October 1998
Growth in Arizona: The Machine in the Garden
The assistance of the following people is acknowledged gratefully.
Mary Jo Waits Morrison Institute for Public Policy Rupam Raja Morrison Institute for Public Policy Karen Leland Morrison Institute for Public Policy Cherylene Schick Morrison Institute for Public Policy Design Davia Design Illustration John Nelson Morrison Institute for Public Policy conducts research which informs, advises, and assists Arizonans. A part of the School of Public Affairs (College of Public Programs) at Arizona State University, the Institute is a bridge between the university and the community. Through a variety of publications and forums, Morrison Institute shares research results with and provides services to public officials, private sector leaders, and community members who shape public policy. A non-partisan advisory board of leading Arizona business people, scholars, public officials, and public policy experts assists Morrison Institute with its work. Morrison Institute was established in 1981 through a grant from Marvin and June Morrison of Gilbert, Arizona and is supported by private and public funds and contract research. Morrison Institute for Public Policy School of Public Affairs College of Public Programs Arizona State University P.O. Box 874405 Tempe, Arizona 85287-4405 voice (480) 965-4525 fax (480) 965-9219 http://www.asu.edu/copp/morrison
This document is copyrighted �1998 by the Arizona Board of Regents for and on behalf of Arizona State University and its Morrison Institute for Public Policy.
Publisher Rob Melnick Morrison Institute for Public Policy Editors John Stuart Hall Arizona State University Contributors Paul J. Babbitt Coconino County David S. Baron Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest David R. Berman Arizona State University Steve Betts Gallagher & Kennedy James M. Bourey Maricopa Association of Governments Roger A. Brevoort van Dijk Pace Westlake Architects Brent Brown Arizona State University Elizabeth K. Burns Arizona State University John M. DeGrove Florida Atlantic University Grady Gammage, Jr. Gammage and Burnham Patricia Gober Arizona State University Doug Henton Collaborative Economics Norm Hicks City of Bullhead City Peter Iverson Arizona State University Jeffrey James Arizona State University Kim Knowles-Yanez Arizona State University Rick C. Lavis Arizona Cotton Growers Association Dickinson McGaw Arizona State University Sara Moya Arizona State University Sharon Megdal MegEcon Consulting Jack Pfister Arizona State University Tom Rex Arizona State University Tanis J. Salant University of Arizona Tom Simplot Home Builders Association of Central Arizona Vernon D. Swaback Vernon Swaback Associates Kim Walesh Collaborative Economics James P. Walsh Lawyer N. Joseph Cayer Arizona State University Nancy Welch Morrison Institute
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Growth in Arizona: The Machine in the Garden
About The Machine in the Garden
6
A Continuum of Choice
Arizona's Growth Continuum and Policy Choices John Stuart Hall, Professor, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University 9
Yesterday's Growth: The Market Reigned
Phoenix and the Vision Thing Grady Gammage, Jr. , Partner, Gammage and Burnham Adjunct Professor, School of Planning and Landscape Architecture, Arizona State University Housing Marketplace Determines Design, Not Other Way Around Tom Simplot, Deputy Director, Home Builders Association of Central Arizona Let's Hear It for the Suburbs Samuel R. Staley, for Reason Public Policy Institute Agriculture: Growth's Architect and Its Victim Rick C. Lavis, Executive Vice President, Arizona Cotton Growers Association 61
Arizona's Growth in Context
Always an Urban Place Peter Iverson, Professor of History, Arizona State University Overview of Growth in Arizona: Critical Statistics The Demographics of Urban Growth in Phoenix Patricia Gober, Professor of Geography, Arizona State University State of the Desert BiomeUniqueness, Biodiversity, Threats and the Adequacy of Protection in the Sonoran Bioregion Gary Paul Nabhan and Andrew R. Holdsworth �The Wildlands Project Rural to Urban Land Conversion in Metropolitan Phoenix Patricia Gober, Professor of Geography, Arizona State University Elizabeth K. Burns, Professor of Geography, Arizona State University Kim Knowles-Yanez, Adjunct Professor of Planning, Arizona State University Jeffrey James, Graduate Research Assistant, Geography, Arizona State University Travel in Metropolitan Phoenix Elizabeth K. Burns, Professor of Geography, Arizona State University Growth Brings Uneven Benefits for Arizonans Tom Rex, Research Manager, Center for Business Research, Arizona State University 49 17
67
26 30
69
71
37
Barriers Won't Help Growth Patrick S. Sullivan, for St. Louis PostDispatch The Counties That Growth Forgot Brent Brown, Associate Professor, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University Restore the Focus on Planning Larry Landry, �Landry & Associates
73
76
40
79
Today's Growth: The Smarter Growth Response
Smart Growth Takes Off Neal R. Peirce, �Washington Post Writers Group State Responses To Urban Growth: Lessons for Arizona John M. DeGrove, Director, Joint Center for Environmental and Urban Problems Florida Atlantic University/Florida International University Growing Smarter in Arizona Steve Betts, Attorney, Gallagher & Kennedy 83
46
85
95
Initiative Gives Voters Control Over Growth David S. Baron, Assistant Director, Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest Growing Smarter in Arizona: The Northern Arizona Experience Paul J. Babbitt Member, Coconino County Board of Supervisors Sprawl Philip Langdon, �Builder The Growth Management Challenge in Arizona David R. Berman, Professor of Political Science, Arizona State University Arizona Must Recognize Limitations as it Grows Sharon Megdal, President, MegEcon Consulting From Rural to Suburban: Five Regions in Greater Arizona Tanis J. Salant, Director of Government Programs, University of Arizona Losing Ground: Land Fragmentation in Rural Arizona James P. Walsh, Lawyer Historic Preservation Rebuilds Communities Roger A. Brevoort, Director of Historic Preservation, van Dijk Pace Westlake Architects Growth Focuses Attention on Infrastructure, Public Safety, and Community Norm Hicks, Mayor, City of Bullhead City Valley Vision 2025: A Plan for the Next Generation James M. Bourey, Executive Director, Maricopa Association of Governments
99
Tomorrow's Growth: New Forces and the Future
The New Economy and Growth Doug Henton, President, Collaborative Economics, Inc. Kim Walesh, Director, Collaborative Economics, Inc. Home from Nowhere� James Howard Kunstler 159
102
171 180
106
The Art and Craft of Growth Jack Pfister, Distinguished Research Fellow, Arizona State University The Emerging Built Environment Vernon D. Swaback, AIA, AICP, President, Vernon Swaback Associates Reviving Cities: Think Metropolitan Bruce J. Katz, �The Brookings Institution Nine Steps to Growth Leadership Dickinson McGaw, Professor, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University Sara Moya, Doctoral Candidate, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University To Conserve Farmlands: An Amazing California Alliance Neal R. Peirce, �Washington Post Writers Group Growing Smarter and the Citizens Growth Management Initiative: Early Lessons Rob Melnick, Director, Morrison Institute for Public Policy, Arizona State University
113
183
187
120
192
128
142
197
145 199
148
152
Arizona Policy Choices
About The Machine in the Garden
A
rizonans have been divided in their feelings about growth and what to do about it, especially during the past two decades. To complicate matters, the debate over the best responses to growth has been drawn along overly simplistic lines--the economy versus the environment. Arizonans who follow the myriad issues related to urban growth closely are becoming convinced that the discussion needs to be recast in a new light. Scholar Leo Marx coined the phrase "the machine in the garden" in 1964 to describe the relationship between nature and technology. Considering much of the writing about Arizona's growth, it seemed an apt title for this volume of Arizona Policy Choices. The Machine in the Garden presents growth policy choices for Arizona along a continuum: Yesterday's Growth--the policies that have been used in the past; Today's Growth--the "smarter" approaches from around the country; and Tomorrow's Growth--cutting edge thinking about the economy and experiments in urbanism and governance. Our approach is illustrated through original articles and reprints from national sources that are categorized according to the three points on the continuum. Morrison Institute for Public Policy is pleased to present this wide variety of viewpoints and to sponsor a lively "debate in print." As you read the articles, ask yourself: What policies will serve Arizona best in the next century? How can we keep our economy strong and preserve what we value about the state?
Ten years ago, the Arizona Legislature asked Morrison Institute to write a book entitled, Urban Growth in Arizona: A Policy Analysis. It included the following description of Arizona's future. Arizona can expect more of the same relatively rapid growth which fluctuates according to economic cycles and is largely sprawling, mostly unplanned, and may be counter to the lifestyle interests--if not the pocketbooks--of most Arizonans. An object in motion stays in motion. Ten years from now we hope that this volume of Arizona Policy Choices is viewed as a tool that significantly helped our leaders to shape the state's growth policies so that Arizona's momentum truly benefits its residents.
Rob Melnick October 1998
6 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
A Continuum of Choice
Arizona's Growth Continuum and Policy Choices John Stuart Hall Professor, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University
A Continuum of Choice
Arizona's Growth Continuum and Policy Choices John Stuart Hall, Ph.D. Editor, Arizona Policy Choices Professor, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University Growth has been a topic of resounding importance in Arizona since statehood. The facts of Arizona's astounding growth are fairly clear. But like all significant topics of public policy, the meaning of these facts demands further investigation. This issue of Arizona Policy Choices explores how the growth machine has functioned in the garden of our state, and it presents a new paradigm for future discussion. For decades, observers of the state's public policy have discussed and debated the implications of amazing increases in population, jobs, and development. It was often said that "growth to Arizona is like cars to Detroit," a comment that reflected the generally accepted importance and inevitability of growth. Naturally, growth of the magnitude experienced in Arizona also has raised questions and doubts. Any thoughtful person would wonder about the consequences of more than a quadruple increase in the state's population over the last four decades. Powerful, complex, and invasive, growth raises big questions that will not go away. Should sustained growth be viewed as evidence of the fulfillment of or the deferment of the "American dream?"1 What is the price of progress? With characteristic eloquence, historian Marshall Trimble addressed the latter question: Early pioneers braved sandstorms, droughts, hostile Apache, and blistering heat to carve out a living in the inhospitable environment. Building highways, cities, and dams, they learned to harness the rivers and create energy, thereby making the turbulent land inhabitable for large numbers of people. However, as with all things in the environs of nature, something is lost when something is gained.2 Despite the many obvious personal, economic, social, and environmental aspects of growth, the debate has been vastly oversimplified to be just developers versus environmentalists. It is through this very narrow frame that policy choices have been examined. This edition of Arizona Policy Choices moves beyond such a simple approach to growth and offers additional choices for discussion and action. A Continuum of Choices and Ideas Think about Arizona's growth as a continuum which runs from yesterday to tomorrow with an intermediate stop at today with choices and ideas all along the way. This overview presents the reader with our new framework for policy discussion and describes articles that illustrate the essence of a particular policy choice. Although not every one of the more than 30 articles in The Machine in the Garden is previewed
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 9
here, they all contain important, often provocative ideas and context. Yesterday's Growth--The Market Reigned Policy Choice: Let the Market Continue to Govern Arizona was one of the nation's fastest growing states in recent decades because many key players believed that growth was beneficial. A recent study of growth in the Southwest determined that "the aggressive pursuit of growth dominated the policy agendas" of private and public leadership in the southwest for much of the twentieth century and that private sector leadership in Arizona was particularly assertive and effective in this role even when compared to the pro-growth stances of neighbors such as New Mexico, Texas, and California.3 The prevailing view was that growth was good for Arizona and, despite growth's multiple challenges, there were few naysayers. The bottom line of this policy choice is that market-driven growth has been good to Arizona and should be continued and enhanced. Several contributors to this section emphasize the need to build on our existing growth patterns and processes. Historian Peter Iverson's article in this volume makes the case that Arizona has always been an urban place, because economic and environmental factors required its residents to organize in communities. He sees no real change in this general theme: More varied voices are heard now in regard to the price of progress, the consequences of construction. Nonetheless, the conventional wisdom, established a century ago, prevails. Growth remains linked to progress and prosperity, to individual freedom and voluntary separation form social and economic ills. Most Arizona citizens still accept the dichotomy offered by the Gazette a century ago. If dry rot appears to be the only alternative, than there can be little doubt about the contours of the future in this urban place called Arizona. Growth in one form, such as population, begets growth in another, such as housing construction or service aspects of the economy. Authors Tom Rex of the ASU Center for Business Research and Patricia Gober, Professor of Geography at ASU, provide thorough and thoughtful descriptions of the economic and demographic aspects of urban growth in Arizona and Phoenix regional contexts. Both demonstrate that growth can be defined in different ways, but that its essential components-- population, land area, housing units, jobs--are highly correlated. Attorney and Arizona land expert Grady Gammage argues that as the "prototypical
10 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
A Continuum of Choice
post-industrial city" Phoenix should embrace its present form, and rather than importing standard growth management solutions from elsewhere, build on an understanding of the nature of desert communities and "capitalize on our multicentered form to further disperse and diversify work activities." Similarly, representatives of home builders (Tom Simplot) and agriculture (Rick Lavis) offer strong arguments in support of the power and promise of market forces. And, this policy theme--that individual choice and market forces should drive development decisions--is also promoted by Samuel Staley of the Reason Public Policy Institute in his provocative article about the virtues of suburban life. Today's Growth--The Smarter Growth Response Policy Choice: Adopt New Tools and Processes to Manage Growth As people have grappled with the challenges of growth in Arizona, a long list of ideas, tools, and processes has been explored. A centerpiece of this exploration is the so-called "smart growth" movement described in several of our articles. The principle tenet of the smart growth position is that it is possible and desirable to manage growth in a way that sustains its benefits while minimizing its social, economic, and environmental costs. For some smart growth proponents, simply assigning this critical balancing function to either the market place or government alone is not enough. Rather, they suggest that insuring a proper balance between the costs and benefits of growth should be achieved by "enlightened" public management and governance of growth. One way to govern growth more effectively is to build on existing institutions, processes and laws that are already active parts of Arizona's growth management process. Arizona State University political scientist David Berman's article provides an overview of existing state and local growth governance roles and responsibilities. He notes that in Arizona, as in other states, state government has delegated much of the responsibility for regulating land use and other growth-related policy issues to local governments. Berman describes many growth management techniques available to Arizona cities, the constraints that the state has imposed on them, and the fact that each local unit has tended to consider its own needs to the exclusion of others. National growth policy expert John DeGrove's article examines states' responses to urban growth pressures and offers lessons for Arizona. Both Berman and DeGrove suggest that holistic state frameworks are needed to guide growth while sustaining the economy and environment. This concept is also a part of the theme pursued by attorney Steve Betts in his description of the state's "Growing Smarter" legislation.
