Arizona Republic - August 1, 2007

Hit piece on Phoenix

iewed from across the Atlantic, the gild is off the Arizona lily.

Phoenix, according to the London-based Economist magazine, is a "crime-ridden mess."

Well, they used to like us. The Economist has written about Phoenix many times before, usually noting all the "All-America City" designations the city has earned and cooing about the efficiency of Phoenix governance.

All that's changed, alas. In the eyes of London, we've tanked.

"(I)n the past few years, the awards have mostly dried up and things have started to go wrong."

By the list of particulars cited, Phoenix City Manager Frank Fairbanks, Mayor Phil Gordon and the City Council might be headed for residency in the Tower of London.

Construction of the new light-rail system has put merchants along its route in dire straits, the Economist reports. Crime - notably burglaries and car thefts - is on the rise. Highway congestion and related environmental issues are getting worse. And public education, as "reported" last fall by a research group, is the worst in the nation.

The Economist also complains about fuzzier stuff.

"Locals moan that Phoenicians are becoming more anti-social," for example. And it found an Arizona State University associate professor who believes "minorities are being locked out of government and city planning," thus paving the way for a noxious anti-minority conspiracy to benefit the likes of the International House of Pancakes. You can see the complaints opposite this editorial on our op-ed page. You just can't make stuff like this up.

With the exception of the plight of merchants along the light-rail route, virtually all the problems cited by the Economist were issues facing the community even during its "All-America City" heyday. That, or they are the perfectly predictable result of the region's decades-long Mad Hatter growth spurt. As much as any city would like to maintain an inclusive, small-town atmosphere, it is not easy when you are the second-fastest-growing city in the country.

No one should try to sugarcoat the very real problems facing metropolitan Phoenix. Crime - especially the crimes of opportunity cited by the Economist, such as car theft - is on the upswing. But to suggest that such crime has reached the point that it has affected the area's quality of life is a fantastical stretch, especially considering how long those crimes have plagued this fast-growing area. Again, car theft and burglaries were an issue even when the Economist liked the Valley.

A couple of points in the Economist piece, however, are simply cheap and, with apologies to our British cousins, ignorant shots.

While the woes of merchants along the light-rail routes are very real, they are the result of an enormous investment in the community's future. Citing such difficulties as evidence of Phoenix's decline is just nonsensical.

The light-rail system, in fact, is part and parcel of an enormous burst of economic development in the region's center. It includes public projects like the creation of a downtown campus for ASU, a massive expansion of the convention center and a long-sought third major downtown convention hotel.

In the private sector, condominium projects are sprouting all along the light-rail corridor as well as downtown, and a substantial mixed-use development, including offices, condos and retail, is in the works in the city's epicenter. This is hardly the trajectory of a city on the downslide.

But citing that preposterous report of last October by Morgan Quitno Press that concluded Arizona's public education system was the "dumbest" is just dumb on the Economist's part. The Morgan Quitno firm did no independent research. It just rehashed a lot of existing data that included none of the enormous investment here in school construction. It was a cheap-stunt fraud.

The simple fact is, urban Arizona has plenty of hurdles. But a "mess"? Not quite.

Observes urbanologist Joel Kotkin, who has spent a great deal of time analyzing the Valley's growth: "If you expect the Phoenix of Barry Goldwater, you're bound to be disappointed."

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