Wallethub - Thumbs Down Part 1
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8/1/2017
From someone who has lived in and around Tucson for the last 40 years and is intimately familiar with local politics and trends, please read this carefully. Look at the majority of these recent threads. Tucson is a trap.
In Wallethub’s 2017 Survey of America’s Least Resilient cities, Tucson again came in LAST PLACE among the nation’s largest cities. In a ranking of 500 American cities in that same 2017 Wallethub study, Tucson ranked 486, placing it THE BOTTOM 3% OF ALL US CITIES in terms of economic viability, growth, and resiliency. Unfortunately, what has already been brought up in many of these 2015 and 2016 Sperling’s posts about Tucson is still all too true for 2017. Tucson also RANKED LAST PLACE in Wallethub’s 2015 Survey of least resilient cities, so no change there. Tucson has been ranking at or near bottom for 10 years now as most of the US leaves it almost completely behind, including Detroit.
This is a city that has blown just about every opportunity for real economic and income growth for many decades. Like the Rustbelt cities, it can’t support the working population it currently has. But unlike the Rustbelt cities, Tucson never had a viable industrial or economic base to begin with so it didn’t take much beyond a turn down in construction to bring the city to its knees. Tucson has not recovered at all from the 2007/2008 recession. In short, Tucson doesn’t have jobs. And the jobs that it does have are typically very low paying, menial, and uninteresting. Arizona is a Right-To-Work / At Will state, meaning you can be fired for nothing and have no worker protections. As an employee, you have no rights in Arizona which makes work and life in Tucson, a town with few jobs, even more precarious. A prominent local labor attorney put it best: “Tucson is simply the worst employment jurisdiction in the country”. If you must work and live in Tucson, remember that you are easily expendable as a worker and they will treat you accordingly. Your fellow employees will avoid you like the plague if you are fired for any reason and climb all over themselves to get the job you vacated. Learn to keep your eyes down and to grovel if you can even find a job that pays well.
On top of all this, Tucson has one of the nation’s worst social service systems. Arizona doesn’t believe in government or government programs so there is no safety net. The homeless don’t need to move here; they are created here and given bus passes to other cities. Arizona also ranks last in public education. Talent needs to be imported if it is here at all and usually leaves at the first opportunity. They can’t retain a quality head city planner to save their lives. The city has no money so many city offices and positions go unfilled. There is no zoning or code enforcement because they can’t staff the department. The city is even currently seeking donations for new police cars and protective gear for its law enforcement. Tucson is just this side of insolvency unless it can continue to cut departments and programs and raise taxes again.
Tucson’s performance over the past decade has appalled even its major proponents. No one talks about recovery anymore, just a long and uneven slog forward at best. The city is at least 20 to 30 years out at best from turning itself around, if it can find the political will and support to do so, which is doubtful. By then, it will be so far behind its competitors that it is unlikely that it will ever amount to more than a 3rd class retirement town, with depressed wages and lifestyles that go with that demographic. I see Tucson not as a real city, with any energetic or creative core (regardless of what kind of spin City Hall wants to put on its little downtown), but as a spread out and out-of-the way retreat for retirees who could care less about anyone but themselves. Retirees are basically split into two categories – the well-healed who live in gated or far-flung communities in the foothills and desert around the city that don’t pay city taxes and contribute as little as possible – and the poor ones, most of whom barely get by on social security and watch every penny because they’re not earning interest. So, if you are looking for a vibrant, involved community with vision, or a community that cares, DO NOT BUY THE TUCSON COMPANY LINE AND STAY ABSOLUTELY CLEAR OF HERE. There are no movers and shakers here if indeed there ever were in Tucson’s 300+ year history. This is a place with tremendous embedded apathy, neglect, decay, and missed opportunity. YOU SHOULD REREAD THESE Sperling’s POSTS BECAUSE THEY ALL SAY THE SAME THING… One has to wonder how much of Tucson’s morbidity goes with the retirees and their control over politics and the economy here, the area’s rampant libertarianism and isolationism, and apathy by the general population. It goes without saying that this is also a very disempowered population, with the exception again of a few big names and corporations and wealthy second-home retirees. As for the university, it is a self-contained world. It doesn’t benefit anything beyond a few blocks either way. Unlike ASU which was also more of a commuter campus that now has large presence throughout metro Phoenix, the UA is self-contained in Tucson, except of course for its new branch in DOWNTOWN PHOENIX - another thing that doesn’t bode well for Tucson, as more of the UA relocates to Phoenix.
Sam | Catalina Foothills, AZ