WEBVTT 00:00:07.860 --> 00:00:09.860 Were released last weekend titled the Pearce report. The study dealt with 00:00:13.198 --> 00:00:17.015 issues ranging from those pertaining to state and local government to 00:00:17.048 --> 00:00:21.646 economics, education, social isolation, cultural development, and urban 00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:25.956 growth. While the report has attracted positive attention, it has also 00:00:25.989 --> 00:00:29.567 received some measure of negative reaction and joining me this evening to 00:00:29.600 --> 00:00:33.536 discuss the findings of the four man research team and local reaction to 00:00:33.569 --> 00:00:38.036 its criticisms and recommendations is Neil Pearce. Mr Pearce is the author 00:00:38.069 --> 00:00:43.548 of several books on topics ranging from state and municipal governments. 00:02:02.888 --> 00:02:04.888 Good evening. I'm Michael Graham. A few months back, the Arizona Republic 00:02:07.239 --> 00:02:10.946 and Phoenix Gazette newspapers engaged the services of a team of four 00:02:10.979 --> 00:02:15.467 Urban Affairs specialists. Their task according to the newspapers was to 00:02:15.500 --> 00:02:18.577 use their knowledge of the nation's metropolitan areas to critically 00:02:18.610 --> 00:02:23.186 examine metropolitan Phoenix and identify strengths and weaknesses. The 00:02:23.219 --> 00:02:27.585 results of their research were released last weekend titled the Pearce 00:02:27.618 --> 00:02:31.237 report. The study dealt with issues ranging from those pertaining to state 00:02:31.270 --> 00:02:36.055 and local government to economics, education, social isolation, cultural 00:02:36.088 --> 00:02:39.946 development, and urban growth. While the report has attracted positive 00:02:39.979 --> 00:02:43.946 attention, it has also received some measure of negative reaction. And 00:02:43.979 --> 00:02:46.975 joining me, this evening to discuss the findings of the four man research 00:02:47.008 --> 00:02:51.217 team and local reaction to its criticisms and recommendations is Neil 00:02:51.250 --> 00:02:55.725 Pearce. Mr Pearce is the author of several books on topics ranging from 00:02:55.758 --> 00:02:59.911 state and municipal government to economic and urban and development. He 00:02:59.944 --> 00:03:04.302 is also a specialist in Urban and Intergovernmental Affairs reporting and 00:03:04.335 --> 00:03:09.172 since 1975 has written a nationally syndicated column focusing on issues 00:03:09.205 --> 00:03:13.210 and trends in those and other areas of statewide and municipal public 00:03:13.243 --> 00:03:17.517 policy. In addition to Neil Pearce, there were three other members of the 00:03:17.550 --> 00:03:21.827 research team. Christopher Gates, a consultant for the National Civic 00:03:21.860 --> 00:03:27.036 League, an urban advocacy group based in New York, John Hall, the Director 00:03:27.069 --> 00:03:30.525 of the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University, and 00:03:30.558 --> 00:03:35.136 contributor to the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution and Curtis 00:03:35.169 --> 00:03:39.666 Johnson, the Executive Director of the Citizens League, a private urban 00:03:39.699 --> 00:03:44.666 advocacy and research firm headquartered in Minneapolis, ST Paul. This 00:03:44.699 --> 00:03:48.577 evening's program is going to be devoted to a discussion of the report. 00:03:48.610 --> 00:03:51.797 But before we get to that, we have a brief review of the seven principal 00:03:51.830 --> 00:03:56.696 findings and recommendations of the report. To no one's surprise. The 00:03:56.729 --> 00:04:01.047 report found that growth drives the valley but in the future growth must 00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:05.775 be planned by collective decision making to solve the problems created by 00:04:05.808 --> 00:04:10.846 the area's rapid growth. Power in the metropolitan area rests in the hands 00:04:10.879 --> 00:04:15.646 of developers, professional city bureaucrats and state legislators. The 00:04:15.679 --> 00:04:21.495 solution is county home rule in a reorganized form of government. Even 00:04:21.528 --> 00:04:24.947 with the incredible growth of the Valley, its future success is not 00:04:24.980 --> 00:04:29.145 guaranteed since the area lacks corporate headquarters and is basically a 00:04:29.178 --> 00:04:34.697 branch town, a stronger educational system is the guarantee of future 00:04:34.730 --> 00:04:39.717 growth and business must provide the impetus for better schools. The 00:04:39.750 --> 00:04:44.437 report wholeheartedly endorsed the proposed Rio Salado project comparing 00:04:44.470 --> 00:04:48.947 its potential value to that of New York City's central park. Rio Salado 00:04:48.980 --> 00:04:53.676 could be the single focus. The Valley lacks but should be largely financed 00:04:53.709 --> 00:04:58.116 by those who will benefit the most from it. Valley residents tend to 00:04:58.149 --> 00:05:02.515 isolate themselves and the area lacks stability due to its transient 00:05:02.548 --> 00:05:08.046 nature. An emphasis on neighborhoods is the answer a genesis to develop 00:05:08.079 --> 00:05:12.377 civic pride. Valley residents are selfish when it comes to supporting 00:05:12.410 --> 00:05:17.515 culture