"Phoenix is a vision of America's future"

July 18, 2024 9:43 AM

George Packer on "the most American city" as a harbinger of what's coming for us collectively.

[Atlantic via Wayback Machine]:

Phoenix makes you keenly aware of human artifice—its ingenuity and its fragility. The American lust for new things and new ideas, good and bad ones, is most palpable here in the West, but the dynamo that generates all the microchip factories and battery plants and downtown high-rises and master-planned suburbs runs so high that it suggests its own oblivion. New Yorkers and Chicagoans don’t wonder how long their cities will go on existing, but in Phoenix in August, when the heat has broken 110 degrees for a month straight, the desert golf courses and urban freeways give this civilization an air of impermanence, like a mirage composed of sheer hubris, and a surprising number of inhabitants begin to brood on its disappearance.

George Packer previously.

Packer talks to Phoenix's KJZZ and 'The Bulwark' podcast talking about reporting this piece.

posted by ryanshepard (27 comments total)

"This city should not exist. It is a monument to man's arrogance."
posted by Rhaomi at 9:49 AM on July 18 [33 favorites]

My sister moved to the Palm Springs area. I visited her over a period of five straight days of over 110 degrees (43 C). I thought, God was trying to tell people not to live there.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:16 AM on July 18 [3 favorites]

I just don't know how you fix any of that with the people that live there, the people that run those governments, and the available systems that could help.

The part about 1% of the population dying (13,000) but 800,000 being hospitalized during a multi-day power outage? There's no way. We all saw how crushing hospitals worked out during early COVID, there's absolutely no way it would be just 13,000 if the projection is 800,000 needing emergency care. And there's no way to get all those people out of the city in that short a span of time.

It just feels like Phoenix, and places similar to Phoenix, will continue until they literally cannot continue and then it will be too late.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:27 AM on July 18 [17 favorites]

Haven't been to Phoenix in years (except in the connecting through Sky Harbor way of "being in a place") and I'm sure there's things to recommend it, but I can't see it. Always think of The Water Knife and Cadillac Desert when I do because if it was folly to build the second largest city in the US in a coastal chaparral, I don't know what you call building Vegas and Phoenix in actual desert.
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:45 AM on July 18 [10 favorites]

My brother lives in the Phoenix-area, and I'm going to visit next week for his birthday and for a concert (Dweezil Zappa, whoo hoo!) but yeah, it's freakin hot as hell, fake as hell, and crazy Republican as hell. Why does it exist? Who the hell knows.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:59 AM on July 18 [4 favorites]

Why does it exist?

No idea, but while you're there, go visit the Musical Instrument Museum. It's amazing.
posted by heyitsgogi at 11:17 AM on July 18 [9 favorites]

Why does Phoenix exist? Find a map like this from about 1985, 1990, 2000, then 2010:

The House of Representatives if it was apportioned by housing units built since 2020

And that CA number looks pretty good, but statistically, more people in CA now live east of I5 (inland side) than west (the coast side). And Seattle just passed LA in uniform density. That's just sad.

Also, Phoenix is like a lot of places in the US: A season sucks (for Phoenix, it's summer of course) but the other 8 months of the year, the weather is very nice. And you can drive 1 hour north into the mountains and get away from the heat, which is not true of most of the southeast.

Also IMO, the funniest thing about Phoenix and Las Vegas is the fact that they still have homes and (especially) front yards like the rainy east, but the yards are just gravel - like useless appendages - for nearly every home. Like when does the lightbulb moment occur and say "maybe we should do something else instead?"
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:20 AM on July 18 [8 favorites]

it's freakin hot as hell, fake as hell, and crazy Republican as hell.

2 out of 3, maybe. 2 out of 3 for certain if you include Scottsdale.

Phoenix (and Tucson) are the reason Democrat Mark Kelly is sitting in the US Senate representing Arizona. And subsequently the reason Ketanji Brown Jackson is on SCOTUS instead of Mitch McConnell saying "there's an election coming up in 2 years, we should let the people decide then."

It's hot, not long-term-viable, full of strip malls and everything else people say it is. But I'd rather be there than a lot of other places.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 11:23 AM on July 18 [13 favorites]

Absolutely agree it makes no sense as a modern city during the acceleration of climate change. By today's standard's it's foolhardy.

But also - it wasn't founded today? And there is no question that the desert can be inspirational and beautiful in a way that must be hard to abandon - I saw a Chihuly installation at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West and at least for that afternoon, I think I understood a little.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 11:29 AM on July 18 [9 favorites]

Hi, I live in Phoenix! AMA!

More seriously: this is my home. I love it here. We're more liberal than people give us credit for; our food scene is extremely good (seriously, some of the best pizza in the world is here... And that's not even getting into the Mexican cuisine); everything is casual and open-air and bright all year long. I prefer the heat to the cold (and I've previously lived in Minnesota, so my preference is an informed one), and I love the nine months in every year that I get to sit out on my patio under a brilliant blue sky. Our sunsets can take your breath away.

Remember, also, that the desert is a living place. In fact, the desert will provide you with what you need to survive, and readily, if you only spend a bit of time learning her ways. This is not, by virtue of its climate, a doomed place.