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 11
It is clear that smart growth requires collaboration among governments and other interests. This is illustrated by stories of growth challenges and responses told by Coconino County Supervisor Paul Babbitt, Bullhead City Mayor Norm Hicks, University of Arizona researcher Tanis Salant, and historic preservation expert Roger Brevoort. Similarly, Philip Langdon, writing for Builder, describes active and innovative growth management collaborations around the country. According to environmental advocate David Baron of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, Arizona should get smarter via direct democracy in the form of a citizens initiative to develop growth boundaries. Finally, dean of the nation's urban journalists, Neal Peirce assesses the smart growth movement and network and underscores the importance of "unconventional learning" among all participants if the movement is to succeed. Tomorrow's Growth--New Forces and the Future Policy Choice: Craft Growth to Support the New Economy and Quality of Environment and Life At the far end of the policy continuum explored in this edition of Arizona Policy Choices is the cutting edge. Here are some of the most creative ways of thinking about policies for tomorrow's growth. As in the other sections, authors of these articles represent different backgrounds and interests. Yet they are linked by themes including the need to look more inclusively and comprehensively at growth and to focus on the issue of quality in light of new realities. They recognize that the growth machine can function in Arizona's garden, providing it does more harmonizing than harm. Strategies that are characterized in this policy choice are big and bold. This perspective attempts to align old concerns about balancing costs and benefits of growth with new economic, environmental, design, and governance realities. The goal of this policy choice is to achieve significant and wealth-producing growth that is also community and region friendly, that helps communities compete in the global economy and achieve high quality of life standards while protecting land and the environment. One of the clearest statements about this "tomorrow's growth" goal was made by Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce leader James Vaughn Jr., who said: We believe some things must grow--jobs, productivity, income and wages, profits, capital and saving, information, knowledge, education. And others must not-- pollution, waste, poverty, energy and material use per unit of output.4
12 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
A Continuum of Choice
Internationally known experts on the New Economy, Douglas Henton and Kim Walesh of Collaborative Economics, Inc. provide a compelling framework and logic for achieving this goal. They argue that the profound shift from an industrial economy to a knowledge-based economy has equally profound impacts on the structure of growth. Henton and Walesh describe a New Economy and realities for growth based on: Economic regions conducive to economic clusters Distinctive quality of life to attract knowledge workers Vital centers to offer lively amenities and opportunities for interaction Choices for living and working to increase diversity of careers and life paths Speed and adaptability for quick access to decisions and resources Natural environment as an important element of community These values fit neatly with New Urbanist goals such as preserving heritage and developing a built environment out of a "dialogue of design"and goals of comprehensive and meaningful participation of all institutions and stakeholders. Essentially, the authors of articles with this perspective argue that Arizona has reached a point of crisis that requires bold thinking. Therefore, this policy choice requires comprehensive, inclusive, and coherent approaches to deal with the extremely complex set of resources, challenges, and values covered by the growth umbrella. This alternative stands in stark contrast to "band-aid" measures that have so often proved ineffective in the past. Former Salt River Project CEO and advisor to Governor Jane Hull, Jack Pfister contends that growth can be viewed as a raw resource with immense potential that needs to be carefully crafted. But, who will do the crafting? Not, according to Pfister, government alone, because of public skepticism about past government performance in this area. Rather, he calls for new craftsmanship composed of visionary leaders working with coalitions of dedicated citizens. A starting point for crafting new growth governance processes in Arizona is provided by ASU's Dickinson McGaw and former Paradise Valley city council member Sara Moya. Far more than a checklist is provided in their explanation of nine steps that could be pursued to form a coherent response to the challenges of growth. In large part, connecting the New Governance and New Economy is about starting from common ground and working together to create better ways of growing. Morrison Institute director Rob Melnick's article says this is one of the lessons that should be derived from Arizona's recent competition between a citizens growth boundary initiative and the smarter growth initiative.
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 13
Arizona's Growth And the Power of Choice This brief introduction provides an alert to the complexity and multiplicity of growth issues and policy choices that appear in this volume. Some significant points of agreement among authors are reached: � No one seriously thinks we can stop growth. As author Vernon Swaback puts it, "with respect to both our local and global histories, other than by way of death, no one has ever succeeded in stopping growth." � Growth is multi-dimensional and complex, with impacts that spill over jurisdictional boundaries. � Because growth effects often spill over, policy responses to growth should be larger and/or at least more coordinated than those developed by single local governments or other lone institutions. � Governing growth will always require a perspective and process capable of balancing strong and independent values such as the pursuit of happiness, economic freedom, environmental preservation, and the sacred nature of the land. � Arizona's historical growth and response patterns, coupled with forecasts of growth and problems of sustainability require proactive attention and clear responses to the question: "What are the policy choices we need to make now to ensure quality growth in the 21st century?" Notes
1 Anthony Downs, New Visions for Metropolitan America, Brookings Institution and Lincoln Institutes for Land Policy, 1994. Samuel Kaplan, The Dream Deferred: People, Politics, and Planning in Suburbia, Vintage Books, 1977. 2 Marshall Trimble, Arizona, Doubleday, 1977. p. 377. 3 Amy Bridges, Morning Glories: Municipal Reform in the Southwest, Princeton University Press, 1997. Chapter 4. 4 Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson, Boundary Crossers, University of Maryland, 1997.
14 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
Always an Urban Place Peter Iverson, Professor of History, Arizona State University Overview of Growth in Arizona: Critical Statistics The Demographics of Urban Growth in Phoenix Patricia Gober, Professor of Geography, Arizona State University State of the Desert Biome-Uniqueness, Biodiversity, Threats and the Adequacy of Protection in the Sonoran Bioregion Gary Paul Nabhan and Andrew R. Holdsworth �The Wildlands Project Rural to Urban Land Conversion in Metropolitan Phoenix Patricia Gober, Professor of Geography, Arizona State University Elizabeth K. Burns, Professor of Geography, Arizona State University Kim Knowles-Yanez, Adjunct Professor of Planning, Arizona State University Jeffrey James, Graduate Research Assistant, Geography, Arizona State University Travel in Metropolitan Phoenix Elizabeth K. Burns, Professor of Geography, Arizona State University Growth Brings Uneven Benefits for Arizonans Tom Rex, Research Manager, Center for Business Research, Arizona State University
Arizona's Growth in Context
Always an Urban Place Peter Iverson, Ph. D. Professor of History, Arizona State University We prefer to portray Arizona as a rural environment. In art, photography, travel descriptions, and other imagery, Arizona is depicted primarily through the features of its extraordinary terrain. Painters are more likely to try to evoke the Sonoran landscape than downtown Tempe on Friday night. Arizona Highways features Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon instead of Peoria and Yuma. Postcards emphasize sky, not Sky Harbor. The land and sky of Arizona do demand attention. The inimitable Edward Abbey once put it this way: "Ninety per cent of my state," he noted, "is an appalling burned-out wasteland, a hideous Sahara with few oases, a grim, bleak, harsh, over-heated, God-damned and God-forgotten inferno." "Arizona," he added gleefully, "is the native haunt of the scorpion, the sidewinder, the tarantula, the vampire bat, and cosenose kissing bug, the vinegarroon, the centipede, and three species of poisonous lizard: namely the Gila monster, the land speculator and the real estate broker."1 Abbey did his best to discourage growth. Despite his protestations--"Nobody in his right mind would want to live here"--growth, and particularly urban growth, has been a constant in the history of Arizona. Indeed, from the beginning, Arizona has been an urban place. And from the beginning the fate of "city" and "country" has been intertwined. People living in town have always used the resources from outside the city limits, whether it be for profit or for diversion. Those residing in more rural locales have always employed towns to purchase or trade for supplies, to sell their products, and to search for sin or salvation.2 A harsh and demanding environment has always encouraged people to live in proximity to each other and to work together in organized communities. These generalizations apply to the Indians (the true pioneers) and to those who followed. The Anasazi created impressive communities in the Four Corners area. By living and working together in compact settlements they enjoyed longer and better lives. Their ability to sustain relatively stable communities surely may be measured in their jewelry, pottery, and other forms of art possible only in a reasonably secure environment. The Hohokam carved out the first canals in what became Maricopa County; they employed irrigated farming and sustained a substantial population for centuries. The Hopis constructed their villages beginning at least a thousand years ago. One of these, Oraibi, is considered to be the longest continuously occupied community in the United States. When the Spaniards entered Arizona, they established additional urban centers. Tubac and Tucson were both founded in the 1700s. Presidios offered greater security
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 17
to early civilians. In addition, missions such as Bac and Guevavi encouraged Indian resettlement into new communities that represented another form of urbanization. Potential and actual confrontations with Indian nations limited Spanish and Mexican farming, ranching, and mining. Prior to 1848 the Spanish and Mexican presence in Arizona remained primarily urban.3 The conclusion of the war with Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 coupled with the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 ushered in the next chapter of Arizona history. The demographic expansion of Arizona depended significantly upon use of natural resources. Mining played a key role in this stage of urbanization. Gold brought both miners and merchants to La Paz and Prescott. Silver mines bearing such melodic names as the Lucky Cuss and the Tough Nut prompted the growth of Tombstone. Copper brought in corporations like Phelps Dodge and fueled the development of Clifton/Morenci, Bisbee, Globe/Miami, Jerome, Douglas, and other towns. In the process Arizona emerged as the leading copper producer in the country. The significance of mining is evident from the censuses for 1900 and 1910. Table 1 lists the ten largest towns in Arizona territory in these years: Table 1: Top 10 Towns and Population in Arizona 1900 and 1910 1900 1910 1. Tucson (7531) 1. Tucson (13200) 2. Clifton/Morenci (6000) 2. Clifton/Morenci (12850) 3. Bisbee (5800) 3. Phoenix (11150) 4. Phoenix (5544) 4. Bisbee (9050) 5. Prescott (3559) 5. Globe/Miami (8500) 6. Jerome (2681) 6. Douglas (6450) 7. Nogales (2761) 7. Prescott (5100) 8. Globe (1495) 8. Nogales (3550) 9. Yuma (1409) 9. Yuma (2950) 10. Winslow (1305) 10. Jerome (2400) Mining not only played a vital role in Arizona's growth, but it also continued to diversify Arizona's population. Immigrants from Mexico, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Germany contributed their skills to early development of the industry. Technological advances allowed copper mine owners to bring in men from other areas who may have lacked the knowledge about hard rock mining possessed by their predecessors, but who were willing to work for less money under adverse conditions. Czechs, Serbs, Italians, Spaniards, and others from southern and eastern Europe as well as Chinese came to the mining camps. There they helped build Arizona as they also suffered to varying degrees from the ethnic and racial hostilities of the era.4 Another people who had also known hostility contributed as well to 19th century
