Hopefully in Part 1, and from previous pieces going back 5+ yrs, Arizona’s legislative leaders can understand the growing danger of a Hard-Left, feral Tucson and its threat to the state as a whole.
If the state of Arizona were to “financially quarantine” Tucson, in terms of all non-essential spending, by 2030 the City’s prospects might actually look significantly better.
Otherwise, the demographics will be quite clear; 3 major groups all vying for the diminishing Arizona table scraps leftover from their wasted opportunities since the Cold War ended 39 years earlier (1991). That’s when Tucson, like other big southwestern cities, fell in a hole and failed to respond, quite unlike Albuquerque, El Paso, and the others who have since climbed out of that Cold War abyss.
Tucson will be the faltering demographic trifecta of white, wealthy, retired geezers (25-35%), then marginally employed, angry young brown people & their families (50-60%), and a mix of everyone else, most of whom want to leave. They will be trying to survive as the whole experiment devolves into a dysfunctional version of Arizona’s Mexicali.
So how might more of these healing consequences, originally listed in Part 1, be encouraged, for this saga in “Urban Tough Love 101”? Like…right now.
- “Bypass” as in an actual physical bypass, done using existing roadway R-O-W’s in Pinal and Cochise counties, from I-10 at Red Rock to the east of Tucson’s Metro, down N.Cascabel Road to Benson and/or over east to Willcox on W.Airport Road, where traffic can once again rejoin I-10. 99% avoiding the enviro-wingnuts running Pima County, and their increasingly dangerous & congested I-10 as the only crosstown freeway Tucson’s 1.1M metro’s got.
- Completely privatize UA athletics, such that it can be partially state-owned, and the rest spun-off in an IPO (initial public offering), and done in a manner that University administration doesn’t have to give a hoot-in-hell about what’s happening. They will have their hands full with rampaging AI by then anyway.
- Raise the state municipal insurance liability caps for malfeasance and general stupidity, per event, for PimaCo and the City of Tucson to $1 million from their ridiculously pitiful current levels; bring back punitive damages resulting from idiot bureaucrats. This will force some higher management attention (doubtful), but also force them to set aside a self-insured settlement pool ($$$) for future lawsuits (bound to happen).
- Suspend Arizona’s nutty anti-annexation laws, written to placate the rural fossils living under rocks in the desert, for 5-10 years. Give Tucson the ability to annex, within due process time frames, that unincorporated 40% of its uber-cheap, delusional Metro that believes Pima County is actually honest & effective. Let their Metro’s 12-13 Census Designated Places wakeup to the fact you-get-what-you-pay-for, and they’d better incorporate or be swallowed whole.
- Force UA to go back to its Land-Grant roots, and eliminate 100% of its useless-degree employment regimen of goofball Liberal Arts bilge (30-40% of UA total), spinning it off to Pima CC or similar state colleges in Thatcher or Coolidge. Revoke the TOTALLY BOGUS historic-designation quarter section of the Campus Farm site, and sell it for a private sector development that complements Tucson.
Of course, these are just for starters, but if some miracle occurs and they do happen, Tucson by 2040 will be a far more prosperous, beautiful, and opportunistic place for her citizens.
Sellers is a Southpark, Roosevelt-Republican (TR) living in incorporated Oro Valley; his background is federal technology commercialization, and administers the private group, Tucson E-P-T News, on Facebook
