WAS: What Adults are Saying about Tomorrow's America
Maricopa County is a working laboratory of America's next look
On the north fringe of the Sonoran desert sits Maricopa County, Arizona—a place that in less than two generations has gone from dusty cowboy town to one of the country’s most populated urban centers. It’s a weird place—partially because most of its residents are from somewhere else. Transplants from Mexico, the Rust Belt and agricultural midwest predominate and it remains a popular place for retirees who may only live there part of the year.
That only recently has it become a major urban area means its recent past is a great barometer for American in the Reagan era. Not until the 1980s did anything like a “boom” start. Residents from the declining Rust Belt and the first wave of aging Baby Boomers arrived in waves. What they found was the closest thing America might have had to a two-tiered economic, urban locale. Its economy long had a narrow base; citrus and other agriculture, real estate speculation and then myriad, sunshine ways people might spend disposable income. It never has had a significant professional or business class and never was it a place where significant manufacturing or skilled trades flourished. As such Maricopa County never lost is blue or “middle” class because it never developed one in the first place. Most of all it has never been a “serious” place as a business, cultural or research center.
The initial boom hit so quickly the economy expanded only in directions to sate the migration. New housing construction, banking and every imaginable service sector grew to accommodate the growing horde. Arizona State University in Tempe rapidly went from a sleepy desert-school best known for its Happy Hours to a mammoth, multi-campus enrollment that is one of the largest in the world. Workers continued to stream from many parts of the west and midwest but the less expensive ones from south-of-the border were especially prized. It’s these folks who were the backbone of a mammoth service economy.
Given its heritage, Maricopa County has always had a sizable Latino population and significant Native American communities in that reservation lands are proximate to the urban center. The Black community was also stout and the original Whites here was a jumble of Mormon, old school ranchers and cowboys and the first waves of retirees that started appearing in the 1970s—a time even before the completion of the through interstate in Phoenix.
Cowtown exploded and that meant work was plentiful but not in a way to suggest a sustaining vibrant economy was taking hold. Instead it was rather haphazard—whoever could hire a hand to do a job—similar to when the tent circuses rolled into town. So the pace, excitement and money was enjoyed but in the absence of any real urban planning Maricopa County ensured it would live and die a boom-cycle existence. That’s been true for decades and now with over six-million residents (85%) of the entire state, the urban center has sprawled broadly across an area considered “large” even for the west. It’s collective vulnerability is immense to a water shortage or a Texas-like power outage.
Two things make the region a bell-weather for life in 2020s America. First Arizona politics, has until very recently, been exclusively “Trumpian” even before Trump himself or anyone else understood what that meant. Just like its climate, the community is harsh and its people behave similarly. Old school towns like Tempe, Scottsdale and Mesa dot the region east of the city and all have interesting histories that center on the same thing: rugged folk who wrongly believe they are endlessly self-sufficient with little time or interest in government or community building. Investments in education were and remain notoriously poor. There are a few charities of note including the world’s first food-bank. But the social safety net is threadbare and progress there is slow among people’s who are inherently distrusting, oversimplified and play daily life as an endless transactional game.
This peculiar approach has not yielded to modernity or the crushing growth of the last 30 years. A few more highways have been added and the well- heeled (especially in the county’s east) have erected modern performing arts centers but the region remains a place devoid of a defining vibe or culture or even pockets of excellence. (Quick: Name a famous Arizonan outside of politics). People migrating from the east or midwest are shocked at the absence of “community” after enjoying places like Minneapolis and Pittsburgh. On rare occasion when professional sports teams excel a favorable ad hoc vibe emerges and quickly ends after the last loss.
Against the backdrop of what we now call MAGA the place for a long, long time was outfitted with amateurish public servants who often were simply “fronts” for other special interests. Governor impeachments were common. The late Presidential candidate John McCain nearly had his young political career crushed by the Keating Five Savings and Loan scandal in the 1980s. In recent years the governorship has been held by an x-ray tech, an ice cream entrepreneur and now, a social worker from the opposition party. The shortage of professional state-level leadership and Federal consent decrees for both the Sheriff and Phoenix police department has made it less than a hospitable place—perhaps most infamously established by “Sheriff Joe” Arpaio.
The other factor is that the local economy has always operated as a game of “have and have nots”. White residents from before the boom always pieced together a good if not great living in part, because Latino, Black and Native American populations were always cheap, ready but unskilled labor sources. This fueled growth for many of the “original” businesses here but in a peculiar way where bosses and workers engage one another in an almost predefined “have and have not way.” Even today with slow changes, significant business enterprises >$50M, have leaders saying about their employees “It used to be so much easier. You hired people and they showed up and had to do what you told them.” In that the cultural and business vibe is so endlessly transactional many private businesses are distrusting of much change, planning, employee development or anything else that bonds leadership and its employees. It is very odd.
This means the top of the pyramid plays at country club’s set within Arizona’s amazing beauty and runs to the mountains for summer homes while many of the rest live as working-class poor from paycheck to paycheck and has for decades. There are plenty of stories of those leaping from the bottom rungs higher but because those middle rungs were never there, that leap is risky. These folks benefit from “generation wealth” in understated ways—a passing grandmother bequeathing her 10 year-old car to a family member with two small kids.
Ironically, other than wealth, most live a life (have and have nots) where corners are cut on just about everything. Skilled tradespeople in HVAC, plumbing, electrical and landscaping compete less with one another than an army of folk crossing the county in beat-up trucks to provide unlicensed versions of the same work. For many county residents its a local sport to tap into this service force for palm tree trimming, air conditioning, automotive repair and whatnot but only after a negotiation where the originally offered price is reduced. On most days a common sight is a Spanish-speaking immigrant dangling from a 50 feet palm tree with a chain saw dangling from his hip. The buying home owner may watch with pride knowing he got the unlicensed service for less than a third of the going price by simply ignoring safety, liability, tax base issues or even civility while paying the sweaty workers “under the table.” Corner cutting like this is not unique to Maricopa County. But it is hard to imagine a place where it is more prominent in daily life.
That’s how life looks out there in the desert. Not by accident mind you. It’s been driven by the same mentality that first drove Reagan (and before him Arizona native-son Barry Goldwater) all the way to today’s Trump. Its a world where economic stratification is extreme, authentic dialogue makes people nervous (what if their is no transaction in it?) and empathy is given grudgingly. It is a more mature version of the “us versus them” world, that by design, is a complete threat to anything our country has ever called democracy and a way of life that promotes community or civic pleasures. Unless kin, few in Maricopa County keep other brothers and that’s the template, not the exception for what awaits America.