18 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
urban growth in Arizona. From their base in Salt Lake City and recruited through vigorous missionary efforts in England and Scandinavia, Mormons fanned into different sections of the region. They founded towns along the Little Colorado, the Salt, and the San Pedro, knowing that access to reliable water sources offered their best chance for survival. Some of their fledgling communities did not survive, but many endured and eventually prospered, including Snowflake (its name drawn from the LDS family names of Snow and Flake), St. David, Thatcher, and Mesa.5 The Mormons, of course, were not the only ones who established agrarian-based communities. Others began to build along the Rio Salado, recognizing the prescience of the Hohokam and realizing the opportunities for modern agriculture in this location. Either Englishman Darrell Duppa or Confederate army deserter Jack Swilling thus called one new town Phoenix. Swilling, the so-called father of Phoenix, is described in the most recent history of the state as "a morphine addict and a violent drunk who died in Yuma prison in 1878 after being accused of robbing a stage." Thanks to the efforts of its first mayor, John T. Alsap, and other stalwarts, Phoenix quickly signaled that it intended to live up to its name, regardless of the character of one of its pioneering promoters. Established in 1870, it became the seat of the newly established county of Maricopa in 1871 and by 1889 it had succeeded in wresting the territorial capital from Prescott.6 Gaining a county seat, let alone the capital, represented a major step in guaranteeing future expansion for a particular municipality. Like all states, Arizona's history is filled with examples of ambitious town founders whose dreams far exceeded the subsequent dreary reality of obscurity or extinction. When a territorial legislature divided up the spoils, communities vied with each other to obtain the best possible prize. After the state capital, the insane asylum seemed to promise the greatest financial return to a community, followed by the prison. The university and a school to train teachers appeared far less desirable. They would be tiny enterprises and as a Tucson bartender put it, "What do we want with a university? What good will it do us? Who in hell ever heard of a University Professor buying a drink?"7 Tucson attorney and territorial legislative representative C.C. Stephens returned to town with the news that Tucson had not reacquired the capital, that he had supported Phoenix's bid for the asylum and Tempe's effort to obtain the normal school, and that Tucson only had procured the university. For his troubles, Stephens was accused of "disloyalty" and lectured by the Citizen that he now was viewed with "loathing and contempt," and that he made "a horse thief look respectable by comparison." Stephens met with his constituents at the Opera House in an effort to defend his record but was routed from the stage by a torrent of tomatoes, rotten eggs, and, for good measure, a dead cat. Tucson nearly lost the university by refusing to donate land for the enterprise, before a last minute donation of forty acres by two gamblers
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 19
and a saloon owner saved the institution for the city.8 Urban rivalries of a century ago remind us that a number of developments of decades past echo into the present. The gospel of growth started to be preached well before our own time. The central role of the federal government, the importance of transportation, tourism, and health care, and the challenges of race relations and demographic expansion all loomed long ago. These parallels remind us that although the dilemmas and the opportunities of the present are formidable, they are not new. Indeed, they are formidable in part because they are rooted in the past. Statehood, after all, was delayed by the impression that Arizona could not sustain growth. When Senator Albert Beveridge, chair of the Senate Committee on the Territories visited Arizona in 1901 to examine its viability for statehood, he judged its population too limited, its economy too undeveloped, its landscape a desert. The census figures of 1900 and 1910 remind us that Arizona's population did not exactly equal that of New York. Leading citizens in the state concurred that Arizona had to grow in order to gain some small measure of respect. The Arizona Gazette of Phoenix in 1894 equated growth with progress, declaring that nations, cities, and towns that did not expand were "marked for decay....Those which do not progress, go backward--there is no standing still. It must be either growth or dry rot." The Gazette admonished: "When opportunities for expansion present themselves they must be taken advantage of at once or the opportunities may not come again."9 Those opportunities included use of natural resources, promotion of tourism, and encouragement of individuals to relocate to Arizona. The federal presence and continuing federal investment proved crucial to the evolution of territorial Arizona. Army camps and forts did more than offer protection and security to non-Indian residents; they furnished a market for farmers, ranchers, and other business people that permitted initially struggling little enterprises like Phoenix to grow. By the turn of the century, an expanding economy in the Salt River valley and other locations in the West depended upon a more reliable and consistent water supply. After prior private or local efforts failed, the federal government once again came to the rescue. Passage of the Reclamation Act in 1902 authorized the construction of major dams and accompanying canals. Thanks to the tireless efforts of local boosters like Benjamin A. Fowler, the Salt River Project, including Roosevelt Dam, became one of the first initiatives funded through the Act. Federal dollars thus underwrote urban growth in the early 20th century.10 When the Depression plagued Phoenix in the late 1920s and 1930s, the Works Progress Administration allowed for the construction of North Phoenix High School and Phoenix College, and the expansion of the Pueblo Grande Museum. The Civilian Conservation Corps helped develop Papago Park and South Mountain Park. Federal
20 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
investment made Encanto Park a pleasing reality and encouraged the city of Phoenix to buy Sky Harbor Airport; additional federal dollars allowed Sky Harbor to expand. In the Tucson area comparable funding built Sabino Canyon Dam, constructed the Mount Lemmon highway, and added to the runways at Davis-Monthan. Federal assistance made possible a science building, greenhouse, women's gymnasium and recreation building, an auditorium, a classroom building, the State Museum, and improvements to the farm at the University of Arizona.11 The outbreak of the second world war funneled further federal funding into the Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas. Luke, Williams, and Davis-Monthan boosted the local economies but also inspired individuals to make Arizona their home when the war ended. Work in war industries prompted others to move to the state as well. After the war Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration loans permitted many of these migrants to own their first homes; without such federal assistance, far fewer would have taken this important step. In turn, the housing construction business constituted a vital component in the post-war boom in urban Arizona.12 In addition to aviation, trains and automobiles were critical elements in fostering growth. The arrival of the Southern Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe in the late 19th century not only allowed Arizonans to ship and receive goods, but permitted tourists and prospective residents to travel more comfortably to the territory. Both railroads elevated the fortunes of existing communities on its routes and created new towns. Automobiles quickly encouraged low-density settlements and suburbs. Many newcomers were urban people, with no interest in becoming cowboys, miners, or farmers. With the advent of the automobile, they could explore more of rural Arizona. The Arizona Good Roads Association in Prescott published in 1913 a tour book boasting that "Engineers from the Office of Roads, at Washington and other highly qualified experts agree that Arizona has not only the best natural roads in the Union, but that here are to be found accessible deposits of the best natural road materials known." That is to say, you were essentially on your own, but things promised to improve in the near future. In the 1920s Arizona Highways, initially a newsletter of the Highway Department, started to present current information about the state's road conditions and promote travel to and within the state. Residents in rural Arizona surely had mixed emotions about urban interlopers, but if these intruders were going to come, they at least wanted to achieve a profit from their presence. Tourism progressively became more essential to the local and state economy. Under Raymond Carlson's leadership, Arizona Highways blossomed in the 1930s as an exceptionally attractive reflection of Arizona. The Salt River valley in the same decade was dubbed the "Valley of the
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 21
Sun." Technological innovation yielded the miracle of air conditioning, luring still more tourists and new residents, and making summers more bearable.13 Arizona's dry climate beckoned people suffering from tuberculosis and other illnesses. Barry Goldwater's mother, Josephine Williams, was one of countless individuals who came to Arizona for this reason. The health care industry began in territorial days, with St. Joseph's and St. Luke's in Phoenix and St. Mary's and St. Luke's-in-the-Desert in Tucson representing early hospitals that attempted to assist the afflicted. The less prosperous among the ill founded urban centers of their own in the form of tent colonies: Sunnyslope in Phoenix and Tentville near the University of Arizona campus in Tucson. Health seekers formed a significant portion of Scottsdale's first residents. Winfield Scott numbered among those who realized that the search for good health could nourish town growth. Older residents of snowy climes also began to flock to southern Arizona in search of a more pleasant spot to wait out winter back home. Not all the immigrants to Arizona lived happily ever after. Health seekers did not always locate what they had hoped to find. Many disliked the eternal summers or failed to obtain satisfactory employment. If Arizona started to become noteworthy for a population willing to make a new start, it then also illustrated that people who were willing to move to it were also willing to move on from it, either "back home" or to neighboring California. Arizona thus remained one of the states with the highest percentages of people born elsewhere. A more transient population found it harder to invest, financially and otherwise, in where they resided and in Arizona's future. For peoples of color, urban Arizona prior to the second world war did not necessarily resemble the promised land. Although boosters of tourism in the first decades of the 20th century realized the potential appeal of Indian country to visitors, few Native individuals actually resided in off-reservation towns and cities. Reservation border towns such as Flagstaff, Winslow, Holbrook, and Globe benefited from selling Indian arts and crafts and from trade with Indians, yet Indians frequently faced hostility and discrimination in these communities. Phoenix boosters were delighted to obtain a federal boarding school, but only a handful of students from the school remained in town after they completed their education.14 African American soldiers at Fort Huachuca numbered among the first Black residents in Arizona. The Black civilian population remained minuscule until after World War II. African Americans from the South, Oklahoma, and Texas found work but also segregation in Arizona. Small Black communities formed in towns like Eloy and Safford, centered on the cotton industry; African Americans also were recruited by Louisiana Pacific to McNary, where they worked in the timber industry. Others made their way to Phoenix, where the largest African-American community became situated.