But, yeah, all that said, the article is right: you can't live here without recognizing the impermanence and impertinence of living here as we do. There is so much asphalt, and it amplifies the heat. You never hate roadways truly until it is 115 and you need to cross a road with five lanes. We rely on stolen water rights, and someday that water will dry up. We are evidence of the sins of manifest destiny and American hubris.

Like I said, this is my home. There is much to love here, and I don't like seeing people shit on it, even when the conversation is about the fundamental problems with this place.
posted by meese at 11:50 AM on July 18 [49 favorites]

Phoenix (and Tucson) are the reason Democrat Mark Kelly is sitting in the US Senate representing Arizona.

Of course, Phoenix & Maricopa County was also where Joe Arpaio was Sheriff for 24 years, so, you know, a land of contrasts.

Tucson I loved. Lived there for 5 years, even despite the miserable summers it is a fun place to be. Phoenix has some of the benefits of a "big city" but is full of strip malls and concrete and fakeness.
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:19 PM on July 18 [2 favorites]

I enjoyed Tucson the few days I visited. An old woman with giant novelty sunglasses asked me if I had any weed.
posted by credulous at 12:23 PM on July 18 [6 favorites]

Well, did you? Did you share?

My college roommate had an uncle who lived there. We hit them up for a free night on our spring break road trips. And this was in the 80s! (My roommate I think lives in Globe, AZ, and has gone full on Nazi. Sigh...)

Hubris, deserts. climate change, water?

No thanks
posted by Windopaene at 12:37 PM on July 18

An old woman with giant novelty sunglasses asked me if I had any weed.

Goddammit, Mom.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:13 PM on July 18 [19 favorites]

I was in Phoenix last year to go to a couple MLB spring training games and it surprised me how much I liked it. The Desert Botanical Garden is stunning, spring training is like the platonic ideal of baseball, and we found some really great cocktail bars and restaurants in Phoenix proper.

It would never be the right fit for me to live there - that sort of sprawly, resource-intensive, drive-everywhere kind of development kills my soul, and I prefer cold weather to hot - but I was surprised to end up liking that trip as much as I did.
posted by misskaz at 2:54 PM on July 18 [1 favorite]

"Phoenix is a vision of America's future"

Super hot and uncertain water supplies?
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 3:04 PM on July 18 [4 favorites]

It just feels like Phoenix, and places similar to Phoenix, will continue until they literally cannot continue and then it will be too late.

Like so much else: slowly at first and then all at once.
posted by notyou at 3:04 PM on July 18 [5 favorites]

A Phoenix sized population inside of that valley is not inherently insane. There are cities that size in the Arab World.

But if you're going to move to the Salt River Valley, you might notice that the weather reports include terms from Arabic, like haboub, (dust storm) and hamseen (a hot wind that makes the heat worse rather than better).

In which case you might want to notice that Arab cities are actually built for the climate. Those casbahs look the way they do for a reason. If people really want to live there, they should understand that shaded alleys save lives and sun blasted parking lots take lives.
posted by ocschwar at 6:48 PM on July 18 [9 favorites]

why does anyplace exist? they are either productive or subsidized, and like most of the us land area, the arid west is subsidized by govt money, infrastructure and policy, built on other peoples land and watered with other peoples water. Sound harsh? its that way in most places, its just more obvious in some. Conneticut, for example is just as wasteful and physically unproductive.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 8:40 PM on July 18

In his novel "The Water Knife", Paolo Bacigalupi is seeming more and more prescient in his post-climate apocalypse depiction of Phoenix.

All we need is a Chinese firm coming in with a big self contained arcology project and he's going to be close to 100% accurate.
posted by sotonohito at 6:38 AM on July 19 [3 favorites]

My father in-law's brother moved there to live with his daughter around the time he turned 80. "Get away from the cold." He's in his upper 90s now.

The man has been confined to one house and occasional trips in the car to his doctor for over 15 years. He cannot be outside. It would kill him. It's insane, but there you go.

On top of that, the family living there are Democrats (union-strong through and through) so I have no earthly idea why any of them moved there to begin with. My guess is the daughter relocated there to "get away from the cold."

Saguaro cacti have thrived for a million years in the SW of what is now the USA and it's become too hot for them. Saguaro are declining, dying from the heat. It's pure insanity for anyone to live there, but insanity 'twas ever thus.

I happen to be reading The Water Knife right now.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:56 AM on July 19 [1 favorite]

Dubai’s ‘feels like’ temperature soars to deadly 143.6°F (62°C),
posted by jeffburdges at 8:02 AM on July 19

On top of that, the family living there are Democrats (union-strong through and through) so I have no earthly idea why any of them moved there to begin with.

As someone who lives in a deep blue city in a solidly blue state, I envy Democrats living in swing states, because their votes on the federal and state level actually matter. I lived in the Phoenix area for decades of shitty Republican politics, so I know it's weird to think of it this way, but Arizona is a swing state now. And it's partly because of transplants like your relatives bringing their politics with them.

