Desert Visions and the Making of Phoenix, 1860-2009

10 An Uncertain Future: Looking for a New Vision

296 Part III attention, but others argued that the size of the metropolis was seriously straining the Valley’s resources and destroying its appeal. Proponents of no growth,smartgrowth,andnocontrolsongrowthbattledforpublicsupport.A mixture of optimism and concern, of pride and regret, ran through these years like water in the Salt River bed, offering benefits but threatening to flood. Discussions of growth had rested on the postwar high-tech suburban vision for growth. This comprehensive perspective had presented an interrelated set of economic, social, cultural, and political goals. The breadth of thatvisionandthecommoncommitmentofthecivicleaderstoimplementit had yielded impressive change and growth. But by the 1980s the limitations inherent in the vision, changes in the position of Phoenix and in the national context, and a failure to adjust the vision to changing circumstances had taken the city farther from what city leaders had expected and produced a building crisis. The most significant flaw in the original vision of politics was the exclusion of minorities. By the 1970s national and local pressures had largely remedied the legal and political inequities they had faced, but Phoenicians did not address the exclusion of the poor and poorly educated, both whites and minorities, from the primary economic opportunities. Despite the area’s continued economic growth, the economy was also flawed by the failures, first, to sustain the original economic vision, and then to update it to address changing realities. Major elements of the original plan included creating a diverse economy, recruiting high-tech firms—aerospace and electronic— and bolstering them with an excellent educational system. By the late 1960s, however, the commitment to those goals began to erode: the larger planning effort died, the focus on education shifted from an emphasis on excellence to a celebration of enrollment and size, and the vision of high tech had become a fixed stare. By the 1990s some Phoenicians began seeking ways to stimulate the economy. Phoenix also grappled with changes in the national economy and with the nation’s largest urban centers. Competing with second- or third-level regional centers, as it had through the 1950s, was much less difficult than vying with the nation’s largest and most dynamic urban centers for businesses and growth. Older cities had established networks of large businesses and accumulated wealth, which aided and directed economic development through investment and philanthropy. Some newer, dynamic cities had a few residents who invested substantial personal wealth in enterprises that greatly benefitedthosecommunities.Phoenixwashometofewerwealthyindividuals An Uncertain Future 297 and hosted fewer large businesses or business headquarters, reinforcing its second-tier image and hampering its ability to create the most desirable types of economic growth. The transformation of the city’s politics that began in the 1970s continued during the following decades. The political system was reshaped to address more adequately the diverse interests within the city, but the basic questions remained the same. What levels and types of city services should the city support? What should the city do to shape or slow suburban expansion? How important was it to revitalize downtown, and how could the city best accomplishthat?Thecity’seffortstoaddressthesequestionswereincreasingly limited by the expansion of its surrounding communities. The location of growth, the city’s share of the area’s population, and the greater number of separate communities within the Valley meant that most problems involving either the built or natural environment were metropolitan in nature. While Phoenix exercised the greatest influence on Valley decisions and policies, increasingly it had to seek partners, foster cooperation, and offer leadership, rather than simply acting on its own. During the 1950s Phoenix had vied for territory with several of its surrounding suburbs, but after 1980 annexation struggles proliferated among numerousValleycommunities.Whilepublicdiscussionsmightfocusonpride of size, the role of sales taxes in municipal finances was a more compelling motive behind efforts at expansion and annexation. Issues of resource management, environmental protection, transportation, and community planning also depended increasingly on complex agreements between multiple public and private parties. Within this growing metropolis, Phoenicians and the residents of other Valley communities increasingly struggled with questions of identity. In a new and rapidly growing area with many fresh arrivals, where human history had a limited known imprint on the land and where the landscapes had been significantly recontoured, what tied people together? Developers and city planners sought to create community through built environments. Neighborhood residents tried to foster social networks and community identification, while other citizens found connections through voluntary associations, often drawing members from across...