22 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
In the early days of the territory, Mexicans and Mexican Americans in southern Arizona were an important part of the region's society and economy. In the 1870s many prominent Anglo men in Tucson, Yuma, and Florence married Mexican women. But with the arrival of more and more "Anglo" newcomers, Mexicans increasingly were pushed toward the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, particularly in Phoenix, where community leaders expressed pride in their town's emergence as an "American" city.15 The push of Mexican political turmoil and economic instability and the pull of irrigated agriculture accelerated migration of more Mexicans to Arizona in the early 20th century. At this time and throughout the twentieth century, Mexican Americans hardly constituted a monolithic group; more established and more prosperous Mexican Americans sometimes had mixed emotions about more recent arrivals from Mexico, believing that the newcomers only heightened discrimination against them. But regardless of education, income, and social standing, all confronted the indignities of segregation. Chinese Americans came to Arizona to work in the mines and on the railroads. Pushed out of California, they found temporary residence in Phoenix and other towns, where they established truck farms, laundries, and other businesses. Chinese Americans constituted 4.6 per cent of Phoenix's population in 1880, but the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and prejudice against their presence forced out most individuals; by 1910, only 110 Chinese Americans remained in Phoenix. This tiny but determined group continued, as did an equally limited Japanese American community, which also suffered under discriminatory land laws. The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II created Arizona's third and fourth largest towns at Gila River and Poston. Some of the internees remained after the war, working with others who had not been interned to work together toward what they hoped would be a more tolerant future.16 All peoples of color fought for the United States during the war. When these veterans returned, they contributed in a significant way to the effort to change deplorable conditions. Social change, of course, came slowly. But it did come, in the schools, at the ballot box, and in public accommodations. Their victories were recorded in an era of dramatic increase in the state's population. Consistent with the folk saying that with refrigeration came Republicans, Democratic dominance of state politics became a progressively more distant memory. Because of immigration and annexation, Phoenix's population quadrupled from 106,000 in 1950 to 439,000 in 1960. "The growth figures," Abbey observed, "would shock even a banker." Tucson grew "from a population of 45,000 (counting dogs) in 1950" to over 300, 000 in the 1970s.17 Such statistics initially delighted rather than
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 23
alarmed native sons like Barry Goldwater. In 1964, he commented: "Very few people my age have had the opportunity of seeing a country transformed the way I've seen Arizona." Goldwater added: Once it was wild land and desert and open spaces--and there's still plenty of that. But I've seen this land transformed into productive land, with great industry and great people and great promise of a great future. Take Phoenix. I get the greatest thrill thinking that in a small way I helped it grow, that I had something to do with its growth. And yet I can go home, get away from the city itself and get out where there's plenty of space and sunshine, and great, fresh pure air. I love walking in the desert, especially at night. Out there at night, the stars just saturate the sky. You feel close to God.18 As early as the 1970s, however, Goldwater began to reassess this uncritical embrace of growth. He remained proud of Arizona's accomplishments, but he expressed publicly his regret over the ecological costs of Glen Canyon Dam, and he complained about the "brown crap" in the air. Yet he and others hesitated to endorse major alterations to established practices. Being able to drive, live, and golf where one wanted had become sufficiently entrenched in the cultural landscape that such traditions could not easily be altered. Historians who view the matter of urban growth perceive mixed emotions and conflicting signals. In Mesa city planning director Frank Mizner noted, "Growth is almost a religion in Mesa. Nobody, with rare exceptions, stops to think about the negative impact of the growth." Citing loss of farmland, more traffic, and the demand for more schools, Mizner worried about the tendency of people to ignore such consequences or to "deal with them in piecemeal fashion." In the White Mountains, some local residents groaned about the latest land rush, while real estate agents celebrated the market for new homes "in the cool pines." The buyers often were residents from Pima and Maricopa County, who thus continued to contribute to urbanization. The same scenario prevailed in places like Prescott, Flagstaff, and Sierra Vista. Even in Tucson, where local custom still endorsed disdain for developments north of Arizona's Mason-Dixon line, the Gila River, one could observe a comparable procession of tile roofs.19 Half a century after the end of World War II, Arizona citizens faced variations on the same issues apparent before the war. Federal investment and involvement in the Central Arizona Project, public lands, and other key matters remained extremely important. Transportation continued to be at the center of questions about sprawl. Tourism still bolstered the local and state economy, and in the process, helped spur additional migration. Mayo Clinic and other health care institutions prompted people to come to Arizona. Peoples of color still confronted segregation, even if it had become de facto rather than de jure, but they, too, looked to urban centers as places
24 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
that offered their best chance for better jobs and a better future. On Indian reservations, the population became increasingly urban, as old subsistence economies waned, and the needs and demands of a contemporary wage work economy, including in some instances the opportunity to obtain employment in the new casinos, pushed people into town. Within major cities, recently arrived and established members of neighborhoods did not always see eye to eye. As they had in decades past, they often differed about a number of concerns. However, those who were members of "minority groups" encountered ongoing patterns of discrimination, both brought into the state and nourished by the unhappy local legacy of prejudice. Such divides constituted one of the most crucial of all the challenges apparent in contemporary Arizona society. By century's end, Arizona's population reached four and a half million people. To paraphrase what Gerald Ford once said about Abraham Lincoln, if Albert Beveridge were alive today, such a statistic would cause him to turn over in his grave. More varied voices are heard now in regard to the price of progress, the consequences of construction. Nonetheless, the conventional wisdom, established a century ago, prevails. Growth remains linked to progress and prosperity, to individual freedom and voluntary separation from social and economic ills. Most Arizona citizens still accept the dichotomy offered by the Gazette a century ago. If dry rot appears to be the only alternative, then there can be little doubt about the contours of the future in this urban place called Arizona. Notes
1Edward Abbey, The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1977), 147. 2See William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991). 3See James E. Officer, Hispanic Arizona, 1536-1856 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987). 4Thomas E. Sheridan, Arizona: A History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), 145- 186; James Byrkit, Forging the Copper Collar: Arizona's Labor-Management War of 1901-1921 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982). 5See, for example, Charles S Peterson, Take Up Your Mission: Mormon Colonizing Along the Little Colorado River, 1870-1900 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1973). 6Sheridan, Arizona, 199; Bradford Luckingham, Phoenix: The History of a Southwestern Metropolis (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989), 12-39. 7C.L. Sonnichsen, Tucson: The Life and Times of an American City (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982), 136. 8Sonnichsen, Tucson, 136-137. 9Arizona Gazette, February 4, 1894, and January 2, 1900, quoted in Luckingham, Phoenix, 48. 10Luckingham, Phoenix, 434-48. See also Karen L. Smith, The Magnificent Experiment: Building the Salt River Reclamation Project, 1890-1917 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986). 11Luckingham, Phoenix, 104-113; C.L. Sonnichsen, Tucson, 255. 12For the impact of the war on Arizona and the west, see Richard White, "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own:" A New History of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 496-533. 13This discussion is based on Peter Iverson, Barry Goldwater: Native Arizonan (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 21-24. 14See Robert A. Trennert, "Phoenix and the Indians: 1867-1930," in G. Wesley Johnson, Jr., editor, Phoenix in the Twentieth Century: Essays in Community History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), 53-68. 15 Luckingham, Phoenix, 31-35. 16 Luckingham, Minorities in Phoenix, 79-118; Eric Walz, "Japanese American Communities in the Interior West," Ph.D. dissertation, History Department, Arizona State University, 1998. 17Abbey, Journey Home, 148. 18Iverson, Goldwater, 189. 19See my chapter on "Building Arizona" in Goldwater, 189-220. For an analysis of the anti- growth movement in Tucson and Albuquerque, see Michael F. Logan, Fighting Sprawl and City Hall: Resistance to Urban Growth in the Southwest (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995).
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 25
Overview of Growth in Arizona: Critical Statistics
Arizonans have gotten used to being the "fastest growing" whether that phrase is describing the state or specific counties and cities. The following data provide a foundation for the remainder of this volume.
State and County Population Change 1950-1995
1950 Arizona Apache Cochise Coconino Gila Graham Greenlee La Paz Maricopa Mohave Navajo Pima Pinal Santa Cruz Yavapai Yuma 749,587 27,767 31,488 23,910 24,158 12,985 12,805 a 331,770 8,510 29,446 141,216 43,191 9,344 24,991 28,006 1995 4,228,900 64,300 112,300 109,400 44,075 30,025 8,450 16,550 2,454,525 124,500 82,425 758,050 139,050 33,875 129,500 121,875 % change 1950-1995 464 132 257 358 82 131 -34 a 640 1,363 180 437 222 263 418 335
a. La Paz County was part of Yuma County until 1983 Source: Arizona's Growth and the Environment, Arizona Town Hall, 1996
26 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
Overview of Growth in Arizona: Critical Statistics
Population Density 1950 and 1995 (persons per square mile)
United States Arizona Apache Cochise Coconino Gila Graham Greenlee La Paz Maricopa Mohave Navajo Pima Pinal Santa Cruz Yavapai Yuma 1950 42.6 6.6 2.5 5.1 1.3 5.1 2.8 8.6 a 36.0 0.6 3.0 15.4 8.0 7.5 3.1 2.8 1995 74.1 36.8 5.7 17.8 5.9 9.3 6.8 4.6 3.7 263.4 9.5 8.3 81.3 25.4 26.8 15.7 22.3
a. La Paz County was part of Yuma County until 1983 Source:Arizona's Growth and the Environment, Arizona Town Hall, 1996
Projected Population of Arizona's Counties
1990 Arizona Apache Cochise Coconino Gila Graham Greenlee La Paz Maricopa Mohave Navajo Pima Pinal Santa Cruz Yavapai Yuma 3,665,228 61,591 97,624 96,591 40,216 26,554 8,008 13,844 2,122,101 93,497 77,658 666,880 116,379 29,676 107,714 106,895 2000 4,961,950 67,925 121,825 123,325 48,625 35,175 8,975 20,350 2,954,150 147,525 88,900 854,325 161,625 38,225 152,975 138,025 2020 7,444,625 85,775 150,000 169,350 60,750 50,675 10,275 29,075 4,516,100 236,400 111,950 1,206,250 231,225 55,100 240,850 290,850 % change 1990-2020 103.1 39.3 53.7 75.3 51 90.8 28.3 110 112.8 152.8 44.2 80.9 98.7 85.7 123.6 172
Source: Ensuring Arizona's Water Quantity and Quality into the 21st Century, Arizona Town Hall, 1997
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 27
Overview of Growth in Arizona: Critical Statistics
Population of Selected Arizona Cities
City Phoenix Tucson Prescott Yuma Nogales Payson Bullhead City Clifton Parker Casa Grande Springerville Show Low Safford Sierra Vista Flagstaff 1980 Population 789,704 330,537 19,865 42,481 15,683 5,068 10,719 4,245 2,542 14,971 1,452 4,298 7,010 24,937 34,641 1997 Population 1,205,285 458,675 33,695 65,130 21,075 12,125 27,800 3,005 2,975 21,945 1,895 7,480 9,320 39,405 58,145 % change 1980-1997 53 39 70 53 34 139 159 -29 17 47 31 74 33 58 68
Source: Arizona Department of Commerce, 1997
Arizona Non-Agricultural Wage and Salary Employment
(Thousands) 600 550 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0
Manufacturing
1 2
1970
1990
1997
598.5
481.4 401.5 368.3 323.6 259 206.9 185.5 130.5 91.2 20.6 12.6 14 37.1 82.7 30 82.1 95.6 127 126.6 94.1 30.5 91.5 119.5
Mining
Construction
TCPU1
Trade
FIRE2
Services
Government
Transportation, communications and Public Utilities Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Source: Arizona Department of Economic Security
28 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
Overview of Growth in Arizona: Critical Statistics
State Trust Land Uses, 1994 (Percent of total State Trust Lands)
*Other 7%
*State Trust Lands are used for rights of way, commercial uses, agriculture, and institutional uses and similar purposes in addition to grazing.
Grazing 93%
Source: Arizona's Growth and the Environment, Arizona Town Hall, 1996
Land Ownership and Administration in Arizona
Other Public Lands 8% Forest Service 15% Individual or Corporate 16% Bureau of Land Management 20%
Indian Reservations 28% State of Arizona 13%
Source: Arizona's Growth and the Environment, Arizona Town Hall, 1996
Acreage of Major Irrigated Crops in Arizona 1960-1994
Millions 1.5 1,264,000 1.0 936,000 0.5 1,297000
1960
1980
1994
Source: Arizona Agricultural Statistics, 1997
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 29
The Demographics of Urban Growth in Phoenix Patricia Gober, Ph.D. Professor of Geography, Arizona State University Phoenix is on the cusp of becoming one of the nation's largest urban areas. Between 1990 and 1997 Maricopa County or Greater Phoenix grew by 574,000 people, more numerical growth than in any other single county in the nation.1 A 22.7 percent rate of growth moved metropolitan Phoenix from its 1990 status as the 19th largest to the 16th largest metropolitan area in the nation in 1996.2 This explosive growth has altered local land, housing, and labor markets; transportation patterns; accessibility to open space; riparian habitats; and other aspects of the human, built, and natural environments of central Arizona. Population growth is, by no means, the only indicator of urban growth. Cities grow in land area, housing units, and jobs, but population is related to all three. Although there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between land and population, cities do annex land in anticipation of future population growth. Phoenix-area communities annexed a total of 214 square miles, the land mass of El Paso, Texas, between 1990 and 1997. Growth in housing also is related to population growth. The number of housing units grew faster than the population from 1960-1990 because people's taste for more space and privacy resulted in smaller households. Since 1990, average household size has stabilized at approximately 2.6 persons per unit. Population and housing, at least for the Phoenix metropolitan area as a whole, now grow in tandem. The strong association between jobs and population stems from their mutually reinforcing properties. Job growth stimulates in-migration, and population growth in turn creates a larger labor pool and market for local goods and services, creating more jobs in the process. The wild cards in this equation are elderly migrants who are generally immune to signals in the labor market but who do, in fact, stimulate job growth when they purchase food, housing, and clothing; eat in local restaurants, use financial services, and consume public services such as streets, libraries, and parks. Three demographic forces determine the pace at which populations grow (or decline). First, the balance between births and deaths determines growth in the existing population base. Second, the difference between domestic in-migrants and out-migrants results in more residents from areas outside metropolitan Phoenix, but inside the United States. Third, the difference between international immigrants and emigrants accounts for growth from the rest of the world. Natural Increase Natural increase is simply the difference between the number of births and deaths in a population. During the recent past, natural increase has contributed between 20,000
30 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
and 25,000 persons annually to metropolitan Phoenix's population base.3 It accounted for about 30 percent of all growth between 1990 and 1997, ranging from a high of 45 percent in 1990-91 when domestic migration was on the wane to a low of 22 percent in 1994-95 when migration was on the rise . Even if migration were to drop to zero tomorrow, Maricopa County would continue to grow through natural increase. Maricopa County's substantial natural increase occurs for two reasons. The first involves the nature of the county's age structure 1990 to 1997 Sources of Population Growth: Total to Maricopa County: 574,097 (See Figure 1). Maricopa County's has a bulge in people aged 25 to 39 where the odds of giving Domestic Residual 13% birth are high, but a small number in older age International migration 48.1% increase 8.3% groups where the likelihood of death is high. As a result, the population produces many more births than deaths. Modern populations with little or no Natural natural increase do not have a reproductive-age increase 30.1% bulge in their age-sex structures, and they are more top heavy with older people. Contrary to Figure 1 conventional wisdom, metropolitan Phoenix is not Total Population by Age and Sex, Maricopa County: 1996 disproportionately composed of elderly persons. In Age 1996, Phoenix's proportion older than 65 years was exactly the same as that of the nation as a whole-- 12.7 percent4.
