57 replies to this topic

[colin]

Why Dallas? Light rail!

No, Dallas is a pretty nice city. I was there last week for the first time and was blown away with how cool it was. Very walkable and urban in many sections. Otherwise, they've done a good job and making the city very attractive to at least drive through.
Also, the housing prices in Texas never really went up so the cost of living is still fairly low. My sister said to me (in regards to Austin, which is growing quite rapidly), "Some townhouses are even going for $200k", as if I was supposed to be shocked. I just laughed.

[convulso]

colin, on Mar 6 2007, 04:32 PM, said:

Why Dallas? Light rail!

No, Dallas is a pretty nice city. I was there last week for the first time and was blown away with how cool it was. Very walkable and urban in many sections. Otherwise, they've done a good job and making the city very attractive to at least drive through.
Also, the housing prices in Texas never really went up so the cost of living is still fairly low. My sister said to me (in regards to Austin, which is growing quite rapidly), "Some townhouses are even going for $200k", as if I was supposed to be shocked. I just laughed.

you had a pleasant experience driving in dallas? every time i drive there i always find myself wishing for atlanta's traffic.

ever driven I-35 from dallas to austin? the northbound is THE worst 100+ miles i've ever driven on an interstate. tire-busting. weird, because texas is generally great when it comes to maintaining roads (or, the feds are good about funding highways in texas). not this stretch, though.

off-topic. sorry.

[MJLO]

Well that whole Comerica thing is only a small move 200 high level employees or something.  The majority of their workforce would remain.  I was just using it as an example.  I'd love to see some high level companies set up shop here.

[MJLO]

Per capita income falters in AZ

It was an interesting arguement i was having a couple days ago.  Per capita income per state.  A friend of mine was trying to make the case that my home state ( Michigan)  was in basically the bottom of the barrel for everything economic.  So when we looked at hard numbers it did kind of suprise me that Arizona ranked towards the bottom of the list in per capita household income.  I knew it was in the bottom half, but I didn't realize how far.  The article answers my question as for why.  I would have thought that Metro Phoenix, with all its amenities would bring the state up, but it ranks lower itself.  One point that makes sense to me is the overwhelming number of people here who don't work.  So they don't have an income, but they bring the state average down.  But quite a few of those people are multi multi millionares.  So it has to create a somewhat skewed perception.

[MJLO]

Arizonas largest employers

I know I mentioned this above.  But this talks alot about Arizona's top employers.  One thing I didn't know was that Motorola had a huge presence in AZ ten years ago and now it's about down to notta.  Walmart still retains the top spot in the state, followed by Banner Health.

[colin]

Yeah, Motorola had a big facility south of Tucson that they turned into a community college.
Why this sudden obsession with employers, Matt? Looking for a new job?

[MJLO]

slow news week

[MJLO]

this seemed like a good place to ask this question,

I just read an article about how population growth has slowed into Arizona.  With the subprime crisis.  Do you think that this area, an economic powerhouse.  Fueled by growth, will go into recession?  I have long thought the Phoenix area almost impervious to economic cycles because the economy is on fire out here

[nuplanner]

The republic had a great story monday, or it might have been sunday.  I will have to find the link.  Anyway, they talked about the economic factors here, and basiclly, all we have done is relyed on growth to keep things going.  They have until the market caught fire, over inflated and unsustainble.  We are finially seeing the market correct itself.  but we have to move in other directions besides construction.

[MJLO]

We need more corporate headquarters in the valley.  There are almost no fortune 500 copanies here.  Alot of big regional presences.  But can we not capitalize on the valleys great weather, and stability, with darn near immunity from natural disasters?  Could we do what Atlanta did in the 80's and basically pay companies to relocate here and not pay taxes for decades?

[nuplanner]

I wish we could, but we are in competition with others, and we are not winning.  Speaking to a guy about the MLS team, he said many business owners outside of AZ think we are racist due to the immigration issue.  I don't know how big that is, but it might be an issue.





We are primarily focused and our economy runs on growth, has done so for 30-40 years.  Motorola was a big jump, but we have fallen with big companies.  We have landed some big companies, but the cost of moving a companies headquarters, rebirth of downtowns where these centers are and so forth make it hard to move.  I just think we need to stop relying on growth to keep our economy going.

[convulso]

nuplanner, on Jun 11 2008, 05:17 PM, said:

We are primarily focused and our economy runs on growth, has done so for 30-40 years [...] I just think we need to stop relying on growth to keep our economy going.

well, phoenix is one of america's late-20th-century boomtowns. phoenix, houston, atlanta, las vegas...the boomtowns are defined by rapid, often poorly-managed (if 'managed' is even a coherent enough term) growth. the western boomtowns in many ways have it even worse than the other ones, mainly because of the absence of any long-established urban paradigm in the spacious frontier states - people in the u.s. have always moved further west to exploit the freedoms that abundant land has profferred. that's not a wholesale criticism, but it has unfolded in the affluent, easy-come post-WWII years in a way that cannot bode well for the big cities' future. the sunbelt boomtowns all have these problems, but the western ones seem poised to exaggerate them.

growth at all scales - from our national economy all the way down to the publicly traded company - is a fundamental necessity of american capitalist rationale. i feel it's paradoxical for any significant american city to chart a course that does not have growth as one of its central objectives. that doesn't stop me from fully agreeing with your comment, though - especially in western cities like phoenix and las vegas. it's just that it's paradoxical and perhaps difficult to envision most cities seeking a more sustainable way to remain prosperous in a culture that values mobility, property, privacy and profit.

do you have any model cities (american or otherwise) that linger in the back of your mind as exemplars of economic stability without relying (at least relying so very heavily) on rapid growth? i can't think of any one city that nails it all (many might say portland; i'm not so sure - plus, i know too little about portland to opine), but several cities seem to nail this or that. when i think of a western city that has lately attempted to deal with escalating growth in a way that doesn't necessarily marry gonzo growth to economic stability, the closest i can come is albuquerque. my knowledge and experience are of course limited, though. there are probably better and more appropriate exemplars.

what say you?

