From time to time, we meet people who wonder why we would want to build our careers and raise our families in a state like Arizona. Some are only curious and quickly plead ignorance about the place. Others—pragmatic and more skeptical—might question the state’s water supply, or its climate, or its culture. Still others see it as little more than “a backwater with few prospects,” nothing more.
No surprise that we respectfully disagree.
Some of this is a simple case of vision. Where others might see empty desert, we see the opportunity of sunlit valleys, with an undreamt future yet to be built. Perhaps this kind of optimism runs in the blood. After all, the Frontier Spirit still lives out West. How can you explain this to someone who hasn’t seen it? Maybe it’s the towering open skies. Maybe it’s the grumbling surge of monsoon thunderheads. Maybe it’s the copper-fingered dusk stretching across a broad horizon. There’s a God-given beauty to the land that stirs the soul to wonder. The land still hums with the sound of promise, and the land shapes its people.
The respect we feel for this state is also a matter of family legacy. Five generations ago, my (Joel’s) great-great grandparents arrived in Tucson after a long trip west from a small town in Arkansas. Over the decades, my family watched the deserts and mountains of Arizona fill with generations of newcomers and bring the promise of prosperity, community, and opportunity to life.
Let’s leave aside for now our personal fondness for the place, important as it is to us. Our motives draw from other wells too. At the forefront is the culture of the southwest, its rugged individualism, one of the region’s hallmarks. Match gentility with meritocracy, and you hit somewhere close to the mark. Though a young state, Arizona has the storied heritage of a hard-working, no-nonsense work ethic. That hustle was vital. Nothing less could turn harsh desert, rugged mountains, and arid plateaus into productive acreage and thriving towns.
Other reasons for preferring Arizona are more quantifiable. The state’s economy is a rising tide above a strong bedrock. With a population of ~7M and a GSP of ~$500M, the state is expanding rapidly both in population and in economic investment. Phoenix is one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Arizona ranks fourth in the nation for the number of new homes built this year. Even so, housing demand outpaces supply by tens of thousands of units, and those flocking to the state are moving for more than retirement and nice weather. A rising tide, we think; a promising opportunity, at least.
Economic tailwinds are in the air too. Manufacturing tops the list of fastest-growing sectors in the state, and Arizona’s industrial market is one of the fastest growing in the nation. Its water supply—blessed with clear-eyed management—is in a healthier condition than recent headlines might suggest. The state uses less water now than it has since the 1950s, even as it has added 6 million new residents. This kind of efficiency is the right kind of progress; we’ll need more of it in the days ahead.
That said, not all of the picture is rosy. Economic forecasts could prove too optimistic. The housing market may be another bubble. No one in Phoenix enjoys June weather. Drought is an ever-present risk. Wildfires are a yearly threat. Near-shoring to Mexico may buoy the state—or it may not. A distant promise might prove to be not so much foresight as it is mirage.
Though the pioneers faced a more brutal frontier, they saw the same bright sky as us. The opportunity we see in Arizona might be hazy at times, but it is still enough to move forward.
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