Male
14 12 10 8
6
Higher-than-average fertility also contributes to the natural increase experienced by the Valley. One key Percent of total, by age and sex population indicator is its total fertility rate, meaning the average number of children that a woman will have given current age-specific birth rates. A population is at replacement fertility when the total fertility rate is slightly higher than 2.0.
Female
12 4 2 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 14
85+ 80-84 75-59 70-74 65-69 60-64 55-59 50-54 45-49 40-44 35-39 30-34 25-29 20-24 15-19 10-14 5-9 0-4
Maricopa County's 1996 total fertility rate of 2.41 is well above replacement. Women are, on average, producing more children than are needed to replace themselves, and the next generation will be larger than the current one. These averages are somewhat deceptive, however, because fertility rates differ across racial and ethnic groups. The total fertility rate among non-Hispanic whites in 1996 was only 1.86, matched by Asians at 1.86, and followed closely by Blacks at 1.93. These groups are, in fact, at below replacement fertility. Without migration, their next generation will be smaller than the current one. An extremely high fertility rate among Hispanics has driven the countywide average up to 2.41. Current age-specific birth rates indicate a total fertility rate of 4.26 for Hispanic women�considerably higher than current levels in Mexico where the total 1998 rate is 3.1 according to the Population Reference Bureau.5 Hispanic fertility also results in an age structure with
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 31
many children and few elderly. This age structure is having a substantial impact on schools and services. Native American women also have higher-than-average fertility but, because they represent less than two percent of the county's population, their demographic impact is limited. High fertility and population growth among Phoenix-area Hispanics has significant demographic and policy ramifications. Hispanics produce a disproportionate share of all births. Hispanic women account for 17.6 percent of metropolitan Phoenix's population in 1996 but produce 36 percent of all births. Despite the fact that nonHispanic women younger than 25 years outnumber Hispanic women by a factor of 2.5 to one, there are more Hispanic than non-Hispanic births in this age group.6 High fertility among Hispanic women is changing the face of Phoenix area delivery rooms, child-care settings, and school districts. some local school districts now have a predominantly Hispanic school-aged population at the same time that their votingage population is predominantly non-Hispanic white. The willingness of local districts to adequately support public education will be challenged by the ethnic mismatch between their voting-age and school-age populations. Domestic Migration Migration from other U.S. locations is the main source of growth in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The migration experience--having moved here from someplace else--is one of the defining personal characteristics of those who live in the Phoenix region. In 1990, only one-third of the Valley's residents were born in the state, and most of these are children7. Two-thirds have made a long-distance migration at some point in their lives, a proportion far higher than what is found in places like New York, Chicago, or Pittsburgh. Net migration, or the difference between in-migration and out-migration, results in population growth. Net migration to metropolitan Phoenix is a highly cyclical process, dependent upon national economic forces, the pace of economic expansion in Phoenix, and growth trends elsewhere. Demographers use Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data to assess migration annually. Each year, the IRS compares a household's address on its tax return with that on the previous year's. If the address matches, the household is considered a non-migrant. If the previous year's address was outside Maricopa County but the current address is inside the County, the household is considered an in-migrant. If the previous year's address was inside of Maricopa County, but the current year is outside, the person is designated as an out-migrant. The peaks and valleys of domestic migration have been especially notable during the last 15 years (See Figure 2). The 1980s began with modest net in-migration. The national recession of 1981-82, characterized by high unemployment and soaring
32 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
Figure 2
interest rates, had a dampening effect on national mobility and migration rates. During periods of IRS Inmigration and Outmigration economic uncertainty and decline, people tend to Maricopa County: 1980-81 to 1995-96 160 stay put. The end of the recession brought increased Net gain 140 mobility nationwide and large net migration to the Inmigrants 120 Valley between 1984 and 1988. Economic problems in Phoenix at the end of the decade 100 brought plummeting in-migration and rising out80 Outmigrants migration. IRS records show out-migration slightly 60 exceeding in-migration although the ASU Bureau 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 Year Ending of Economic Research did not show a situation that severe. The speedy return to favorable net inmigration shows how quickly migration can respond to changes in the economy. By the mid-1990s, in-migrants again outnumbered out-migrants by a large margin. The current migration picture is symptomatic of the health of the local economy and to conditions elsewhere. What happens in one place sends shock waves through the system affecting many others. California is by far metropolitan Phoenix's major migration partner. California contributes more in-migrants to the Valley than any other state, and it absorbs more of our out-migrants than any other. When California fell into a deep recession early in the 1990s and was slow to recover, migrants to Arizona and other western states increased, reinforcing the already bright inmigration picture here. Urban growth and in-migration in central Arizona were, in part, the counterpoints of urban decline and out-migration in California. Migration, like natural increase, affects certain segments of the population more than others. One of the universal laws of migration is that younger people are more apt to move than are older people. Individuals make half of all of their lifetime moves by age 25. It is during these young ages that people leave their parents' homes to attend school, join the military, or take a job; leave college to find employment or change jobs; marry, and begin families. All these events are commonly associated with changes in residence. Movement rates are also high among young children who typically have parents in their 20s8. The heightened tendency for migration is seen among both inmigrants to and out-migrants from Maricopa County. The typical in-migrant is a young person in his or her 20s, and the typical out-migrant is a young person in his or her 20s. Young persons also contribute more than any other age group to net migration, or the difference between in- and out-migration (See Figure 3). Between 1985 and 1990, net migration was highest among those between 20 and 29 years of age. Migration overall adds young adults to our population base and lowers the average age of our population. A secondary effect is to add elderly to our population base. Although people in their 60s are far less likely to move here, those who do are far
Number of migrants (thousands)
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 33
Figure 3
70 60
Migration to and from Maricopa County, by Age, 1985-1990
Net gain
50 40 30 20 Outmigrants 10 0 Inmigrants
more likely to stay put than younger persons. Although greatest for young adults, the amount of in-and out-migration is high across all age groups, except the elderly. In the Phoenix area, like in most other western cities, people come and go with great frequency, leading to rapid through-put of the population. During an average year between 1990 and 1997, a total of 194,000 moves (114,000 in-migrants + 80,000 out-migrants) were needed to change the population by 35,000.
Number of migrants (thousands)
Rapid population growth in a region like Phoenix also results in high levels of internal mobility (See Table 1). Newcomers often initially select temporary accommodations and later move to more permanent residences within the same metropolitan area. In addition, growth begets local movement by creating new opportunities for current residents. These opportunities trigger chains of future adjustments and create a multiplier effect for the local housing market9. Table 1: Annual Mobility Rates in Selected Metropolitan Areas: 1994 and 1995
Percent of household heads who moved in last year Metro Area All moves 24.6 23.8 23.0 22.2 20.1 19.8 19.0 18.4 17.6 14.8 13.0 10.2 Moves within Metropolitan Area 19.9 17.0 17.3 17.8 15.4 14.5 15.4 13.9 15.2 12.0 11.1 8.6
Dallas (1994) Phoenix (1994) Fort Worth (1994) San Diego (1994) Anaheim (1994) Portland (1995) Columbus (1995) Kansas City (1995) Milwaukee (1994) New Orleans (1995) Buffalo (1994) Pittsburgh (1995) Source: U. S. Bureau of the Census. 1994b and 1995
The implications of high mobility for a community are controversial. Some argue that high levels of migration and population turnover lead to personal isolation, lack of a shared history and sense of community, and the failure to invest in the future. Others see migration as freedom from the familiar, family obligations, and expected behaviors. Migrants are risk takers who seek out new places and opportunities. Innovation and new ideas result from the synergism of people with diverse
34 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
+ 85 84 80 79 75 74 70 69 65 64 60 9 -5 55 54 50 49 45 44 40 39 35 34 30 29 25 24 20 19 15 14 10 9 5-
Age
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
backgrounds and ways of doing business10. Immigration The component of population change in the Phoenix area that is the most complicated and difficult to measure is immigration from abroad. The Census Bureau estimates the number of net international migrants during the 1990s as between 6,000 and 7,000 per year11. These estimates reveal that immigration directly accounted for 8.3 percent of the county's total population growth between 1990 and 1997, far less than the percentages for natural increase and domestic migration, but a substantial percentage nonetheless. The Census' emphasis on direct immigration to the Valley is misleading because it ignores immigration's indirect effects on population growth through domestic migration and natural increase. Immigrants who settle elsewhere upon their arrival in the U.S., but later move to Phoenix, are called secondary migrants. They are included in domestic migration flows because they come here from other parts of the United States. The rapidly growing Mexican immigrant community in central Phoenix gives the impression that substantial secondary migration, estimated to be largely from California and Texas, is reinforcing the effects of the 6,000 to 7,000 added annually through direct immigration. Immigration also has an indirect effect on population growth through its influence on birth rates and natural increase. Foreign-born women have substantially higher levels of fertility than native-born women because they bring with them fertility traditions of their native countries. In 1994, there were, on average, 64.7 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the United States as a whole. Among Hispanics this figure was 99.2 compared to 60.6 for non-Hispanics. Equally significant are differences between Mexican-born and U.S.-born women of Mexican ancestry. For every 1,000 Mexican-born women of childbearing age, there were 142.7 births compared to only 84.5 for U.S. born women of Mexican descent12. Immigrant women in Phoenix undoubtedly play a major role in the elevated fertility levels of the local Hispanic population, and immigration's indirect effects on population growth through natural increase are probably quite significant. Lessons from Demographics Four major lessons can be learned from the demographics of urban growth in Phoenix. First, migration from other parts of the United States is only one component of population growth. While it is the major source of urban growth now, it has fluctuated greatly in the past and undoubtedly will rise and fall again in the future. Natural increase and immigration from abroad, while not as potent as domestic migration, are steadier contributors to population growth in the Valley. Second, migration does more than deliver growth to the Valley; it has a churning
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 35
effect on the population as well. Migration in Phoenix is a highly inefficient process in the sense that a large number of people move to the Valley each year, and almost as many leave each year. As a result, the Valley contains a large transient population, people who stay briefly in route to some place else. The third lesson is that we are not always the pilots of our own destiny. Migration responds to economic signals here and elsewhere. A substantial portion of our recent growth is related to out-migration from California. A decade earlier, during the mid1980s, the state was the recipient of many migrants from Texas as the domestic oil and gas industry faltered and sent the Lone Star State's economy into a tailspin. Immigration from abroad is as much triggered by economic conditions in Mexico, India, and China as by economic opportunity here. In a free market economy and a democratic society in which people are free to move, the fate of any one place is intimately intertwined with others, especially places with which it has shared migrants in the past. And finally, there is considerable momentum for future growth built into the current demographic situation. Births will outstrip deaths as long as migration continues to add young people to our population and as long as immigration from abroad adds people with significantly higher fertility than the native-born population. Internal migration, through its effects on the local economy, has strong self-reinforcing properties. Migration stimulates economic growth which, in turn, stimulates more migration. To be sure, there are times when these engines of growth slow down, but their positive feedback systems are so strong that it is difficult to see anything but moderate-to-high population growth in the Valley's future. Notes
1U.S. Bureau of the Census. Estimates of the population of counties and demographic components of population change: Annual Time Series, July 1, 1990 to July 1, 1997. PE-62, 1998. 2U. S. Bureau of the Census. Estimates of the population of metropolitan areas: July 1, 1996. MA-96-9, 1997a. 3U.S. Bureau of the Census. Estimates of the population of counties and demographic components of population change: Annual Time Series, July 1, 1990 to July 1, 1997. PE-62, 1998. 4U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997b. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1997 (117th edition) Washington, D.C. 5 W. P. O'Hare, "America's minorities" Population Bulletin 47(4): 1-46, 1998. 6 U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997c; 1996 Estimates of population by age, sex, and race�Arizona by county. Population Estimates Program, Population Division, Washington, D.C. and Arizona Department of Health Services, 1997. 7U. S. Census, 1990. 8Patricia Gober "Americans on the Move" Population Bulletin 48 (3): 1-40, 1993. 9Goodman, 1982; Moore and Clark, 1986; Gober, 1993 10Gober, 1993. 11U. S. Census, 1998. 12U. S. Census, 1994.