and social services with quality of life. A necessary draw for 00:05:17.548 --> 00:05:23.137 major corporations, philanthropic giving must be hurried along. Inner city 00:05:23.170 --> 00:05:27.825 rivalries are harmful to the valley. A metropolitan area needs a city 00:05:27.858 --> 00:05:32.967 center and a spirit of cooperation needs to be fostered between Phoenix 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:38.536 and the surrounding municipalities. Neil An interesting report, I enjoyed 00:05:38.569 --> 00:05:44.046 reading about it behind my walls and my patio, Sunday, Sunday morning 00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:48.395 after racketball before we talk about the report itself outline for us 00:05:48.428 --> 00:05:53.075 briefly, the methodology that the four man team went through in terms of 00:05:53.108 --> 00:05:58.325 gathering data on the report. Well, the four of us decided to go ahead 00:05:58.358 --> 00:06:02.717 with the project like last fall and we met once in New York and one in 00:06:02.750 --> 00:06:07.825 Kansas City where we could get together and decided on the methodology how 00:06:07.858 --> 00:06:12.026 we want to go ahead. We were given a long list of proposed interviewees by 00:06:12.059 --> 00:06:15.866 the newspapers and then we consulted with our own sources and contacts and 00:06:15.899 --> 00:06:19.666 added quite a few of those decided on a final list of people we would like 00:06:19.699 --> 00:06:24.805 to see they were invited. And then we spent two weekends in a full week, I 00:06:24.838 --> 00:06:32.838 would say in Phoenix and the region in early December took a big 00:06:33.238 --> 00:06:37.825 helicopter ride over the over the region to get a bird's eye view. And 00:06:37.858 --> 00:06:41.377 then we interviewed about 65 people during the week wall to wall 00:06:41.410 --> 00:06:44.916 interviews all day long. And sometimes through the evenings when that was 00:06:44.949 --> 00:06:48.776 finished, we spent one or two days digesting our findings deciding what 00:06:48.809 --> 00:06:51.395 type of articles we would like to write what the focus of each one would 00:06:51.428 --> 00:06:54.575 be. Then it was my job to go write the articles and then I sent them out 00:06:54.608 --> 00:06:58.455 for commentary and approval by my colleagues and they were printed. That's 00:06:58.488 --> 00:07:04.507 it. Ok. All right. Got you. Do you see you're very familiar with the, the 00:07:04.540 --> 00:07:07.187 urban environment? 00:07:07.220 --> 00:07:14.805 Is this report on Phoenix a lot different than a report would be on 00:07:14.838 --> 00:07:20.687 another western city that's fairly young, has had the kind of explosive 00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:26.205 growth that Phoenix has had rests in the sun belt. I mean, all the, all 00:07:26.238 --> 00:07:30.846 the criteria is Phoenix unique from that standpoint or are we suffering 00:07:30.879 --> 00:07:33.705 through a lot of the same problems that you might find indigenous to the 00:07:33.738 --> 00:07:36.336 West in the Sun Belt? I think there are some problems that are quite 00:07:36.369 --> 00:07:41.805 similar when you have a lot of population moving in rapidly, some 00:07:41.838 --> 00:07:44.286 population moving out. At the same time, you seem to be fairly high on 00:07:44.319 --> 00:07:49.437 both moving in and moving out where you get what people call social 00:07:49.470 --> 00:07:52.726 isolation or difficulty getting reestablished in the new place that you've 00:07:52.759 --> 00:07:57.757 gone to and low voter turnout sprawl development and so on. I would say 00:07:57.790 --> 00:08:02.937 offhand that Phoenix perhaps is the most extreme version of the western 00:08:02.970 --> 00:08:07.106 fast growth city that you could find. Made it interesting. I caught a 00:08:07.139 --> 00:08:12.776 little bit this morning. You were on the Pac Man Talk show on K R made an 00:08:12.809 --> 00:08:20.067 interesting comment about it was about getting bold, the city of Phoenix, 00:08:20.100 --> 00:08:25.015 getting bold and doing some bold, innovative things. And you said that you 00:08:25.048 --> 00:08:29.627 didn't find that in talking to a lot of the people out here in contrast to 00:08:29.660 --> 00:08:33.106 what you might have heard in other municipalities. That's true. Even as 00:08:33.139 --> 00:08:37.566 opposed to other Western cities. If you talk to the movers and shakers 00:08:37.599 --> 00:08:43.576 in Dallas or San Diego or a number of other cities, Austin, Texas, they'll 00:08:43.609 --> 00:08:46.486 explain to you how they're making things happening and what they're doing 00:08:46.519 --> 00:08:49.076 here. The movers and shakers tend to tell you why they can't get things 00:08:49.109 --> 00:08:53.657 done and I think the reason for that is the very split political nature of 00:08:53.690 --> 00:08:58.427 the valley, its large physical size and a culture is based so much on 00:08:58.460 --> 00:09:02.217 physical growth, the development process that somehow no one ever slowed 00:09:02.250 --> 00:09:05.275 down to say, hey, how do we pull together these pieces and make common 00:09:05.308 --> 00:09:08.787 decisions? Now, one of the ways you suggested for pulling together the 00:09:08.820 --> 