There is no better indication of the lack of an engaged and effective civic leadership in Tucson proper, than the collective failure to recognize a serious urban pathology right before their very eyes. One 100% caused by, and totally benefitting, an organized political conspiracy.
The setting, backdrop, and history are critical, and it underpins a kind of cultural fatalism and racist xenophobia hiding behind the current (& ineffective) rah-rah boosterism. While its Metro is still growing very anemically, Tucson has become a disorganized urban goulash with over a million inhabitants and yet, is nearly 40% un-incorporated; those giant parts governed under the thumb of a barely responsive Pima County.
So much for the fantasies of a sinecured & detached Tucson elite, who are now all approaching Geezer status (the capable young people leave; including 80%+ of UA grads). This smug, blinkered crowd thought Tucson would remain a quaint little college town and funky hipster hangout in the Desert Southwest at the Mexican border. Hint: it has a far better chance of that with the solution below; so consider the alternatives.
If Metro Tucson continues on with the current distorted urban footprint; it will surely fall into what numerous technologists and city thinkers are now calling the ‘Urban Doom Loop’ (UDL). Google that, it’s not pretty. It’s where systemic urban problems become a self-reinforcing cycle of misery.
Tucson’s present unincorporated Metro is comprised of some 13 Census Designated Places (CDP), ranging in size from Catalina (~7500 pop.) (15 sq. miles), up to Casas Adobes (~76000 pop.) at 27 square miles.
All this under the barely competent governance & stewardship of Pima County, a 9200 sq. mile, employment scheme monstrosity that stretches 170 miles to its western boundary.
But incorporating just 6 adjacent pairs of the Metro’s CDPs into 3 self-sustaining, larger municipalities would go a long way in addressing the glaring problem of malgovernance. Separate incorporations are a key feature the dominant paterfamilias, a.k.a. Grijalva Gang, finds absolutely terrifying. It strikes at the heart of their political control scheme.
The 3 adjacent CDPs in mind, Casas Adobes & Flowing Wells (31 sq. mi.); Valencia West, Drexel Heights & Tucson Estates (43 sq.mi.); and Catalina Foothills & Tanque Verde (75 sq.mi.), would result in 3 standalone cities with populations of ~93,000, ~56,000, and ~69,000, respectively. Amazing, huh?
Pima County still controls all these now; it’s patently ridiculous, unless there’s a powerful hidden agenda. And somehow, all the supposed smarties of Tucson, i.e. Peggy Noonan’s “high-IQ stupid people”, can’t see it.
Under Arizona state law, they’d also have the wherewithal to claw back decades of the taxes, fees, and levies Pima County has wasted ‘pack-ratting’ itself into a morbidly obese county jobs scheme.
Can this be done? It’s a purely political question, and goes to the heart of Tucson’s civic leadership. I’m optimistic, inasmuch as Metro Tucson has numerous assets that would still tie the resulting discrete units into a bigger urban whole. It would also lead to better decision making for the Metro in terms of the big items, i.e. transportation issues, water issues, better deployment of UA’s assets, the need for more urban novelty, etc.
But a failure here, and should Tucson’s [highly] anemic growth falter, then things will get seriously ugly demographically, after 2030.
Sellers is a Southpark Republican living in incorporated Oro Valley; his background is federal technology commercialization
