest farm town during the 1920s, so it had relatively few art deco towers. Worst of all, it came of age with the automobile, Levittown-style suburbia, and the savage city planning and dehumanizing design ethos of Robert Moses and Le Corbusier. Still, Phoenix made choices. It lost opportunities. Here are a few.

5
The old city
Posted inDowntown & central Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix 101: History

The old city

Downtown_Phoenix_looking_northeast_1950s

Phoenix in the 1950s.

I carry a memory of old Phoenix — and feel its loss profoundly — in a way that's probably unusual even for natives of my generation. It's not nostalgia; I know too much about the place for that. It's a more complex reaction, to history thrown aside, opportunities lost and the destruction of a very flawed paradise, but a paradise nonetheless.

It was not really captured in the Channel 8 documentaries on Phoenix in the 1950s and 1960s. As popular as those shows were, they were a classic example of telling history through the lens of the present. Hence, we saw much about sprawl (the start of Maryvale and Sun City) and Sky Harbor. They missed so, so much. What they missed are the things I describe in talks when I say, "If you arrived in Phoenix after 1970, I feel sorry for you."

I was fortunate to grow up in central Phoenix in the late 1950s and 1960s, fortunate, too, to be the offspring of a mother and grandmother who were Arizonans with history in their bones. We lived in a house built in 1928, in an old neighborhood close to downtown. I attended the same grade school as Barry Goldwater, Paul Fannin and Phoenix Mayor Margaret Hance. It was different from growing up in suburbia.

36
Water and Phoenix’s rebirth
Posted inPhoenix Phoenix 101: History

Water and Phoenix’s rebirth

Roosevelt_dam_1915
Theodore Roosevelt Dam and spillway, 1915.

 

On the mountain tops we stand
All the world at our command
We have opened up the soil
With our teardrops
And our toil
–Gordon Lightfoot (Canadian Railroad Trilogy)

That people can move to the Salt River Valley turn on a reliable tap or jump in a shimmering swimming pool, never even wondering where the water originates, is testimony to the mighty acts and sacrifices of previous generations. 

Today's transplants would never know it, but they live in one of the world's great fertile river valleys. But unlike the Nile and Euphrates, the Salt is dangerously unpredictable. It floods. It dries up to nearly nothing. In the end, it destroyed the most advanced hydraulic civilization in the pre-Columbian Americas, which we call the Hohokam.

It very nearly did the same to the Americans who found the valley after the Civil War, having sat there empty for centuries as if providentially awaiting them. Even some of the Hohokam canals were intact, needing only to be cleaned out by the newcomers. But the river had its own harsh logic. The territorial "lifestyle," as related by my grandmother, was unbelievably primitive, even at the end of the 19th century — always dependent on the river's tricks. Phoenix might never have risen from the ashes.

10
Posted inPhoenix Phoenix 101: History

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.

10
Posted inPhoenix

Arizona unemployment: Grim reality

Here's a reality based report that won't be discussed by the local viziers of boosterism in Phoenix, much less the editorial pages of the Arizona Republic. The job losses from the recession that began in 2007 are much worse in Arizona than the 10 previous major recessions since the end of World War II.

The Minneapolis Fed crunched data nationally and for 50 states to come up with this fascinating interactive presentation. Although Arizona's unemployment appears to be relatively low compared to some states — for reasons I've previously explored — this comprehensive report puts all the wishful thinking and ideological twisty games to bed. No other downturn comes even close. The "legendary" 1991 recession? Beanbag compared with this labor market bloodbath. The truly nasty 1973 recession? Not even close.

3
Posted inPhoenix

The Yankee Castro; cancer in Gilbert

It's hard to believe in the Arizona of Peyton Thomas, Joe Arpaio and "sweeps" — interesting how those trailed off after the sheriff was re-elected — but once upon a time the state elected a Hispanic governor. Raul Castro won office in 1974, a milestone not only for Arizona but for the child of immigrants who grew up in hardscrabble Nogales. His new autobiography, Adversity is My Angel, was written with Dr. Jack August Jr., who has established himself as the dean of modern Arizona historiography.

It was a different state, a small town in many ways. Castro was the first Democrat my mother voted for — as an old Arizonan, she trusted "Judge Castro"… "even though he's from Pinal County." (That he was Hispanic didn't matter). He also benefited from the early-1970s exhaustion with longtime Gov. Jack Williams and sectarian tensions in the state GOP that led to the bloodbath between John Conlan and Sam Steiger. Castro never had an executive temperment, and left the governor's office to become an ambassador. But Arizona has rarely had transformative governors — the Progressive-era constitution vested most power in the Legislature and the uncovered-by-the-media Corporation Commission. Castro's is a life worth study, reflection and celebration.