00:09:14.427 pieces was home rule for Maricopa County. But given now the historical 00:09:14.460 --> 00:09:20.640 fact of these competing municipalities inside Maricopa County, would that 00:09:20.673 --> 00:09:25.630 really do it for us? And why if obviously you think it would? Well, first 00:09:25.663 --> 00:09:29.250 of all, I think there should be home rule by definition for most people, 00:09:29.283 --> 00:09:33.802 most places, that's American democracy. It means you can vote for people 00:09:33.835 --> 00:09:39.321 who make decisions that are appropriate to the area you live in these 18 00:09:39.354 --> 00:09:42.941 or 20 cities, depending on how you count them are just parts of a large 00:09:42.974 --> 00:09:46.765 valley. If you look at it from the sky, it's all one. And the problems of 00:09:46.798 --> 00:09:51.787 air quality land use transportation, they don't stop at one boundary. When 00:09:51.820 --> 00:09:56.265 you leave Tempe and go to Phoenix and go to Chandler and go to Mesa, they 00:09:56.298 --> 00:10:02.307 all continue. If those problems are then common. A lot of them, there's 00:10:02.340 --> 00:10:05.496 now no way that they can be addressed by a government where there's a, 00:10:05.529 --> 00:10:09.206 there, there, Gertrude Stein once wrote about Oakland a little cruelly. I 00:10:09.239 --> 00:10:13.807 thought there's no, there, there, there's no, there, 00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:18.625 I've been to Oakland. I don't think that was cruel. Oakland. Oakland has a 00:10:18.658 --> 00:10:22.316 nice revival going on downtown with still a tough time. Right. If you want 00:10:22.349 --> 00:10:25.846 to make a common decision in the valley, you have a county government 00:10:25.879 --> 00:10:30.047 which is very weak, which is sort of on the model of territorial days, 00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:33.116 which has all these roe officers. I mean, it's one of the most archaic 00:10:33.149 --> 00:10:37.451 forms of government I've ever seen for a metropolitan area. It has a board 00:10:37.484 --> 00:10:41.601 of supervisors that rotates the chairmanship every year, which assures 00:10:41.634 --> 00:10:45.961 political neuter in a sense and sort of independent duchies of where the 00:10:45.994 --> 00:10:52.172 individual districts go. And it does not, it's governed by the legislature 00:10:52.205 --> 00:10:55.971 which holds every string and requires everything down to the rag content 00:10:56.004 --> 00:10:59.811 of the paper they use for their official documents. So there's really no 00:10:59.844 --> 00:11:03.667 power to do anything except what the legislature specifically says to do. 00:11:03.700 --> 00:11:07.696 If there were an atomic explosion in the valley tomorrow, the county 00:11:07.729 --> 00:11:11.236 government presumably will be powerless to do a damn thing about it. Your 00:11:11.269 --> 00:11:14.986 assignment was analysis, not necessarily implementation, but you've got a 00:11:15.019 --> 00:11:18.446 feel of this thing right now. Given the, that was another aspect of the 00:11:18.479 --> 00:11:22.086 report, the rivalries between the cities. You really think those cities 00:11:22.119 --> 00:11:26.096 would ever surrender. I think the kind of decision making power to a 00:11:26.129 --> 00:11:29.047 larger governmental authority that I believe you're describing their 00:11:29.080 --> 00:11:35.467 citizens would, it's the politicians who don't want to the poll done by 00:11:35.500 --> 00:11:40.726 the Arizona Republican gazette show a solid majority in favor of home rule. 00:11:40.759 --> 00:11:45.927 It is a simple question of popular democracy power is being wielded now, 00:11:45.960 --> 00:11:49.066 as it was said in the introduction, by the development community, which is 00:11:49.099 --> 00:11:52.846 accustomed to having its own way. It has been the name of growth in the 00:11:52.879 --> 00:11:56.145 valley. Someone said today that the development community has been to the 00:11:56.178 --> 00:12:01.307 valley, what General Motors was to Detroit, but that's been dominant and 00:12:01.340 --> 00:12:03.967 it's been very hard to fight it as you know. And when they start to have 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:07.846 political battles against, it's been difficult. And then by the 00:12:07.879 --> 00:12:12.086 professional bureaucrats, good city managers on the whole, hired by these 00:12:12.119 --> 00:12:15.616 individual city governments and by state legislators. But there's no way 00:12:15.649 --> 00:12:20.967 you can focus in as voters in the valley now and affect a government which 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:25.657 has some powers over the broad area, wide concerns that this area has on 00:12:25.690 --> 00:12:31.515 this question of land planning and urban infill. And those aspects of the 00:12:31.548 --> 00:12:37.657 report the report went to. Is there a is there a model around here? Is 00:12:37.690 --> 00:12:42.566 there someone who has done it well, in your opinion that that Phoenix 00:12:42.599 --> 00:12:47.246 could rip two or three or nine chapters out of the book? Well, maybe not 00:12:47.279 --> 00:12:51.537 two or three but one or two. Uh San Diego, for example, uh when Pete 00:12:51.570 --> 