36 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
State of the Desert Biome-Uniqueness, Biodiversity, Threats and the Adequacy of Protection in the Sonoran Bioregion Executive Summary Gary Paul Nabhan and Andrew R. Holdsworth �The Wildlands Project, March 1998--Excerpt reprinted with permission. This report highlights (1) what is unique about the Sonoran Desert bioregion with respect to its organisms, ecological interactions and landscapes and (2), what threatens the future of this region's biological diversity. It is based on the compilation of surveys of 54 field scientists who average twenty years of field experience in this region of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. Stressors: Threats to Biodiversity Thirty-three of the field scientists responded to the portion of our written questionnaire which asked them to rank the ten most significant threats to the biodiversity of the Sonoran bioregion on the basis of their observations since 1975. The top ten threats, according to the tally of their responses, are as follows:
1. Urbanization's aggravation of habitat conversion and fragmentation; 2. The high rate of in-migration of newcomers to reside, work and recreate in the region, and their contribution to population growth and resource consumption; 3. Surface water impoundment and diversion from places where native vegetation and wildlife have access to it; 4. Inappropriate grazing of vegetation by livestock, especially when combined with conversion of plant cover to exotic pasture grasses; 5. Aquifer mining and salinization, the drop in water table, and their long-term effects on riparian vegetation and wildlife; 6. Lack of planning for growth; 7. Exotic grass planting; 8. Conversion to farmlands; 9. Recreational impacts; 10. Biological invasions.
Since World War II, the Sunbelt of the U.S. Southwest and Northwest Mexico has been the setting for the largest in-migration in human history. A century and a half ago, indigenous communities still outnumbered European colonial communities, both in number and in the amount of land and water they managed. Today, the economic activities of the region are dominated by individuals who have lived in the region for less than a decade. The region's population nearly doubled (+98%) between 1970 and 1990 to a total population of 6.9 million. The greatest increases in population occurred in coastal resort areas, state capitals, and along the border. Currently, there is no sign that human population growth rates in the region will taper off during the next few decades.
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 37
Between 1940 and 1990, the populations of Arizona, Baja California Norte, and Sonora shifted from being one half to two-thirds rural, to over three-quarters urban. The present inhabitants' unfamiliarity with desert land and water management poses profound threats for most land, water, vegetation and wildlife resources within a halfhour's drive of the region's largest metropolitan areas. The actual effects of this urbanization on biodiversity are many and mutually reinforcing, including the aggravation of the "urban heat island effect;" the channelization or disruption of riparian corridors; the proliferation of exotic species; the killing of wildlife by automobiles, by toxics, and by pets; and the fragmentation of remaining patches of natural vegetation into smaller and smaller pieces that are unable to support viable populations of native plants or animals. Hydrological engineers in the Sonoran Desert have impounded and diverted water flows from virtually all of the region's major rivers by constructing 41 major dams and associated irrigation canals. Among U.S. Federal Register notices listing plants and animals as endangered species, water impoundment and diversion are among the most frequently cited threats mentioned. Inundating vegetation in reservoirs behind dams and changes in river flow are among the most severe pressures on threatened plants and nesting birds in the U.S./Mexico borderlands. The regional decline of 36 of the 82 breeding bird species which formerly used riparian woodlands is a case in point. In combination with water diversion, groundwater pumping has affected nearly all river valleys in Arizona's portion of the Sonoran Desert. In the heart of agricultural areas, groundwater overuse has been most precipitous, leading to ground subsidence, salinization and the demise of riparian forests. With regard to grazing, overstocking still continues on public and private lands in Arizona and Mexico's CODECOCA statistics confirm that 2 to 5 times the recommended stocking rates occur with regularity on the Sonoran side of the border. Adequacy of Current Measures to Protect Biodiversity Although there are many stresses on the region's biodiversity, we have witnessed more areas decreed as protected (as international, national or state biosphere reserves) in the last decade than any other decade in the history of the Sonoran bioregion. In addition, there are now more resource managers working on both sides of the border than there were a decade ago, although many more need training to better manage their areas for biodiversity instead of for single species or for recreation. For each Sonoran Desert subregion, vulnerable species and areas, and areas that merit protection are listed. When asked if protected area managers still allow activities which deplete biodiversity, twenty-five of the surveyed scientists answered yes, nine answered no, and seventeen answered that such harmful activities now occur less than before.
38 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
However, it is a hopeful sign that over one quarter of the respondents see fewer harmful activities occurring within protected areas today than before--meaning either before the decree of these areas, or for early-established parks and wildlife refuges, before 1975. A notable portion of the scientists felt that grazing was finally being addressed sufficiently in discussions between resource managers, ranchers and scientists. Others felt that the impacts of ecotourism and outdoor recreation were being sufficiently dealt with at the local level. However, a majority of the scientists felt that virtually no threat is truly being adequately addressed anywhere in the Sonoran biome where they have worked. Emerging Conservation Needs and Priorities When field experts conversant with the Sonoran bioregion were asked what they felt should be the number one priority for conservation, they responded in a variety of ways, noting policy issues, research and education needs, action strategies, as well as earmarking species, habitats or landscapes in critical need of conservation. The extensive list includes the need to shift away from social and economic systems that reward consumptive behaviors and short-term gain while damaging natural systems, manage irrigation tailwaters and sewage effluent to restore the wetlands of the Colorado River delta, and many other recommendations. What's Next? It is clear that there is much reported by the field scientists surveyed here that bears reflection, discussion, debate and action. It is also abundantly evident that scientists' attention is not spread evenly across the biotic communities of the bioregion--some habitats such as mangrove swamps, riparian gallery forests and semidesert grasslands south of the U.S. - Mexico border are irregularly visited by biologists and poorly monitored relative to their significance. There are four problems identified as the emerging issues which still require considerable discussion if they are to be resolved for the region:
1. The need for urban planning and agricultural lands restoration to allow for continuous corridors for wildlife passage through urban areas where their movements are currently blocked. 2. The need for guaranteeing river flow into coastal lagoons and estuaries of the Gulf of California (including the Colorado River delta) to ensure nutrient and fresh water flow essential to nursery grounds for invertebrates, fish, and waterfowl. 3. The need to redirect the management of critical habitats in state parks, wildlife refuges and national monuments away from recreation or protection of single species or features; focus needs to shift to overall biodiversity and the integrity of habitats, so that the interactions between species and natural communities persist. 4. The need for planning that reduces impacts of coastal and island development in the Gulf of California region where endemism is the highest.
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 39
Rural to Urban Land Conversion in Metropolitan Phoenix Patricia Gober, Ph.D. Professor of Geography, Arizona State University Elizabeth K. Burns, Ph.D. Professor of Geography, Arizona State University Kim Knowles-Yanez, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor of Planning, Arizona State University Jeffrey James Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Geography, Arizona State University At the forefront of public debate about the future of metropolitan Phoenix is the issue of growth. The Phoenix region's growth typically has been at the urban fringe and characterized by low population densities, leap-frog development, competition among municipalities for new development, and aggressive annexation. Open desert is being rapidly converted into homes, shopping centers, schools, industrial parks, and roads with enormous implications for indigenous plants and animals. Also, irrigated agricultural fields, some cultivated for a century or more, are turning over to urban uses with dramatic effects on the local ecology. The conversion of open land into suburbs can be tracked through housing completions and demolitions and population growth. Geography of Residential Completions and Demolitions Valley municipalities are required to report additions and subtractions to their housing stock by location, size, type of unit, and date of completion to the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG). Between April 1990 and June 1997, MAG recorded 179,483 residential completions and 3,024 demolitions. New homes are the most visible sign of the urban growth process as they replace open desert and farm fields. Demolitions reflect urban decline and the conversion of land from housing to other urban land uses such as roadways. Figures 1-3 show residential completions, residential demolitions, and net residential completions by traffic analysis zones (TAZ) between 1990 and 1997. In Figure 1, a TAZ is included in the highest category if there were more than 500 residential completions per square mile between 1990 and 1997. This is the zone where rural/urban land use turnover is most intense. It is the crest of a wave of housing construction that is preceded by a less intense zone where development is just getting started and followed by another less intense zone whose wave of intense activity is now past. Note the close correspondence between fringe development and the completed and proposed freeway system, the lack of any significant development in the southwestern quadrant of the Valley, and the lack of significant housing construction in the interior of the metropolitan area where it is extremely difficult for a developer to put together enough vacant land to meet our lower threshold of 500 units per square mile.
40 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
Figure 1 Residential Completions 1990-97
Figure 2 Residential Demolitions 1990-97
Residential Completions (in units per sq. mile) Less than 20 20 to 500 More than 500
Freeways Completed Proposed
0 5 Miles 10
Residential Demolitions (in units per sq. mile) 0 Less than 20 20 or more
Freeways Completed Proposed
0 5 Miles 10
Figure 3 Net Residential Completions 1990-97
Figure 4 Population Change 1990-95
Net Residential Completions (in units per sq. mile) Less than 20 20 to 500 More than 500
Freeways Completed Proposed
0 5 Miles 10
Population Change Net loss (-1860 to 0) Small net gain (1 to 999) Large net gain (1000 to 5189)
Freeways Completed Proposed
0 5 Miles 10
The demolition of 3,024 housing units between 1990 and 1997 (See Figure 2) demonstrates that urban change is not a one way street. Units are subtracted from the housing stock primarily because they are abandoned through decline or because they are in the path of a major infrastructure project. TAZs with the most demolition are concentrated in the path of the recently completed Squaw Peak Parkway, Loop 202, and I-10 Expressways and are sprinkled throughout inner city neighborhoods of Phoenix and Mesa. Demolition is a common process as strategically located residential land is put to more intensive use as a transportation corridor. In other areas, substantial demolition is a symptom of urban decay in which there is a decline in the demand for housing. The "suburbanization" of population and economic activity has robbed some inner-city neighborhoods of their economic vitality and has undercut the normal processes that lead to the replacement of inefficient housing units with more modern ones.