3
Posted inPhoenix

Jan and the floating diaphragm

Non 'Zonies will have to endure one more Phoenix-centric post before I end my visit. The Republic did a piece this morning on the first 100 days of Gov. Jan Brewer, the Republican secretary of state who replaced Janet Naploitano when she blew town to become secretary of Homeland Security. To say it's a puff piece would be too severe; it merely reflects the inexperience and lack of deep sources on the staff now, as well as fear and lack of curiosity, skepticism and leadership by the meeting-addled editors.

My sources give me this portrait of Brewer: A conservative Republican, but not an extremist ideologue; hard-working and well-meaning; not a mental giant; not very organized and served by a staff that pales in comparison to Saint Janet's "West Wing" stars; may not run for the office. She can be arrestingly tone deaf, for example, leaving the governor's arts awards dinner after delivering an early speech — the first time that has happened in memory, including chief executives of both parties. This benign annual do has plenty of Republican arts trustees, so it's not as if she were fleeing the socialists (excuse me, SOCIALISTS!!). As for her advocacy of a tax hike — more courageous, and realistic, than Saint Janet — but a roadblock to my hopes that the Kookocracy gets to rule, and then be rejected as their policies run the state even more into the ground

1
Posted inPhoenix

Phoenix, Dubai and other heat dreams

On the ground in Phoenix, and sometimes green sprouts arise even amid the ugliness of the cityscape and thuggingness of the politics. A woman on a walker watched me struggle into CVS; on the way out, she said, "I've been praying for you." It keeps me aloft. Tuesday night saw an overflow crowd at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore for the launch of my new mystery/suspense novel, The Pain Nurse. Today I was on KJZZ with Steve Goldstein, where my friend Grady Gammage and I reprised our good cop/bad cop routine with Phoenix in the interrogation room (guess who plays bad cop).

I got to read the Arizona Republic on blessed, relaxing paper this morning, a welcome break from the Information Center. Today's Phoenix Laff Riot is Mayor Phil Gordon concluding some kind of economic partnership with Dubai. It's hard to know where to begin with what's wrong with this deeply unserious distraction. For one thing, rhetoric about solar power, sustainability, etc. is a joke considering Phoenix is a basket case in all categories. It let solar research and enterprise get away after the 1950s and now has nothing to offer the Mideast kingdom, other than a model of worst practices. Meanwhile, Dubai is in a deep recession, partly caused by overbuilding. So the benefit is, what…?

7
Posted inPhoenix

How’d that boom work out for you?

The data are in and most Phoenicians have to show for the Great Real Estate Boom…not much. The federal Bureau of Economic Analysis this week released its comprehensive survey of per-capita personal income for metro areas and counties in 2007. It's the gold standard yardstick for measuring how the average person was actually doing after the Bush "boom" and as the nation prepared to slide into recession.

In metro Phoenix, per-capita personal income totaled $35,185, an increase of 1 percent from 2006 vs. the national average of 4.9 percent. From 1997 to 2007, income growth was 3.9 percent, vs. 4.3 percent nationally. More context: Phoenix's 2007 income was only 91 percent of the national average. Although Phoenix is the nation's 13th most populous metro area, it ranks 134th among metros in per-capita personal income. In 1997, it ranked 126th. This should be astonishing, if any one takes note.

Let's drill down deeper. Phoenix doesn't compete for talent and capital against the national average that includes Mississippi and Alabama. It competes against other big cities (here and abroad), whether it wants to or not. How did its competitors do?

4
Posted inPhoenix

In the kill zone

We don't know the details yet. But I imagine Doug Georgianni as another struggling, underpaid guy trying to find that illusive Arizona dream. Now he's dead, a young 51. Three months ago he took a job servicing the speed cameras on Phoenix freeways. Sunday night, while parked on the Loop 101 near 7th Ave. in a marked Department of Public Safety photo enforcement van, Georgianni was shot multiple times. The suspect, since arrested, is a white male (of course) driving a Chevy Suburban (of course).

I never completely understood the loud controversy over speed and red-light cameras. Metro Phoenix has a horrendous problem of major traffic violators, fatal and often spectacular wrecks and pedestrian killings, many hit-and-runs. Meanwhile, the religion of tax cuts and Arizona's unwillingness to fund its public sector to keep up with population growth mean there aren't enough traffic officers. The problem is made worse, of course, by sprawl, huge freeways and eight-lane "city streets," plus a population driving giant vehicles they can't really control on streets with increasing numbers of pedestrians. Even the former Catholic bishop came to grief this way, and in his character-revealing response of driving away from the victim like so many other 'Zonies had done.

Yet to the Kookocracy the speed cameras were the worst kind of "big brother." It's funny, they didn't have a problem with their party's implementation of torture and rendition as American policy, or with the tactics of "America's toughest sheriff." I wonder if any of them — from the pols to the talk-radio "hosts" — now regret the years they have spent fighting the cameras with the usual intemperate language?

3