00:12:55.467 Wilson was the mayor during the 19 seventies, now us Senator Republican 00:12:55.500 --> 00:13:01.255 Senator put in some real restraints on the degree of where you could put 00:13:01.288 --> 00:13:04.547 physical growth, put some areas off limits, kept natural preserves and 00:13:04.580 --> 00:13:08.167 things of that nature. And it tended to channel growth to where there was 00:13:08.200 --> 00:13:12.736 a decision it was appropriate to have it. And at that point, a great deal 00:13:12.769 --> 00:13:15.145 of attention and planning was put into the downtown, which had 00:13:15.178 --> 00:13:19.956 deteriorated badly. And now that downtown is doing very well, you know, in 00:13:19.989 --> 00:13:23.385 civic life, it takes a long while, you don't make a decision today and 00:13:23.418 --> 00:13:28.025 implement it tomorrow. And so a city like that has made decisions about 00:13:28.058 --> 00:13:31.625 the revival of its downtown with its Horton Plaza, which has three or four 00:13:31.658 --> 00:13:35.846 major department stores in it. And a great piece of urban architecture, 00:13:35.879 --> 00:13:39.657 the older area of the city revived and so on. I mean, there's ways to go, 00:13:39.690 --> 00:13:43.471 but I think they've made splendid progress. Can have a great city within 00:13:43.504 --> 00:13:47.393 the Sun belt context. It's not necessary to have just one or two or five 00:13:47.426 --> 00:13:51.082 or six high rise buildings sticking up and say that's your city with vast 00:13:51.115 --> 00:13:54.622 wasteland in between, which frankly is what a lot of downtown Phoenix is 00:13:54.655 --> 00:13:59.552 today. Does the urban village concept work a little bit at odds though, 00:13:59.585 --> 00:14:03.302 with what you're describing? Because I've heard it said that the urban 00:14:03.335 --> 00:14:08.718 village concept as ideal as it may be given a present sprawl situation may 00:14:08.751 --> 00:14:12.377 in and of itself encourage more urban sprawl. Well, to the degree that you 00:14:12.410 --> 00:14:17.168 allow really heavy concentrations of high rise development out of the 00:14:17.201 --> 00:14:21.367 cores of those villages, the villages in that sense become another 00:14:21.400 --> 00:14:25.218 developer's dream because they're going to sap some of the growth that 00:14:25.251 --> 00:14:28.596 might go into the core. 00:14:28.629 --> 00:14:30.895 One of the things I think you were driving out in the report is that 00:14:30.928 --> 00:14:37.616 perhaps Phoenix has run out its natural string on growth and that the 00:14:37.649 --> 00:14:41.807 cheap land, the inexpensive labor, those kinds of things that may have 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:46.366 driven the growth up to this point may no longer be there. Have we 00:14:46.399 --> 00:14:50.246 completely run out the string? You could continue. I mean, you go beyond 00:14:50.279 --> 00:14:53.135 the West Tank mountains, you can go anywhere you want out across the 00:14:53.168 --> 00:14:57.946 desert. I mean, until you reach the borders of California and New Mexico 00:14:57.979 --> 00:15:03.625 and Mexico and the Grand Canyon, I suppose. But the point is that in the 00:15:03.658 --> 00:15:08.302 modern economy that may not be as efficient, a form of growth as you used 00:15:08.335 --> 00:15:12.270 to have, you get long, long, long automobile commutes, you get higher and 00:15:12.303 --> 00:15:15.951 higher public expenses as you allow leapfrog development further and 00:15:15.984 --> 00:15:21.000 further out because utility rate payers and taxpayers get to pay for all 00:15:21.033 --> 00:15:25.941 of that. In the meantime, you have these huge empty gaps in downtown and 00:15:25.974 --> 00:15:29.121 in the other cities. I mean, I just find it incredible to see how much is 00:15:29.154 --> 00:15:34.356 , is unbuilt upon. Whereas if you look at one city like Scottsdale from 00:15:34.389 --> 00:15:36.917 the air, it doesn't have nearly that amount of emptiness in because 00:15:36.950 --> 00:15:41.226 they're doing more. I think real planning of how they develop their city. 00:15:41.259 --> 00:15:47.657 Phoenix doomed Phoenix Metro, doomed to be a branch town as opposed to 00:15:47.690 --> 00:15:53.456 the corporate headquarters. Well, for a while, you will not begin to get 00:15:53.489 --> 00:15:57.696 major corporate headquarters here until you build a quality of life that 00:15:57.729 --> 00:16:02.765 is going to make corporate executives want to be here. Even if you were to 00:16:02.798 --> 00:16:06.566 develop, which is the natural way to get headquarters is not to recruit 00:16:06.599 --> 00:16:10.086 them from outside as a rule, but to grow them inside, grow your own. Well 00:16:10.119 --> 00:16:14.167 , that's fine and there's a chance to do it. It's going to take a period 00:16:14.200 --> 00:16:18.167 of time. But unless you have quality of life that makes corporate 00:16:18.200 --> 00:16:21.936 executives think that it's a great place to be in Phoenix, you're going to 00:16:21.969 --> 00:16:25.005 be in trouble. There was an ass U study indicating that a number of 00:16:25.038 --> 00:16:28.968 corporate types would think of moving again, who moved here in the last 00:16:29.001 --> 00:16:32.247 few years because they don't find the education at the level that they 00:16:32.280 --> 00:16:35.508 expect and don't find air quality where they want it, et cetera, et cetera. 