Abstract
Phoenix is a city built on sun, desert, and growth. Today, Arizona is one of the more politically controversial states of the Union, and many are familiar with the Phoenix area people and events described in the epilogue of this book: Sherriff Joe Arpaio, cuts to social programs, controversial immigration laws, and the tragic shooting of Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords (p. 336). Despite this familiarity, most people are likely unaware that these modern-day controversies mirror historical economic and political controversies across the nation.
In this regard past is prologue, and the author of this book endeavors to illustrate how historical economic and political trends in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area mirror historical economic and political trends at the regional and national levels. In this endeavor, the author is successful in crafting a tale with interdisciplinary appeal that sheds a well-researched light on the politicized nature of economic development. A focus of the book is the documentation of the efforts of a group of powerful elites, whom the author calls grasstops, to shape the economic and industrial climate of Phoenix. The book begins in the early 20th century, shortly after Arizona joined the Union in 1912, and comprises 11 chapters divided into an introduction; three sections titled “Desert,” “Reclamation,” and “Sprawl”; and an epilogue.
Artfully woven throughout the book are vignettes that connect the intertwined economic and political trends in Phoenix to regional and national trends, with a focus on trends in other Sunbelt cities such as San Diego, Atlanta, and Charlotte. These vignettes drive home the author’s thesis that the economic and political trends of Phoenix mirror larger regional and national trends. It highlights that present-day debates about taxes, regulation, and the foundations of a true conservative philosophy are merely reflections of historical debates with a different cast of characters. Although written in a political context, this book has interdisciplinary appeal to researchers interested in 21st century economic development issues.
The first section describes the colonial economy of Phoenix and early efforts to diversify the regional economy after the Great Depression and World War II, which was essentially a colony of the manufacturing Northeast, to which the nation’s weather-weary elite flocked in the winter. In these early years, the Phoenix economy was built on four Cs: cattle, climate, copper, and cotton (p. 20), which suffered large downturns in the recession. Although the economy recovered during wartime to become a center of defense manufacturing built on “The Valley’s Big Three” companies (Aluminum Company of America, AiResearch, and Goodyear), local area businessmen voiced concerns about diversifying the economy with a focus on wholesaling, distribution, and large-scale manufacturing (p. 51). These grasstops were local merchants and professionals who opposed the liberal regulatory environment created by New Deal policies. Instead, these individuals subscribed to a neoliberal philosophy, which asserted that the state should facilitate commerce by reducing taxes and regulations. The grasstops would become the champions of industrial Phoenix, and the remaining two chapters of this book describe how these powerful elites carried out a political and economic agenda to realize this vision.
Section 2 of the book describes these business mogul’s efforts to build a favorable business climate to avoid a postwar recession after wartime production ceased. Building this business climate required a resolution to a host of issues including right-to-work laws, municipal-level power struggles, taxation, annexation, and a labor force conducive to attracting high-tech firms. The goal of creating a high-tech friendly business climate also led to the conversion of Tempe Arizona State Teacher’s College to Arizona State University, with a focus on educating engineers for local area business.
Section 3 traces Phoenix’s industrial recruitment efforts in the 1950s and 1960s, the people behind these efforts, and the end of “business rule” in the 1970s. Chapter 8, titled “Industrial Phoenix,” describes in detail how “Phoenix-Style Industrial Recruitment” worked to attract companies like Motorola, General Electric, Sperry Rand, and Unidynamics with marketing campaigns that blended the novelty of the West with the unique racial and cultural heritage of the area to compete with other Sunbelt metropolitan areas for businesses. Chapter 9, titled “The Conspicuous Grasstop,” is perhaps the linchpin of the entire book. It highlights how the city’s economic and political elite, which had been so instrumental in shaping the growth of the region, rose to national political prominence. In particular, it describes how political players like Walter Bimson and Barry Goldwater shaped the conservative political scene in the 1960s and how two Phoenix transplants of the judicial system, William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor, became two of the most well-known Supreme Court justices of all time.
The final chapter of the book before the epilogue, titled “Frankenstein’s Monster,” outlines the backlash against the progrowth, probusiness attitude of the Phoenix political and business elite, personified by the powerful Charter Government Committee. It discusses the consequences of the fierce recruitment strategies of previous decades, which focused on growth to the detriment of minority participation in the job market, increasing sales and property taxes and shrinking public services. It also highlights the unchecked sprawl of the metropolitan area. For example, Shermer highlights that at the beginning of the 1960s, Phoenix had no housing code for 5 years because of the almost hyperbolic nature of antiregulatory rhetoric at this time (pg. 309).
The book closes by posing some provocative questions for economic development policy and practice. Are we doomed to repeat “our unsustainable political-economic past?” or Will we move forward to construct a more economically robust, socially democratic society than we endeavored to build in the past? These questions are rooted in the classic debate about whether economic growth and economic development are mutually exclusive objectives. A resolution of this apparent paradox is certainly a challenge the economic development community must begin to resolve if we wish to reject the assertion that our economic and political past is prologue.