The water situation in AZ scares the shit out of me, so I wouldn't want to live there anymore, but boy, do I wish that I had the power at the federal level that Arizona voters do.
posted by creepygirl at 4:36 PM on July 19 [1 favorite]

Meese, I hear ya about the desert being a magical place with incredible beauty. My beef with Phoenix is that people don't want to truly live in or be a part of the desert, they want to live in a generic American city with the pinnacle they strive for being Paradise Valley, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Encanto et al. Look at these places on Google maps--lawns, open air pools, golf courses.... Gallons and gallons of water so people can pretend they don't live in the desert. The Phoenix Country Club, Biltmore Estates, Camelback, McCormic Ranch, etc. are all abominations. People are dying for lack of water and thousands more will die in the desert cities of US, while the wealthy just piss it away.

Ocschwar has it. Desert dwellers need to adapt to living in the desert: If people really want to live there, they should understand that shaded alleys save lives and sun blasted parking lots take lives.
I'd love to see a comparison of the heat generated in a big flat lot versus a 5-story parking garage with the same number of parking spaces. The top floor can be shaded with solar panels to run the lights and elevators. Dog knows I'd much rather park in a shaded garage space than on the oven of an exterior lot.

Make laws that say every new home has to capitalize on insulation using thick clay walls, build covered patios enclosing trees for coolth, utilize wind tunnels and other ancient techniques, and above all install solar heating and cooling on every roof. Personally, if a corporation runs a big box store, I think every square inch of those damn flat roofs should be covered in solar panels, not just in Phoenix, but anywhere solar gain is feasible for most of the year.

And no trees!! There are no trees in Phoenix. People have these stupid grass yards, but there is no shade. Yes, Mr BH and I live in the Great Basin Desert, and we have a front and back yard. Both our front and back lawns are about 60'x25'. The front has four big trees, the back has none because of the septic and drain field. We use double+ the amount of water to keep the back half as green as the front. The front yard is on the south and is bearable even in 100-degree heat. The north side is miserable, and even the pergola doesn't help that much. Trees are magic, even if they're just stupid Chinese elms or cottonwoods.

People aren't going to leave the desert--well, maybe if they start dying. But there are ways to adapt to the desert and still have an amazing standard of living.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:03 PM on July 19 [5 favorites]

BlueHorse> the back has none because of the septic and drain field

Agrivoltaics might interest you: solar panals elevated above the ground create some of the same cooling and humidity effects.

Agrivoltaics do not provide transpiration of course, so one cannot recover the biotic pump effect by installing millions of hectares of solar panels. Only trees can create rain.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:39 PM on July 20

The discussion here does make it seems like some people haven’t read the full article. It’s a pretty long Atlantic piece, and does have a bunch of theses (including some centrist bullshit).

But one of its main points is that the extremism, as embodied by the psychotic AZ GOP, is getting in the way of sensible water policy. Some areas rely on groundwater. If you pump water out faster than rain and snowmelt replenish it, the water table drops, wells run dry, and there’s no way to raise it again without using even less water and waiting.

As the article points out, Phoenix itself is under a regulatory regime regarding how much water is pumped; but get outside this range, even to exurb areas in the Valley, and the dismantling of water regulations in the 1990s means developers can build without a water source. Further out and somehow Saudi Arabia is farming alfalfa (high water crop) in AZ on leased government land, and there’s a dairy farm pumping who knows how much water in Cochise county (which is ruby red politically). So, why not regulate? Reflexive extremism. If the D’s want it, the R’s oppose.

Since the article is stupidly centrist it blames Dems too, but given that AZ Dems include a broad tent whereas the AZ GOP has pushed out even staunch conservatives like Rusty Bowers whose only fault was not going along with illegal post 2020 election denier nonsense— as the article itself reminds us— I think extremism has a pretty sole source in this state.

On the bright side the state house and senate are actually winnable this year. Just this morning our local rep was door knocking so we got to meet him.

I should also say— we specifically chose our house because it has no pool. Because it is close enough that we can bike to work, in temps up to 105 or so (which is most of the year, especially since it’s not like we bike to work at 3 pm). There was no front lawn when we bought the place, and we replaced the back with xeriscaping and a drip system as soon as we moved in. We’ve put a desert adapted tree (Palo Verde) in the front. We plan to get solar panels in the next few years, since AC uses energy but we can easily get more of that from the sun (there is so much sun y’all). What’s more, we aren’t alone in these actions. Phoenix, and AZ as a whole, can make wise choices.

We know that the problem with living in the Valley isn’t the heat, it’s the water. And even then it’s not that there isn’t enough, it’s that it is so mismanaged. (Eventually the population will be too big so no management would help, and the current mismanagement is making the day when that happens closer than it needs to be.)

One phrase the article likes to repeat: whiskey’s for drinking, water is for fighting.

We’re going to have to stop that if we want to survive.
posted by nat at 4:17 PM on July 20 [7 favorites]

Icy body bags and mobile coolers: Here’s what it takes now to survive outside in America’s hottest city [CNN]
posted by ryanshepard at 10:06 AM on August 2 [1 favorite]