00:16:35.541 --> 00:16:39.269 Those are problems that are going to prevent it. Also, you have a very 00:16:39.302 --> 00:16:42.728 strong competition within this region of the country. Los Angeles is an 00:16:42.761 --> 00:16:47.438 incredible Mecca for sort of command and control center of the modern 00:16:47.471 --> 00:16:51.548 urban world. The Texas cities are going to try for the same Denver to the 00:16:51.581 --> 00:16:54.939 north and it would take a lot of effort to make Phoenix and major 00:16:54.972 --> 00:16:59.189 headquarters city in the short term. I don't think that needs, you can 00:16:59.222 --> 00:17:02.750 think that you'd like to, but the more and more you can develop as you're 00:17:02.783 --> 00:17:07.770 doing ok with your in grown, your home, your home companies, home 00:17:07.803 --> 00:17:11.601 development, the better you will do. But then you have to make sure that 00:17:11.634 --> 00:17:15.630 those corporations begin to see that they are major corporate citizens and 00:17:15.663 --> 00:17:18.780 that you can't just sit there and reap the benefits of the society. You 00:17:18.813 --> 00:17:23.910 have to be there giving, taking part and also philanthropic efforts and 00:17:23.943 --> 00:17:27.492 all sorts of strategic planning for the region, thinking about its 00:17:27.525 --> 00:17:31.291 educational future, thinking about its environment. It's that culture that 00:17:31.324 --> 00:17:34.910 is not developed very far here, which is way behind your competitors. I 00:17:34.943 --> 00:17:37.842 think mostly around the sun belt. It seemed to me that that aspect of the 00:17:37.875 --> 00:17:42.121 report really sort of neatly tied together a whole lot of these different 00:17:42.154 --> 00:17:45.772 elements including quality of education. And unfortunately, as you 00:17:45.805 --> 00:17:49.262 probably read on the front page of the newspaper this morning, Secretary 00:17:49.295 --> 00:17:54.137 Bennett release some statistics which I'm sad to say, probably support the 00:17:54.170 --> 00:17:58.397 conclusions which you drew about. I was sorry to see. I'm sorry to see for 00:17:58.430 --> 00:18:01.887 your state's sake, but I must say the timing was fine coming to town. At 00:18:01.920 --> 00:18:08.016 least it was clear that we weren't under the table. 00:18:08.049 --> 00:18:12.627 What about though here's the basic debate. Perhaps you got a feel for this 00:18:12.660 --> 00:18:18.276 , maybe, maybe not. But our problem isn't spending dollars on education. 00:18:18.309 --> 00:18:20.535 It's whether or not we're getting good bang for the buck out of our 00:18:20.568 --> 00:18:24.877 education dollar. And our problem is we're spending insufficient dollars 00:18:24.910 --> 00:18:29.986 on education. Did you get a feel for which one of those two ends of the 00:18:30.019 --> 00:18:33.607 spectrum is closer to the truth? I think both are absolutely true. You 00:18:33.640 --> 00:18:38.127 cannot expect to spend at the 40 something th among the States of the 00:18:38.160 --> 00:18:41.766 United States and get a good school system that just isn't going to happen. 00:18:41.799 --> 00:18:46.085 On the other hand, spending is not everything. And one of the points we 00:18:46.118 --> 00:18:50.156 made in one of the articles is that it's absolutely critical that there be 00:18:50.189 --> 00:18:55.686 an intervention, active, friendly, proactive intervention in the school 00:18:55.719 --> 00:19:02.127 and education system by non educators. Educators tend to be reluctant to 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:05.075 say here in the midst of a university setting, but they tend to be their 00:19:05.108 --> 00:19:08.285 own world and they set up their own rules and regulations. And it is true 00:19:08.318 --> 00:19:11.397 that some of the Republican conservative senators in this state say that 00:19:11.430 --> 00:19:15.785 you get a large administrative mechanism and that tends to grow and 00:19:15.818 --> 00:19:19.565 sometimes take some of the resources that might go into classrooms we need 00:19:19.598 --> 00:19:24.607 in this country very much to have business groups, citizen groups active 00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:28.246 in questioning how the schools are growing, how they're developing, which 00:19:28.279 --> 00:19:31.127 schools are really doing so well. You can lift a lot of state constraints 00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:34.637 over them, which schools are doing so poorly that you need to put them in 00:19:34.670 --> 00:19:38.555 Receivership as the National Governors Association has suggested for the 00:19:38.588 --> 00:19:42.331 really crappy schools. Well, you got a, that bad, you're cheating kids and 00:19:42.364 --> 00:19:45.772 you're creating incredible problems for your own society in future years. 