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 41
Net residential completion (Figure 3) is the difference between additions and subtractions to the housing stock. The distribution of net completions vividly illustrates the hollowing out of the inner city. Central or west Phoenix and older neighborhoods in Tempe, Mesa, and Scottsdale had little to no net growth in housing units. At the same time, growth has exploded at the outskirts of the built-up area, especially in the southeast Valley and the north and west sides. Geography of Population Growth The patterns of population change shown in Figure 4 are complex, but they illustrate a number of points about the urban growth process. First, population change may or may not be linked to changes in the housing stock. Many of the TAZs with significant population gains are on the urban fringe, and growth there is clearly due to the flurry of new home construction. But, population growth can also occur for reasons other than new home construction. One major reason is racial and ethnic change. Hispanics, new immigrants in particular, tend to have large families. When they replace Anglos in a neighborhood, significant population growth can occur without any increase in the number of housing units. Ethnic change in west Phoenix has created pockets of high growth (more than 1,000 persons per square mile) in the midst of little new construction activity. Similarly, population decline can occur without demolition. The aging of neighborhoods causes population declines. Because most of the housing in a given neighborhood was built at the same time and inhabited by people at similar stages of the life cycle, entire neighborhoods can be downsizing at the same time. This type of demographic change is common in areas ringing the inner city and in some older suburban neighborhoods. A second lesson from Figure 4 is that population gains and losses occur all over the urban area for a variety of reasons. Metropolitan Phoenix may be among the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the nation, but this growth process is not a universal characteristic of the area. Of the 1,267 TAZs in the metropolitan area, 449 lost a total of 76,273 people. What is universal is the capacity for change. Populations never stand still. In 1994, 23.8 percent of Phoenix-area households moved in the previous year, 17 percent of them within the metropolitan area itself.1 A second destabilizing influence involves one of the simple and inexorable laws of demography--people grow old one year at a time. This aging process results in significant changes in family size and household structure. And third, ethnic turnover can drastically change the population characteristics of small areas within a very short period of time. These factors explain why small-scale population loss is so common in an environment of growth, why school districts need to build new schools in some areas while closing them in others, and why local
42 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
business must be constantly attuned to their ever-changing population bases. Population and Land In order to gain a clearer picture of the dynamic relationship between population and urban land and for the way different municipalities make use of their land resource, we compared land consumption rates and land absorption coefficients for 13 cities in Maricopa County. Land Consumption Rate (LCR) � LCR measures the urban land consumed per 1,000 people. Land Absorption Coefficient (LAC) � LAC is the change in urban land area per 1,000 change in population over a period of time. In general this comparison shows how much urban land is being consumed for every 1,000 people being added to the population. "Urban land" was defined as TAZs where the population density exceeded 100 persons per square mile, excluding land that MAG characterizes as undevelopable open space. At this threshold, homes are beginning to be built, an urban infrastructure is in place, and traffic is on the rise. A Geographic Information System was used to determine whether or not each TAZ in our study area met the threshold for urban. Then the amount of urban land in a municipality and the number of persons living on that land were calculated. These data were used to calculate the LCRs, or the average amount of urban land for every 1,000 residents in each of the 13 municipalities in 1990 and 1995. An LCR differs from the usual measure of population density because it limits the land base to urban residential land only. Areas designated by MAG as undevelopable are excluded from the base. The result is an indicator of how intensively available residential land is being used. LCRs differ quite substantially across the 13 municipalities included in this study (See Table 1). LCRs in 1990 ranged from a high of 2.4 in Goodyear to a low of .23 in Tempe. This means that each 1,000 residents of Goodyear consumed, on average 2.4 square miles of urban land while 1,000 Tempeans consumed only .23 square miles. Not surprisingly the lowest LCRs were in Phoenix and older suburbs like Tempe that evolved when higher residential densities were the norm. Besides Goodyear, high land consumption rates occurred in Fountain Hills and Paradise Valley because of traditional emphasis on very low density development.
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 43
Table 1: Land Consumption Rates in 1990 and 1995
City Pop. 1990 Land Area LCR Pop. 1995 Land Area 13.3 47.3 13.9 33.4 66.5 34.1 103.3 14.3 33.3 333.9 101.7 33.0 8.2 991.2 LCR .58 .34 1.00 .52 .35 3.09 .28 1.13 .43 .29 .61 .22 .88 .40
Avondale 18,867 13.3 .71 22,858 Chandler 94,793 43.5 .46 137,524 Fountain Hills 10,012 14.0 1.39 13,802 Gilbert 34,571 26.3 .76 64,078 Glendale 158,205 58.0 .37 187,496 Goodyear 6,697 16.4 2.44 11,027 Mesa 321,796 105.5 .33 370,105 Paradise Valley 12,259 14.3 1.17 12,638 Peoria 53,418 30.4 .57 76,445 Phoenix 994,816 308.6 .31 1,146,069 Scottsdale 130,668 63.1 .48 167,837 Tempe 142,619 33.4 .23 152,670 Surprise 6,148 4.9 .81 9,292 Maricopa County 2,082,002 819.7 .39 2,487,512 Source: Authors' calculations from MAG 1990 and 1995 population coverages
Land absorption coefficients measure the change in urban land area per 1,000 new residents between 1990 and 1995. High coefficients are recorded by communities that bring ever more land under development and low coefficients are indicative of communities where there is little new urban land. Here development occurs by filling in TAZs that were already designated as urban in 1990. Low LACs are found in Avondale, Chandler, Fountain Hills, Mesa, Paradise Valley, Peoria, Phoenix, and Tempe (See Table 2). In these communities, urban land was largely fixed between 1990 and 1995. Additional population was funneled into existing urban land. Quite a different growth strategy pertained in Gilbert, Glendale, Scottsdale, and Surprise where development occurred by converting previously rural land to urban uses. In Scottsdale, every 1,000 new residents between 1990 and 1995 required 1.03 square miles of new urban land in contrast to Chandler where 1,000 new residents took only .09 square miles of new urban land. Table 2: Land Absorption Coefficients, Total Land Area
City Land Absorption Coefficient City Land Absorption Coefficient 0 .12 .17 1.03 -.05 1.03 .42 Avondale 0 Paradise Valley Chandler .09 Peoria Fountain Hills -.02 Phoenix Gilbert .24 Scottsdale Glendale .29 Tempe Goodyear 4.10 Surprise Mesa -.04 Maricopa County Sources: Authors' calculations from MAG's 1990 and 1995 coverages
44 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
Conclusions Despite the high growth reputation of Phoenix, losses in population and housing are widespread across the metropolitan area. Intense activity occurs along a fairly welldefined line of new development at the urban fringe. Farther out appears to be a zone of moderate development which has not yet been inundated by new home construction. Closer in is an area whose period of intense development is now past. Urban growth is not a monolithic process. In some communities, growth involves converting more land to urban uses. In others, there is more of a filling-in process taking place. Communities across the country are experimenting with managing growth along the urban fringe through such techniques as growth management boundaries, annual growth caps, and contiguous growth requirements. While Valley municipalities do not use any of these types of growth management tools, they are able to affect some control over development through other methods such as zoning ordinances, impact fees or exactions in kind for development, infill strategies, open space preservation, and annexation policies. For example, Phoenix has an urban infill strategy designed to encourage use of vacant or under used lots.This may work to redirect the location of new development away from the urban fringe of the city. Zoning codes delineate the kinds of development which can occur in specific areas, and sometimes there are even further restrictions. Notably, Scottsdale has an Environmentally Sensitive Lands Ordinance which encourages land uses "which are compatible with the environment." Communities that are building on new territory require more land for their growth than do cities where construction is largely confined to land that is already urban. The Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Project's goal is to relate the character of new urban growth to municipal land use and development policies. To what extent do communities affect development patterns by their policies? Answering this question comparatively across the municipalities studied here will complement this article's findings regarding population growth and new urban land use and provide a more complete understanding of metropolitan Phoenix's dynamic and complex urban fabric.
Notes
1 U. S. Census, American Housing Survey, Current Housing Survey, 1994.
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 45
Travel in Metropolitan Phoenix Elizabeth K. Burns, Ph.D. Professor of Geography, Arizona State University The growth of metropolitan Phoenix has created a low-density region where residents must travel to their often widely dispersed residential, work, shopping, and social destinations. Personal mobility is a core value of the individualistic Arizona lifestyle, but it raises concerns about increasing road congestion, limited alternatives to driving, and deteriorating air quality. Most travelers, however, have no choice but to use personal cars and trucks to get through their daily routines. Four mobility trends are particularly important in metropolitan Phoenix at this time. Continuing population and employment growth supports even larger increases in the use of personal vehicles. Phoenix led the nation in the 1970s in population growth, labor force expansion, and increased use of personal vehicles to travel to work. In the 1980s, the rate of population growth continued with Phoenix second only to Orlando, Florida.1 Personal mobility, as measured by the number of daily vehicle miles traveled, has grown at a rate of 4.3 percent every year since 19852. Thus in 1996, almost 59 million vehicle miles were traveled per day on interstates, highways, and arterial and local streets in metropolitan Phoenix. This travel volume equals an average of 22.72 miles per person with only 1 percent of all vehicle trips taken by public transit3. When metropolitan Phoenix is compared with other western cities, the average miles traveled per person is lower, but the use of public transit lags and travel occurs disproportionately on a network of highways, arterials, and local streets4. Efforts to correct a gap in regional freeway capacity led to the passage in 1985 of a half-cent sales tax for a $5.5 billion augmentation of the freeway system. While popular priorities have continued to support freeway construction, some communities, like Tempe, are improving transit services. Travelers in metropolitan Phoenix find themselves in the difficult situation of moving around during a major freeway construction effort, while the volume of travel continues to increase. Thirty-one miles of the planned 124 miles were completed by 1997. If all the planned increases occur in freeway and local street miles and bus services, the number of congested intersections and lanes will still grow5. Congestion that is concentrated now in the core of the metropolitan region will extend into the suburbs. Distances between home, work, and social activities add to travel difficulties. "With less than one third of the population of Los Angeles, the residents of the Phoenix metropolitan area log two thirds of the vehicle miles traveled in Los Angeles"6. Large residential developments are now located at the suburban fringe so that jobs,
46 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
entertainment, and shopping are some distance away. By 1997 each one-way trip averaged 7.63 vehicle miles. Regional one-way average travel times to work increased 5.6 percent to 23 minutes from 1980 to 1990.7 Commutes across city boundaries to work are the norm. For example in 1997 only 31.5 percent of Maricopa County residents lived and worked in the same city8. While over 74 percent of Phoenix residents worked in Phoenix, only 7.2 percent of Gilbert residents were employed in Gilbert. These contrasts suggest that broad travel imbalances will continue as the metropolitan area continues to expand outward. The use of private cars and trucks, particularly in single-occupant trips, dominates metropolitan commuting. In 1990, driving alone and carpooling accounted for 89% of work trips. This percentage has remained steady since 1970 (See Table 1). Table 1: Means of Transportation to Work in Metropolitan Phoenix
1990 Drove alone Carpooled Worked at home Walked Bus or Trolley All other means (motorcycle, taxi, rail, bicycle) 75% 14% 3% 3% 2% 3% 1980 70% 19% 2% 3% 2% 4% 1970 79% 10% 2% 4% 1% 4% 1960 82% Drove alone includes carpooled 4% 6% 4% 4%
Source: U.S. Census of Population 1960-1990
By 1997, participants in the Maricopa County Regional Trip Reduction Program used alternative modes of transportation for nearly 30 percent of their commuting trips9. Employees most commonly used carpools and a combination of compressed work week and telecommuting to reduce commuting mileage. However, private vehicles remain a necessity, not an option, for daily mobility for most residents. Travel by private vehicles, especially for women, makes it possible to juggle the daily demands of employment, household responsibilities, and child care. Even low-income workers find that access to a car is essential. Employed residents of one neighborhood in central Phoenix are heavy users of the automobile for their work trips. They travel by carpool more and drive alone less than metropolitan residents as a whole, but only slightly10. Unfortunately, automobile dependence also creates a gap in social and economic participation for those who cannot afford a vehicle or cannot drive. Now residents can live at a distance from work and not pay a comparable price in travel time, but that may not be the case in the future. Some are looking for alternatives now. Travelers to inner-city work sites will continue to find that congestion in the
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 47
metropolitan core provides a considerable incentive to change their travel behavior. A positive "culture of commuting options" is emerging in some work sites at Sky Harbor International Airport for example. Many employees live in the new suburban areas and are interested in alternate commute modes such as carpooling and telecommuting. Current employees who use compressed workweek schedules live at distances of 15-17 miles from work along the Interstate-10 corridor serving Ahwatukee, Tempe, and Chandler.11 Technological and traffic system improvements are being installed on existing freeways and major arterial highways with the goals of faster travel times and less congested routes. High-occupancy vehicle lanes, message information signs, rapid accident removal, and trip planning information technologies, ideally, will result in travel mode, time of day, and route shifts. The extent to which these improvements slow the rate of growth in congestion on the interstate system remains to be seen. Present-day mobility reflects a dependence on personal vehicles that shows few signs of changing. Arizonans appear to prefer an unregulated lifestyle that depends on personal mobility. However, the realities of urban travel are beginning to motivate residents to change their travel modes, routes, and times, shift residential and employment locations, and share rides with others with a common social bond or travel purpose. As policy choices are considered, it is important to note that these personal responses are not sufficient by themselves to overcome current growth trends toward an increased volume of travel and decentralized development patterns. Notes
1 Alan Pisarski, Commuting in America II: The Second National Report on Commuting Patterns and Trends. Lansdowne, VA: Eno Transportation Foundation, 1996. Commuting in America. Westport, CT: Eno Transportation Foundation, 1992. 2 Mary Kihl, Forging an Appropriate Transportation System for Arizona. Arizona Academy, 1997. 3 ibid. 4 Morrison Institute for Public Policy.What Matters in Greater Phoenix: 1997 Indicators of Our Quality of Life, 1997. 5 Arizona Town Hall, 1997. 6 Arizona Town Hall, 1997. 7 U. S. Bureau of the Census. 1980 Census of Population and Housing, 1984 and 1990 Census of Population and Housing. Social and Economic Characteristics. Metropolitan Areas. 1993. 8 Maricopa County Regional Trip Reduction Program, 1997 Annual Report. 9 ibid. 10 Patricia Gober, and Elizabeth K. Burns, "Why Inner-City Job Linkages Won't Work in Phoenix." Applied Geographic Studies 2: 1-16., 1998. 11 Elizabeth K. Burns, E. K. "Participation of Employed Women in Telecommute Options: Evidence from Inner-City Phoenix," Paper presented at the Telecommunications and the City Conference, University of Georgia, 1998.
