history Archives - Rogue Columnist

Phoenix in the nineties

The new decade came upon a Phoenix beset with crisis. Charlie Keating, the most lionized Arizona businessman of the previous dozen years, was facing federal fraud and racketeering charges. His palatial Phoenician Resort was seized by a platoon of U.S. Marshals, lawyers, regulators, and locksmiths in November 1989. American Continental Corp., flagship of Keating's complex web of businesses, was forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Among the casualties was his ambitious Estrella Ranch project south of then-tiny Goodyear.

Behind much of the trouble was the savings and loan scandal and collapse, a financial crisis that cost taxpayers about $132 billion. It also took down some of the Sun Belt's biggest institutions, including Phoenix's venerable Western Savings, controlled by the Driggs family, and Merabank, a subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corp. meant to make big bucks for the holding company of Arizona Public Service. It would take the federal Resolution Trust Corp. years to sort out and dispose of all the properties and hustles. The worst of the S&L wrongdoing was the Keating Five scandal. Its U.S. Senator members, who leaned on regulators on behalf of Keating, included Arizona's Dennis DeConcini and John McCain (Disclosure: John Dougherty and I were the first to break this story at the Dayton Daily News).

The local trouble had been predicted in a December 1988, Barron's article about Phoenix's overheated real-estate market, fueled by S&L money. The headline: "Phoenix Descending: Is Boomtown USA Going Bust?" The boosters had been outraged. Barron's had been right. In an ominous foreshadowing of the future, the city hit a record 122 degrees on June 26, 1990.

For individuals, the worst was yet to come. Unemployment in Arizona rose from 5.3 percent in May 1990 to a peak of 7.8 percent in March 1992. This seems modest compared with the Great Recession (11.2 percent for the state); it was painful enough. State and city leaders committed to establishing a more diverse economy, weaning Arizona off its dependency on population growth and real estate. Economic development organizations were set up across the state for this purpose, including the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, led by the brilliant Ioanna Morfessis. It established goals to build strategic clusters around high-technology sectors with high-paying jobs.

Tragically, the effort failed. The 1990s, when the U.S. economy enjoyed its longest, strongest, most innovative economic expansion in history, saw Phoenix and Arizona double down on "growth." The state's population grew by a staggering 40 percent, 45 percent for metropolitan Phoenix. The cluster strategy lacked sustained focus. Yet none of this was obvious or inevitable as the decade began.

Jon Talton January 25, 201820

Politics: National

A president ‘just like me’

In a season where it’s hard to pick the most frightening development, here’s a leading candidate: the notion that the president and vice president should be "average Joes, just like me." It’s especially scary considering that the "average" American now reads less, knows less history and is more ignorant about the world than most of the generations of the 20th century — the American Century.

Now comes Sarah Palin, claiming she is a victim of the elites. She told radio host Hugh Hewitt, "Oh, I think they’re just not used to someone coming in from the outside
saying you know what? It’s time that normal Joe six-pack American is
finally represented in the position of vice presidency, and I think
that that’s kind of taken some people off guard, and they’re out of
sorts, and they’re ticked off about it."

It is a sign of national madness if one has to point out the complex issues and challenges facing the nation’s leaders. While years of preening and bullying in Congress are less meaningful (Republican John Sidney McCain III), our situation cries out for officials with sound judgment, wide knowledge, supple intellect not calcified in dogma, and curiosity. Palin has shown none of these traits in her tightly controlled interviews — quite the opposite. We’re reminded of a less qualified version of candidate George W. Bush. (And a little racist code there, in "normal…American"?)

Jon Talton October 1, 20086

Phoenix Phoenix 101: History

Class, power and downtown development

Back when I was a college right-winger (and in those days we were few and had no pretty girls), I wrote fierce papers demonstrating the murderous fraud that was Karl Marx. A professor gently cautioned me that even if I disagreed with Marx, he offered another way of "seeing through history." He was right, of course. Marx's ideas led to some of the most bloody deeds in history. But his emphasis on class (and this was not original to him) is indeed useful.

I think about this as I watch downtown revivals and their failures. A city such as Seattle preserved most of its core buildings, many businesses and the downtown evolved organically and with all sorts of people. Phoenix and Charlotte, on the other hand, clear-cut most of their downtowns and started from scratch. If you arrived in Phoenix after 1980, you'd think the downtown was always vacant lots, government buildings and a few towers. Of course, Phoenix had a thriving downtown into the 1960s. Charlotte was similar.

Their results have been vastly different. But the class and power undertones are unmistakable and they have shaped the fate of each downtown and city.

Jon Talton March 14, 20083