00:19:45.805 --> 00:19:49.742 It's probable that one of the other areas of the report you talked about 00:19:49.775 --> 00:19:54.371 the isolation phenomenon probably contributes to that. I mean, if a person 00:19:54.404 --> 00:19:59.117 is indeed going to lock themselves in their backyard on a Sunday afternoon 00:19:59.150 --> 00:20:02.246 and not know who their neighbors are, they probably are not as inclined 00:20:02.279 --> 00:20:05.597 also to get involved in their local, local school district. I think that's 00:20:05.630 --> 00:20:08.107 true. I'd like to now that you mentioned it. Pick up on that. Of course, 00:20:08.140 --> 00:20:11.486 while on the one hand, we talked about county home rule, which seems to be 00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:16.496 from above down in terms of what the structure would be. We said equally 00:20:16.529 --> 00:20:20.065 as important is a strong neighborhood light coming from the bottom up. 00:20:20.098 --> 00:20:23.295 These are the sines of a strong society where people know each other where 00:20:23.328 --> 00:20:28.986 they're connected. It's not unimportant that people have block clubs and 00:20:29.019 --> 00:20:32.597 block watches for crime. It's not unimportant. They get together for all 00:20:32.630 --> 00:20:36.367 sorts of other social activities that is going to cut down not only in 00:20:36.400 --> 00:20:42.107 isolation but on some degree, on mental illness, on suicide, on alcoholism. 00:20:42.140 --> 00:20:44.117 All the other things when you have a lot of people who moved here, 00:20:44.150 --> 00:20:47.936 support, they need support mechanisms, horizontal, right where they live, 00:20:47.969 --> 00:20:51.276 an awful lot of them have abandoned those kinds of support structures 00:20:51.309 --> 00:20:54.690 moving in here. That's right. But how do you do anything about that? Now, 00:20:54.723 --> 00:20:57.200 you're just talking about it. We made a couple of suggestions in the 00:20:57.233 --> 00:21:01.492 report, we suggested a civic welcome wagon, nothing commercial allowed. 00:21:01.525 --> 00:21:04.512 But when you move into a neighborhood, it needs to be supported by the 00:21:04.545 --> 00:21:08.982 city involved and by the civic groups, there someone comes and or two or 00:21:09.015 --> 00:21:11.940 three people come and greet you and give you a full briefing on what all 00:21:11.973 --> 00:21:15.281 the civic activities are and the clubs that exist. Also that that 00:21:15.314 --> 00:21:18.242 neighborhood, if it has a neighborhood organization, it should have one as 00:21:18.275 --> 00:21:23.516 soon as possible after it gets going, that that neighborhood have a way to 00:21:23.549 --> 00:21:29.916 give feedback to the city hall and be consulted on growth policies on 00:21:29.949 --> 00:21:33.035 investments, infrastructure that's going to be built on where new 00:21:33.068 --> 00:21:36.956 developments are going to come. That gives the neighborhoods a sense that 00:21:36.989 --> 00:21:40.416 they are factual. And if people know in the long run that their 00:21:40.449 --> 00:21:43.416 neighborhood organization has a voice and is listened to, they're going to 00:21:43.449 --> 00:21:46.857 be more interested in joining. I have heard the opinion expressed strongly 00:21:46.890 --> 00:21:50.676 though that the reason why a whole lot of people moved out here from the 00:21:50.709 --> 00:21:56.426 Midwest metropolis, the eastern metropolises and those kinds of things is 00:21:56.459 --> 00:22:01.506 to get some space. And they don't only mean that in terms of physical 00:22:01.539 --> 00:22:06.107 space, they also mean it in mental space and they're tired of being jammed 00:22:06.140 --> 00:22:10.946 into the to the subway trains and that kind of thing. Do you sense that a 00:22:10.979 --> 00:22:14.387 little bit? There's a lot of, a lot of, when you ask people what's 00:22:14.420 --> 00:22:20.910 positive about the Valley, it's a negative what it is not being left alone. 00:22:21.309 --> 00:22:23.309 I don't want to put it quite that extremely. Uh, but, you know, the, the, 00:22:24.439 --> 00:22:29.617 the, the ideal is to be alone, have your privacy or else to sit beside on 00:22:29.650 --> 00:22:33.055 a, on a winter day, some beautiful swimming pool and have some beautiful 00:22:33.088 --> 00:22:36.535 girl walk towards you or a guy with a Coors beer or I mean, whatever it 00:22:36.568 --> 00:22:40.795 might be this sort of romantic resort life, the ro romantic resort life 00:22:40.828 --> 00:22:43.805 doesn't work out for everybody though. There's sort of a bitter backlash. 00:22:43.838 --> 00:22:47.367 Plus you have a substantial Hispanic and some black population, a lot of 00:22:47.400 --> 00:22:51.325 which is not enjoying all of that. So this is a society that has a lot of 00:22:51.358 --> 00:22:54.696 homework to do. And I don't think these people because they don't want to 00:22:54.729 --> 00:22:59.426 hang on subway straps in New York City necessarily want to have no 00:22:59.459 --> 00:23:02.706 neighbors and not talk to them in the valley of the Sun. The polls that 00:23:02.739 --> 00:23:05.785 the Republican gazette did show people are really interested in having 00:23:05.818 --> 00:23:10.006 those contacts. And I think that a sort of a conscious policy out of the 00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:15.006 cities, out of the neighborhoods to bring people into more activity would 00:23:15.039 --> 00:23:17.726 find a lot of takers. 