A recently completed ULI Reality Check program suggested a constellation of connected centers as a flexible and effective template for Arizona’s future.
The pace of change and the maturing of the urban core in downtown Phoenix have been taking place over only the past few years. Consider, for example, the light-rail line connecting locations in Mesa, Tempe, and Glendale. Even while the project was under construction, there was much doubt that a high-quality public transit system would succeed in a region characterized by near total dependence on the automobile for its growth and suburban lifestyle. But that skepticism evaporated the day the system was inaugurated, and it has since exceeded all expectations. In fact, Valley Metro carried 12.1 million riders this past fiscal year, a 15 percent increase from a year earlier. As a result, nearly 60 miles (97 km) of extensions are planned for the next 20 years, if not sooner.
While these figures pale beside the systems in older and more compact U.S. cities, the light-rail system reflects a change in attitude regarding the future of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Additions to the skyline include new high-rise condominium and apartment buildings that portend a different kind of living for newcomers and current residents alike; large mixed-use developments such as CityScape, the scale and ambition of which matches anything in the city’s urban history; and the expansion or renewal of civic and cultural amenities. All these changes are representative of the expectations of an expanding professional population.
This is not to suggest that the city’s orientation is completely inward or that cars have been put in storage. “What is emerging in places like Phoenix, then, is not so much a rejection of urbanism as a redefinition of the notion of ‘city life’ that encompasses both a move back into the pre-industrial past and a move forward into the post-industrial future,” author and urban development authority Joel Kotkin writes in his 2010 book The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. “This model of urbanism, created on a new scale and with a newly possible mix of transportation and communications technologies, thrives in large part because for most commercial and industrial purposes it is as efficient in the contemporary era as the dense walking city was in its epoch.” A recently completed ULI Reality Check process arrived at a similar conclusion, suggesting a constellation of “connected centers” as a flexible and effective template for the future.
Perhaps the most potent demonstration of Phoenix’s awareness of its potential as a center of innovation—rather than just growth—is the creation of a university and biomedical district in the heart of the city. Purposefully located at the largest multimodal transportation node, these facilities—the Arizona State University downtown Phoenix campus, the Translational Genomics Institute, the University of Arizona Medical School, and a host of related laboratories—demonstrate that Phoenix can provide a platform for significant research that will, in turn, incubate new ventures and attract yet more intellectual and financial capital. However, this is only one node within a larger network of innovation-driven enterprises, such as the new SkySong research park in Scottsdale and the Discovery Triangle initiative that is dedicated to connecting the dots. Corresponding world-class cultural and sports venues in Tempe, Mesa, and Glendale attest to a rising creative class and the vibrancy of this polycentric strategy.
Spurred on by the Brookings Institution’s Megapolitan research, the notion of connectivity is extending beyond the metropolitan area to include the entire Flagstaff-Phoenix-Tucson axis, known as the Sun Corridor. The productivity of such regional clusters, which collectively account for 60 to 70 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, is encouraging advocacy organizations such as the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, Science Foundation Arizona, and the newly established Arizona Commerce Authority to think beyond the sum of the parts and, most important, to shape a diversified economy that can compete nationally, if not internationally. This is not business as usual: among the diverse companies that have made a continued commitment to the region are Intel, American Express, USAA, Honeywell, Avnet, Apollo Group, US Airways, Boeing, First Solar, and the Mayo Clinic.
Nevertheless, the competition for increased economic capacity and diversity is intense, and many emergent cities are in the mix. Once a company has decided to shift its attention away from the coasts, the attributes of the Sun Corridor are immediately weighed against those of the major urban centers in Texas—Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio—along with other western or middle-America options such as Salt Lake City or Oklahoma City. Like Phoenix and Tucson, these new capitals of commerce are building on a similar platform: a university-based workforce, an accommodating climate, relatively low costs, and welcoming incentives. All these cities offer attractive locations for expanded technology facilities and companies ranking among the highest performers in the S&P 500. As the November 15, 2010, Newsweek article “Greetings from Recoveryland” pointed out, these smaller but vibrant locations are the ones creating jobs and enjoying an inflow of new residents, and they are likely to emerge from the recession most rapidly and successfully. All of this requires a state like Arizona that has benefited from growth, housing, and tourism to imagine a very different future if it is to keep up with its peers.
But it has been painfully obvious lately that the perception of the region with regard to various economic, political, and social issues has pushed the Arizona brand into the national consciousness for reasons unrelated to tourism. In just the past year, Arizona has been presented in terms as stark as the landscape itself, which undeniably presents a challenge for a region trying to craft a more nuanced identity for itself in a highly competitive world.
Three less-than-ideal snapshots provide an abrupt reduction of complex issues for ready consumption by the media—partially complete subdivisions as emblems of exuberance and speculation; the “bathtub ring” left in Lake Mead by diminished rainfall, snowpack, and downstream water use; and protesters and pundits alike debating the merits of the state’s tough anti-immigration legislation, Senate Bill 1070. One could also include the shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and other bystanders at a Tucson shopping center on this list. Taken as a group, these events show Arizona as a lens through which the country as a whole can be seen. Each has launched a respective broader discussion about the economy, environmental resources, immigration, and political civility.
This is the dichotomy of Phoenix, the region, and the state: doing everything it can to be relevant and even thrive as an emerging 21st century metropolis, while at the same time struggling to outrun parochial distractions symptomatic of external forces acting upon the region. For example, while the state legislature is wrestling with a massive budget shortfall—one that will greatly affect cities, K-12 education, universities, and human services—it is also dedicating considerable attention to the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which grants citizenship to people born in the United States, and other personal freedoms that have been hallmarks of a Western orientation that is as much myth as reality. Given this duality, 2011 promises to be a year of unparalleled significance for the region and the state. Leaders from all sectors—business, government, education, social services, and others—are arriving at the same conclusion: Arizona is at a tipping point, and this year will, in all likelihood, chart the state’s future course for some time to come.
The recent economic downturn has whiplashed the state from a 17 percent budget surplus in fiscal year 2007 to a 17 percent deficit in 2010. But this cyclical condition, while exacerbated by hyper-rapid growth, was beyond local control and must be, to some degree, waited out. Alternatively, necessary decisions to either cut spending or increase revenues to address the long-term structural deficit are a different matter because they are internally driven and a reflection of who Arizonans are and what they aspire to be. Such decisions either will or will not inspire confidence with potential residents, families, businesses, and investors. More than a math problem, how officials choose to allocate resources will be a declaration about the state’s expectations for the future.
The crisis within state budgets is a story that is much in the news of late and is certainly not exclusive to Arizona. But the global, national, and regional contexts have made resolution of the matter a much more high-stakes game that cannot be lost. This moment, when the state must decide how to meet this challenge, may be the most decisive since Arizona’s founding nearly 100 years ago. As a recent study of Arizona by the Brookings Institution suggests, the stakes are high and have an upside: ". . . if managed well, the crisis might actually prompt innovation.”
In many ways, the current status of Phoenix and the state are the result of an accumulation of external factors—residential air conditioning, the federal highway system, demographics—combined with well-intended but frequently disconnected decision making. The future must be guided by an awareness of a pressing global context, overt goal setting, and a collective will that may in some ways run counter to the spirit of the American West and its rugged individualism. However, this is a script that Arizonans can write for themselves. Serving as the country’s laboratory for the future would be a fitting and ennobling centennial project.