A City in Desperate Need of Quality Leadership
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3/8/2021
In 2003 my wife and I bought a house, that we intended to be our retirement home, in Tucson in the extreme northeast part of the town. (Actually it is in the county of Pima about 16 miles east of downtown). We were attracted to this part of the area because we believed it is the most beautiful part of the Tucson area. Although we did not retire until January 2018, we visited our Tucson area home many, many times through the years and, in fact, often stayed weeks at a time during all times of the year. So, I can confidently state that in the past 18 years we've come to know Tucson extremely well.
With that background, I turn my attention to my review to assist those persons considering a move to Tucson. First, let us consider the weather. It is a desert so expect it to be hot, very hot from about mid-May to mid-October. If you enjoy warm to hot weather, the first two weeks of May and October are bearable. But boy, June, July, August and September are doozies. Before buying our Tucson area house I did online research about the area's weather and it stated that the average highs in June, July, August and September were 99, 98, 97 and 97 respectively. I remember telling my wife, "Hey, we like hot weather we can live with those highs." I have no idea where those numbers come from because normal highs throughout summer are consistently in the 105-108 range, and often hotter. So know that unless you are coming from places like Phoenix, Las Vegas or Palm Springs you will consider the long, long Tucson summer to pretty much be unbearable. Consider that because Arizona has no time change, that in summer first light appears at about 4:45 a.m. In order to survive summer you had better be a morning person who can get up at 5 and goes to sleep early.
Before I turn my attention to other aspects about what it's like to live in Tucson, it is surprisingly a foodie town. The restaurant scene is quite robust (at least before the virus hit, hopefully that will return) and impressive. Also, if you enjoy hiking, as I do, during 8 months out of the year you'll have spectacular places in which to hike. The other 4 months you have to start your hike no later than 6 a.m. and be done by absolutely no later than 10 a.m. when it usually hits 95 to 100.
Although I live 16 miles outside of central Tucson, I have always been a downtown type person because the most interesting parts of a town are often there. While the downtown area leaves much to be desired for a city of over 500,000, it nonetheless has its interesting aspects, such as historic commercial building and residences, and some terrific restaurants and bars. Near central Tucson is the separate city of South Tucson (it's only about 4 square miles) where lie the best Mexican restaurants in the area. Also close to central Tucson is 4th Avenue which is an interesting throw back to the hippie 60s. I've always managed to have a good time going there and hanging out. One of my favorite things to do is go into its thrift stores to buy beautiful high quality used Hawaiian shirts for 10 to 12 bucks, then walk across the street to have a fabulous Italian meal at one of Tucson's best old time restaurants, Caruso's.
With all that fun one can have in Tucson then why the one star rating? Well, it's because Tucson is a backwards town. There is a reason that each year the U of A may mint another 5,000 plus degreed persons, but most have to leave town to get more than a minimum wage job. The folks who have been running the area for decades (think the mayor, city counsel and county board of supervisors) seem to be obsessed with keeping it "The Old Pueblo". I cringe every time I either see or hear those words. That attitude has kept Tucson a low wage and under developed city.
There seems to be no stomach for making changes to Tucson to advance and improve the lives of its citizens. The current mayor, Regina Romero, seems to be a perfect fit for what Tucson is and wants to remain. While I am a Latino and am proud to see the local population vote in the first Latina mayor, unfortunately Ms. Romero is not the person for the job. She seems to be more interested in being a political activist than in leading the charge for productive change, such as how to bring in companies that will keep U of A graduates in town, or even doing something as seemingly small as provide funding for bus pull outs so they don't tangle up traffic.
Instead, during the pandemic she had a large banner that stated "Black Lives Matter" placed on the City Hall building and approved those same words to be written on a downtown street. Then when a citizen applied for, and was granted, a permit to paint a blue line in front of the central Tucson Police Department building to show support for the PD, Ms. Romero contacted the City Manager and had him deny the permit which had already been approved. It finally took the City Attorney to step in and inform EVERYONE that it was inappropriate to be painting ANY political messages on city streets. Boy, what a no brainer decision that was. My point being that Tucson leadership will continue to poorly serve the true needs of the area's residents.