48 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
Growth Brings Uneven Benefits for Arizonans Tom Rex Research Manager, Center for Business Research, Arizona State University Growth can be defined in different ways, such as population gains, employment increases, or geographic expansion of a community. In Arizona, these measures largely coincide so that references to growth in this article refer to it generically. The Need to Grow Because the population continues to increase, other types of growth, such as employment, need to keep pace. Even if an area's population is not increasing from net in-migration, the number of jobs usually needs to increase because of rising workforce participation rates among women and because the number of young people entering the workforce exceeds the number of workers retiring or dying. The number of new jobs needed in Arizona has been estimated to be approximately 21,000 per year; of these 13,000 are needed in Maricopa County with 4,000 in Pima County, and 4,000 in the balance of the state.1 Between 1980 and 1995, an average of 61,600 jobs were created per year (figures in recent years have been even higher). Only in two recessionary years did job growth fall short of 21,000. The fact that the number of jobs created has been about triple the number needed by the existing population is most of the reason for the state's rapid population growth. The more than 40,000 jobs per year in excess of those needed by the existing population have allowed many working-age people, especially those 18 to 29 years old, to move to Arizona. Most of these working-age migrants would not be in Arizona if they could not find a job. The state's experience fits with the findings of national studies that indicate that 60 to 90 percent of new jobs go to migrants. Across the state, job growth has been greater than that needed to employ local residents entering the workforce except in isolated communities, especially Indian reservations. Despite the high numbers of new jobs, unemployment rates remain high, and workforce participation rates low, throughout much of the state beyond the Phoenix metro area. Low workforce participation rates usually reflect the inability of local residents to compete for the jobs being created. Migrants with more education, work experience, and job skills have filled many jobs in Arizona to the exclusion of local residents. Costs and Benefits Of Growth And Urban Size Since many of the costs and benefits of growth are difficult to quantify, personal perspective plays an important role in weighing the advantages and disadvantages of growth. Thus, determination of a generally accepted, scientifically defensible, optimal
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 49
city size or growth rate is not possible. While the concepts of urban size and growth rate are not completely interchangeable, the costs and benefits of each are highly related. Table 1 summarizes the generalized costs and benefits for each of three groups: the private sector (businesses), individuals (or households or families), and society as a whole (the public sector). Even within each of these three groups, costs and benefits do not accrue evenly among all members. Table 1: Generalized Benefits and Costs of Urban Growth and Increased Size
BENEFITS TO BUSINESSES Improved market potential, including more customers and higher profits Improved productivity and efficiency Increased availability of business services and capital Broader employment opportunities Higher incomes* Increased cultural and recreational choices Greater selection of goods and services Wider choice of housing Improvements to infrastructure and social services Public sector economies of scale Broadened tax base Healthier economy with a stable, diversified structure Psychological benefits from increased exposure and sophistication Increased rate of innovation and inventions Lower incidence of poverty* COSTS Increased competition Higher costs, such as land, labor and utilities Higher taxes Greater travel time
TO INDIVIDUALS
Higher taxes Increased cost of living, especially housing prices Psycho-social, including lifestyle changes, stress, and loss of sense of community Strain on public facilities Increase in social problems, such as homelessness and income disparity Higher costs of government, increased government size Urban sprawl and congestion of some public goods Traffic congestion and accidents Higher crime rate Air pollution Water quality and quantity Other environmental damage
TO SOCIETY AT LARGE
* Associated with larger urban size, but not with the growth rate
Private Sector Businesses generally are perceived to receive a strong net benefit from urban growth and increased urban size. This was verified in the Phoenix area in a survey conducted in 1987.2 The survey was limited to business owners and senior managers living in metropolitan Phoenix. Eighty-five percent thought growth was beneficial to businesses
50 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
in the Phoenix area, compared to 12 percent who thought it was costly. Survey respondents agreed that improved market potential (more customers) was by far the greatest benefit from urban growth. Other generally perceived benefits include higher profits; better availability of labor; increased availability of business services, including banking and capital; and improved productivity and efficiency. Most of the benefits, however, have associated costs that reduce the net benefit. For example, greater travel time limits the net improvement in productivity for many firms. While a growing economy attracts labor from elsewhere in the country, it does not always bring in enough workers for all occupations. Labor shortages in certain occupations have occurred in the Phoenix area in recent years. Increased competition is a serious cost of growth to existing businesses. Examples exist from the Phoenix and Tucson metros of rapid growth attracting many national chains at the same time, driving local businesses and some chains entirely out of business. More generally, except for monopolistic or near-monopolistic sectors, the benefits from growth are short term, with the market constantly adjusting to a new equilibrium between increased customers and increased competition. The higher profits perceived as a net advantage of growth may be offset by increased costs of doing business (such as land, labor, utilities, and taxes). Increases in costs generally have been moderate in Arizona. The principal beneficiaries of urban growth and increasing urban size are those who possess monopoly advantage in the marketplace. Historically, banks, utilities, and newspapers have had little competition, but deregulation is changing this situation. In addition, those who own fixed assets, such as land, receive a disproportionately large jump in value from the greater demand that accompanies urban growth. Further, individuals who own enterprises for which efficiency rises with size or who hold important nonduplicative positions, such as key private and public sector executives, are essentially isolated from increased competition and thereby prosper from urban growth. Especially large landowners, and those who do business with these property owners, profit from growth and the associated increased intensification of land uses. This group has a very strong vested interest in growth. Thus, while growth leads to a significant net benefit to the business community as a whole, some entities reap tremendous benefits, while others face a net cost that may drive them out of business. Those business enterprises that serve a national or international market, such as many manufacturing firms, receive little net benefit from growth.
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 51
Individuals Growth is felt to generally carry a slight net cost to individuals, households, and families already living in an area. This was verified in the 1987 survey in which 42 percent of respondents thought growth had a beneficial impact on individuals in the Phoenix area, while 49 percent felt the impact was costly. Generally perceived benefits to individuals include broader employment opportunities, increased cultural and recreational opportunities, greater selection of goods and services, wider choice of housing, and higher incomes. Costs include higher taxes and an increased cost of living, especially higher housing prices. As discussed below, higher incomes are associated with a larger urban area, but not with growth in recent years. Further, at least part of any increase in incomes is typically offset by a higher cost of living. In the Phoenix and Tucson areas, neither higher incomes nor costs have been significant results of growth. In communities such as Prescott and Flagstaff, however, growth in the 1990s has resulted in significantly higher housing costs. The increase in choice of employment, shopping, entertainment, and housing are all significant benefits in less populous areas. These benefits largely disappear as populous areas continue to grow. Phoenix-area residents in recent years have received little benefit in any of these regards because growth generally has brought more of the same. The exception may be in employment opportunities for those in certain specialized occupations. In contrast, the Tucson area is probably still benefitting from growth, especially in employment and entertainment opportunities. It is in certain types of entertainment, such as major league sports, where benefits continue to accrue up to a population of around 1.5 million. In less populous areas, increased choice and opportunities are a significant benefit of growth. However, psycho-social costs probably are greatest in smaller communities, since it is here that the character of the community is most likely to be changed by growth. While some residents may welcome the benefits and wish for their community to grow further, others may be living there precisely because of their desire not to live in a populous area. Except for this latter group, growth carries a strong net benefit to individuals in less populous areas. This benefit declines with size until it turns into a net negative in large urban areas. While growth carries a net cost to most individuals already living in a large urban area, the same cannot be said for new migrants to the area. Most migrants initially view their move to be a substantial net positive personally�otherwise most would not undertake such a long distance move. Most migrants to Arizona perceive significant improvement in their quality of life, mostly due to climatic factors. While economic aspects are
52 Arizona Policy Choices October 1998
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona's Growth in Context
important for most migrants, many are willing to sacrifice financially because of perceived amenities. Moreover, if the new residents purchase a new home at the fringe of the urban area, they generally benefit from the low land costs without being made to pay for the full cost of public services to their new home. Society at Large Growth is generally recognized to carry a slight net cost to society as a whole, much of which can be measured by effects on the public sector. The 1987 survey respondents saw the issue in this way, with 43 percent feeling growth provided a net benefit to society at large, while 48 percent felt it resulted in a net cost. Improvements to the social and physical infrastructure are seen as a prime benefit from growth. Included here are more and better public services, such as medical care and education, as well as economies of scale. Other benefits frequently cited include a healthier economy due to more diversification and stability, a broadened tax base, an increased rate of innovation and inventions, and a lower incidence of poverty. Unfortunately, neither of the latter two benefits can be seen in Arizona. A variety of societal costs result from growth. These include traffic congestion and air pollution. Other costs include the quality and quantity of water, environmental damage, higher crime rates, various social problems, urban sprawl and congestion, strain on public facilities, and increased government size and cost. While growth's effects on the public sector may be seen in cities of all sizes, most of the costs are greater in very populous areas than in less populous areas. Studies have shown that population growth is associated with higher per capita spending by local governments. The increased per capita taxes borne by the entire community may come at the same time as declines in the quality of the public service. Like the net impact on individuals, the effect of growth on society at large may be a net positive in less populous areas, but a net negative in larger urban areas. The divergence of continued net benefits to the private sector and to certain individuals while the net benefits to the other groups are disappearing results in the growth of an area beyond the size desired by a majority of its residents. Growth And Prosperity in Arizona Empirical evidence indicates that the more populous the area, the higher both incomes and costs tend to be. The net effect is higher wages and incomes even after considering living costs and taxes. Thus, the economic well-being of individuals tends to be highest on average in very populous metro areas and least in small communities. However, these higher incomes largely represent compensation for the "disamenities" (such as pollution) associated with large urban areas.
Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona Policy Choices October 1998 53
In contrast, however, empirical evidence from recent years does not reveal any relationship between the rate of population growth and incomes. While some individuals and companies benefit financially from growth, the prosperity of the community as a whole is unaffected. Similarly, growth has no significant effect on the unemployment rate. Despite rapid employment growth, unemployment rates do not fall relative to other areas since migrants fill the majority of new jobs. Per capita personal income (PCPI) is a measure of economic well-being. Among the 50 states, increases in PCPI have had no relationship with population growth rates over at least the last ten years. Since the end of World War II, Arizona's population growth has been consistently among the fastest in the nation. Arizona's PCPI growth has been a bit below the national average, with the actual level of per capita personal income remaining far below the national average. Over the past ten years, Arizona's PCPI gains were among the weakest in the country. Other measures of prosperity and economic well-being in Arizona have a record similar to that of the PCPI. Despite strong employment growth since the last recession, unemployment rates in 1997 were at least seven percent in ten of 15 Arizona counties, with the overall figure for the 13 less populous counties in excess of ten percent. The average wage in Arizona grew less than the national average throug
Arizona State Agency Publications