00:23:17.759 --> 00:23:22.496 You liked Rio Salado, you liked the Rio Salado concept quite a bit is that 00:23:22.529 --> 00:23:28.436 maybe one area that there's some boldness is a bold concept for, goodness 00:23:28.469 --> 00:23:33.166 knows, a billion dollars or more over 25 years to implement the idea of 00:23:33.199 --> 00:23:37.347 having a major public facility which everybody shares in, which is sort of 00:23:37.380 --> 00:23:41.147 a symbol of the valley, which is a place people can go to for recreation 00:23:41.180 --> 00:23:45.756 and so on. Taking an ugly, really ugly scar that goes through the middle 00:23:45.789 --> 00:23:48.825 of this valley and turning it into a kind of an oasis and a place that 00:23:48.858 --> 00:23:52.127 people like to come to. But I want to stress a couple of things we said 00:23:52.160 --> 00:23:57.147 about Rio Salado. One was that if it looks like a developer's rip off, it 00:23:57.180 --> 00:24:02.065 not only will fail, it probably deserves to, there's immense suspicion 00:24:02.098 --> 00:24:05.696 about developers maybe right or wrong with the polls that the papers did. 00:24:05.729 --> 00:24:10.996 And earlier public opinion polling shows that and too much Rio Salado has 00:24:11.029 --> 00:24:14.506 been sold, I think over the last couple of years or three or four years as 00:24:14.539 --> 00:24:18.825 a thing to create development value, people don't want to be taxed to help 00:24:18.858 --> 00:24:22.637 developers earn more money. So I think there needs to be some real control 00:24:22.670 --> 00:24:26.476 as to who benefits and whether those who benefit will pay a good fair 00:24:26.509 --> 00:24:30.597 share of the cost of it that is developed by tax increment financing or by 00:24:30.630 --> 00:24:34.476 special assessments or what have you. Secondly, the Rio Salado should not 00:24:34.509 --> 00:24:40.367 be designed as its master plan is by a bunch of very bright city planners 00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:43.887 but should be brought back to the people and made a people's project with 00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:47.627 a lot of citizen participation. That's why we suggested a citizens 00:24:47.660 --> 00:24:51.305 advisory committee that would be there sort of as a watchdog to blow the 00:24:51.338 --> 00:24:54.236 whistle if it appears that a lot of money is being made privately off this 00:24:54.269 --> 00:24:57.847 big public investment. And also to take part in the planning piece by 00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:01.666 piece to decide how much it's going to be big, big lakes and greenery and 00:25:01.699 --> 00:25:05.281 how much it will have more of a modest desert. Look to it, how it ties 00:25:05.314 --> 00:25:08.502 into the nearby neighborhoods because as brilliant as the planners ideas 00:25:08.535 --> 00:25:11.710 are, people don't buy into that and they're going to stay suspicious of it. 00:25:11.743 --> 00:25:15.012 What you need in this valley is something where people buy in. And 00:25:15.045 --> 00:25:19.301 ideally if Rio Salado is developed that way, then it becomes a way that 00:25:19.334 --> 00:25:22.950 neighborhood leadership develops and on some of the bigger issues that 00:25:22.983 --> 00:25:27.526 area wide leadership develops and it could be a terrific civic process is 00:25:27.559 --> 00:25:30.397 the way it was evolved, which is what cities are all about. It's how 00:25:30.430 --> 00:25:33.815 people work together and make things happen as well as just a pretty green 00:25:33.848 --> 00:25:37.016 stripe like India and Ben was in this case, going through a much larger 00:25:37.049 --> 00:25:40.117 stretch of the valley. Nice, nice to fly over there. If it looked that way 00:25:40.150 --> 00:25:44.877 , speaking of not buying into concepts, a whole lot of people have not 00:25:44.910 --> 00:25:48.766 bought into the concept of Phoenix downtown redevelopment that's been 00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:53.416 discussed in the Valley ever since I came here. Why is Phoenix downtown 00:25:53.449 --> 00:25:59.166 not a downtown? Well, we heard some of the reasons explained to us, one 00:25:59.199 --> 00:26:04.406 which I thought was intriguing was that most downtowns were founded around 00:26:04.439 --> 00:26:09.877 railways and got going early enough so that they became in effect the 00:26:09.910 --> 00:26:14.305 metropolis, the downtown around a railway station and that Phoenix was so 00:26:14.338 --> 00:26:18.467 young that it grew up really after World war II, except for very slight 00:26:18.500 --> 00:26:22.656 growth during the truck era when things weren't centralized as much 00:26:22.689 --> 00:26:27.117 anymore. So there never was as much of a downtown Phoenix as there was a 00:26:27.150 --> 00:26:30.305 downtown Dallas or downtown Houston or what have you. But I think that's 00:26:30.338 --> 00:26:33.825 only part of the explanation. The other part is that this valley was so 00:26:33.858 --> 00:26:37.545 big. There were so many other communities, people could move out to the 00:26:37.578 --> 00:26:41.996 development community, found it easier to go out further and further 00:26:42.029 --> 00:26:45.736 without paying much attention to the downtown. Somehow what had been of a 00:26:45.769 --> 00:26:50.976 downtown was so small that it blew