And finally, I turn my attention to the part of Tucson that I know will have me moving from it in the new couple of years, and that's its lack of a freeway/expressway system to facilitate the movement of vehicles in-and-around town. Tucson has housing and development that is about 20 miles by 40 miles, or in other words 800 square miles (yikes!). When I first arrived in 2018 Tucson to live full time, I naively purchased two annual passes for one of Tucson's wonders (and it is), the Desert Museum located west of Interstate 10. Well, it took me 75 minutes of hard core surface street driving, with innumerable signals that were not timed and drivers going 5 to 10 miles an hour under the speed limit to get there. When I arrived, I was exhausted. It was a rough and tough 75 minutes back home. Needless to say I didn't bother to renew the annual passes.
Interestingly, I recently purchased a book from one of Tucson's true treasures, Bookman's, which is in the same strip mall as the magnificent Beyond Bread and across the street from the best margaritas in town, Casa Molina--see I can say nice things about Tucson-- titled "Tucson, The Life and Times of an American City". The book was written by C.L. Sonnichsen, and dated 1981, 40 years ago. Please bear with me as I quote certain passages from the book's chapter entitled, "The Price of Progress: Tucson as Metropolis":
As World War II faded into history, Tucson entered
a new era--a new world. It began changing from a
small city to a metropolis, and its problems and its
advantages changed as a result.
And the growth did take place, increasing steadily as
the century progressed and the Tucson city limits moved
toward the horizon: 32,506 in 1930; 36,818 in 1940;
45,454 in 1950; 212,892 in 1960; 262,933 in 1970; 331,506 in
1980. It was astonishing; it was incredible.
Tucson, was always of two minds about progress and
expansion. Not even planners and city officials could
foresee that Tucson would boom as it did, and consequently
held back when they should have gone all out to restrain
somersaulting subdivisions, lay out adequate highways and
arterial streets, and protect the desert environment.
THEIR LACK OF LONG-RANGE VISION, EXCUSABLE
AND NATURAL AS IT WAS, LAID A HEAVY BURDEN
ON THE CITY, ITS OFFICIALS, AND ITS CITIZENS IN THE
SECOND HALF OF THE CENTURY. (emphasis provided)
Ever-increasing expansion went on, restrained but
never controlled by the planners.
One result of the exploding population bomb was the
impossible traffic situation. The "Comprehensive
Regional Plan" of 1959-60 was supplemented by a
transportation study a first stage of which was com-
pleted in 1965. It proposed to upgrade the main
arteries and build enough freeways to take care of the
problem up to 1980. This was the time for decisive
action. Settlement was sparse, and land acquisition along
the routes was easy, but the officials did not strike while
the iron was hot, and they lost their chance. Citizen
participation in the planning process actually hindered
positive action. Nobody wanted a freeway to go past
his place. Nobody wanted a bantam interchange on his
corner. The ideal seemed to be a country road winding
past a house on the foothills. Without realizing it, perhaps
these people were agreeing with Frank Lloyd Wright that
"to look at a cross section of any plan of a big city is to
look at something like a fibrous tumor." They did not
choose to look.
The foregoing was written 40 years ago, I mean 40 years ago. It would seem that some of the area's leader would have awakened to the traffic and planning issues raised by Mr. Sonnichsen in his 1981 book, but their was no awakening. In those 40 years, little to nothing was done to improve the traffic situation for the area's 800 square miles of development.
Sadly, I've spoken to many, many Tucsonans who are quite happy with the current state of affairs. They seem to be plenty happy with just staying in their little place where they live and aren't interested in getting involved in anything to improve the town. I haven't even touched on Tucson's high crime rates and extremely poor school districts.
To sum up, if you are wondering if you are the Tucson type, ask yourself if you want to part of the C- crowd, and if that doesn't bother you, then come on down to Tucson. I for one have made up my mind that I have had my fill with mediocrity.
Emilio | Tanque Verde, AZ