[MJLO]

The valley is growing at a clip, but I wouldn't put it in league with Atlanta and Houston.  Both of those cities have a strong central core, Phoenix has almost no core, and has to fight with it's suburbs for regional importance.  Not to mention that for all the growth we do have.  There are far to many voices here that stand in the way of not just growth, but any kind of progress that could really help catapult Phoenix to where it probabally should be in terms of national recognition.

[MJLO]

I think '08 is a perfect example of how Phoenix can falter when the economy goes south.  With out big companies to really stabalize things, when it's bad, it's a worse in the valley.   I'm using my education to assume that Phoenix will emerge from this recession a little behind most of the country.  I think you can still count on growth in the future, because of the favorable climate.  But without a couple Giant companies here at least,  the economy will stay the same, when it's good it's outstanding,  when it's bad, it's horrid.   From 00 to 06 there was so much real estate speculation, it inflated the economy to fake unsustainable numbers, but back then noone thought about it because everyone was rakin in the dough.   It wasn't just housing, it was commercial,  industrial, and office.  I think the perfect example of this is in the north part of Peoria, on Lake Pleasant PKY.  Where it intersects with Happy Valley there are four huge strip mall developments, one on each corner, the two that were there first are mostly filled, except that they have lost a couple big stores and probabally will lose at least one anchor.  The two across the street are EMPTY!   There just isn't the population for all that retail out there.  The home builders stopped building in 07  and the growth stopped, I bet there is at least 500k sq ft of empty retail space out there.  Thats the story all over the valley.

[arcturus]

MJLO, on May 30 2006, 03:36 PM, said:

From what I can see, If the construction slows down. AZ could be in a world of hurt.

How prophetic.

AZ was one of the first states in recession and will no doubt be one of the last to pull itself out due to its overreliance in the real estate industry.  It failed to diversify its job base sufficiently and falsely assumed that weather trumped all other factors for sustainable growth.

[MJLO]

Well the diversification of an economic base is something that can take decades.  Look at Michigan, they've been pushing for diversification for years, and they have with alot more success than most of the country realizes.  But the Auto industry is still the noose around it's neck.  Most people dont realize it's a leader in Biotech, R&D, and Pharmecuticals too.  

In AZ's case, it's a financial services, back office mecca.  All of the major banks have huge job presences in Phoenix.  Because of AZ's stable climate, alot of data centers are there.  There are probabally more call center jobs, than in any other place in the country.  High paying finance jobs everywhere too.  During the past ten years in the population explosion, just as many educated people moved there, as did the blue collar workers without education.  Obviously AZ has a been hit with a double whammy, financial and construction.  But Arizona's service sector which is the other huge base, is much more stable than construction.  In terms of unemployment, it is still below the national average, and below other sun belt golden children such as North Carolina and Georgia.  That will change in the coming months i'm sure.  

If you ask me, construction in Arizona would be hit anyway, but nowhere near as hard as it has been.   In '04 '05 and '06, people were litterally making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on buying and selling homes.  Housing was a commodities market, just like oil.  Speculation drove the prices sky high, and people were still buying because the ceiling wasn't in site.  People are still flocking to Arizona in droves, Arizona still gained more people in '08 than any other state, most of them out flowing from the midwestern rust belt and mexico.  I think it will continue to grow at a much higher rate than the rest of the nation, and as the housing stock starts drying up, you'll see construction start coming back to life.  The thing I worry about is that leadership and residents dont learn a lesson and it happens again ten years from now when credit floweth over again.

[convulso]

MJLO, on Mar 24 2009, 08:07 AM, said:

I think it will continue to grow at a much higher rate than the rest of the nation, and as the housing stock starts drying up, you'll see construction start coming back to life.  The thing I worry about is that leadership and residents dont learn a lesson and it happens again ten years from now when credit floweth over again.

your thoughts are my thoughts. boom-bust areas typically stay boom-bust in spite of whatever changes the bust phases bring. it's during booms that leadership has the opportunity to take more initiative in charting a more diversified economic course. but even then, there's no magic bullet to avert every pitfall that makes attractive places like arizona attractive for the wrong reasons (short-term RE speculation; mass retirement; flight from rust belts or third world economies, etc.)

[MJLO]

I'm suprised, Arizonas economy is still fairing better than much of the nation even with the bubble bursting.  It's a shame, It doesn't have dozens of powerhouse fortune500 companies to create stability.  PHX will never truly be a player unless it can gain the stability and notoriety that places like MSP, and SEA have, because they are huge knowlege based economies, home to those huges companies.