away, the stores withdrew. I have to 00:26:51.009 --> 00:26:54.676 tell you, you look at the downtowns across the sun belt. This is the most 00:26:54.709 --> 00:26:59.276 pathetic in terms of really substantial representation. And I don't mean 00:26:59.309 --> 00:27:02.887 just high rise buildings, I mean, a city that has everything. A city is 00:27:02.920 --> 00:27:06.236 not just high rise buildings. A city is a place where you can walk and 00:27:06.269 --> 00:27:09.305 have fun. A city should be a meeting place for all the people of a 00:27:09.338 --> 00:27:12.217 metropolitan area. It should have great restaurants, it should have 00:27:12.250 --> 00:27:16.170 culture, it should have some fun to it, some vitality and to it. Now, 00:27:16.203 --> 00:27:19.281 Phoenix has a few things been trying, but boy, it's been a struggle and 00:27:19.314 --> 00:27:22.331 until that is won somehow more, you're always going to have sort of a 00:27:22.364 --> 00:27:26.420 faint shadow of what was a city and you need a full program of things to 00:27:26.453 --> 00:27:30.772 help it become a really important center. Is the damage done though? Might 00:27:30.805 --> 00:27:35.641 it be best? I mean, I certainly you never want to write off a whole area 00:27:35.674 --> 00:27:38.460 of the city. And I'm not suggesting we do that, but, you know, are we 00:27:38.493 --> 00:27:43.666 trying to force the rail, the pig into the square hole like it'd be better 00:27:43.699 --> 00:27:47.956 to go looking to, I don't know, 24th street in came back. Well, uptown. 00:27:47.989 --> 00:27:51.226 Well, of course, there was this immense error when the up central avenue 00:27:51.259 --> 00:27:54.397 of that development began some years ago, you know, running away from the 00:27:54.430 --> 00:27:58.035 downtown, it was sort of a suburb within the downtown. Now, the new 00:27:58.068 --> 00:28:04.156 downtown alliance view is it's going to be downtown, plus the spine going 00:28:04.189 --> 00:28:07.680 north up towards Camel back and so on. And then I heard that Terry Goddard 00:28:07.713 --> 00:28:11.272 say it will be 75 years before we flush all this out. It's going to take a 00:28:11.305 --> 00:28:14.641 long, long while Barry Goldwater himself. Wrote a letter to one of the 00:28:14.674 --> 00:28:18.371 local magazines saying this might have to become one of the largest cities 00:28:18.404 --> 00:28:22.482 in the world until all this space in between gets filled. But still, I 00:28:22.515 --> 00:28:26.660 think the Goddard administration has a lot of very fine projects that is 00:28:26.693 --> 00:28:30.450 trying to push forward. There's a billion dollars now planned in terms of 00:28:30.483 --> 00:28:35.436 downtown development and to those cities around the valley that say we 00:28:35.469 --> 00:28:37.996 don't need a downtown Phoenix. Let me assure you people are not going to 00:28:38.029 --> 00:28:44.585 fly from Chicago or Seattle or San Francisco or Atlanta to the East Valley 00:28:44.618 --> 00:28:50.456 or to downtown Chandler, you need to have every great city of the world, 00:28:50.489 --> 00:28:55.107 has some center that becomes its representation to the world and also 00:28:55.140 --> 00:28:59.206 becomes sort of its control and command center in its own mini way of what 00:28:59.239 --> 00:29:03.926 is the center of that civilization. And as long as you don't have that, it 00:29:03.959 --> 00:29:08.887 will always look like a little bit of a backward civilization here. And 00:29:08.920 --> 00:29:14.137 one of the development oriented bankers we talked to said this is just 00:29:14.170 --> 00:29:17.717 going to be like Orange County. But Orange County we got to remember is 00:29:17.750 --> 00:29:20.575 really a satellite of Los Angeles and look how Los Angeles has been 00:29:20.608 --> 00:29:24.416 growing recently, Neil Pierce. Interesting report and a very interesting 00:29:24.449 --> 00:29:28.496 individual we appreciate you today. Thank you. The Pierce report is not 00:29:28.529 --> 00:29:31.746 the first comprehensive analysis of what is right and what is wrong with 00:29:31.779 --> 00:29:36.085 Metropolitan Phoenix in 1979. Dr Paul Bracken, professor of public policy 00:29:36.118 --> 00:29:40.776 at Yale University authored the decidedly upbeat Arizona Tomorrow study 00:29:40.809 --> 00:29:44.335 written in conjunction with futurist Herman Kahn. The Arizona Tomorrow 00:29:44.368 --> 00:29:48.456 report focused on many of the same kinds of issues raised by Mr Pearce and 00:29:48.489 --> 00:29:53.831 his associates and looked ahead to a in the year 2012. And on Monday and 00:29:53.864 --> 00:29:58.281 Tuesday, March nine and 10, Dr Bracken will be my guest to continue our 00:29:58.314 --> 00:30:02.232 discussion of the various public policy issues reviewed this evening. That 00:30:02.265 --> 00:30:06.581 is March nine and 10. Coming up tomorrow, my guest will be Arizona, 00:30:06.614 --> 00:30:11.700 Senator Dennis Desi. Thank you very much for being here this evening. I'm 00:30:11.733 --> 00:30:19.733 Michael Grant. Have a terrific one good night. 00:30:44.519 --> 00:30:48.006 If you have comments regarding this evening's Horizon program, send them 00:30:48.039 --> 00:30:54.519 to Horizon Channel eight Television, Arizona State University. 10 P 85287.