Standing on the corner watching life pass by Tucson
MY OPINION: Lack of will
By Lionel Waxman, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, November 20, 2009
What’s this I hear about Tucson wanting to bring in business and industry? Is this a major change in policy or am I misinformed? Up until now all I heard from “the powers” was that growth would strain resources, annoy the indigenous animals and contribute to climate change.

But Tucson always seemed above mere commerce, above crass profit, infinitely diverse. Oh, we have our dreams, expensive dreams, but dreams nonetheless – the crosstown parkway and downtown redevelopment. They will happen when the Tucson Citizen returns to the Circle K.

“But why is that,” I asked myself. Is Tucson too small? Is it too big? It can’t be just right or Boeing would have picked here instead of Charleston, S.C., as the site for the assembly plant to build its new 787 Dreamliner and brought with it those 3,000 jobs. Charleston is smaller than Tucson, with about two-thirds the population. We could use a business like that here. We have 40,000 people out of work. Granted, 3,000 is a drop in the bucket, but if you’re in that bucket it matters to you. Then there are all the collateral businesses that would supply Boeing providing another few thousand jobs.

But small doesn’t seem to be a disqualification. Fargo, N.D., with only 90,589 residents just landed a major Microsoft campus. Why would Microsoft go to North Dakota? It isn’t likely to be for the weather.

And small didn’t seem to put off Korean automaker Kia, which is going to build a major manufacturing facility in West Point in Georgia near the Alabama state line. The population is just 3,571. Surely, everyone in West Point will be working for Kia or one of its suppliers.

Each of these companies’ moves will rescue their respective cities or towns from the recession. The new jobs will mean food and clothing sales, eventually new homes and cars.

Charleston and Fargo have airports that will probably get improved airline connections as demand warrants. West Point is an 80-mile shot down Interstate 85 from Atlanta where there is already excellent air service. Tucson is a scenic 125-mile drive away from Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix and Tucson has an airport that would be better served if the passenger traffic were here.

The cost of living in Fargo or West Point has got to be laughable compared to anyplace on the coast. Neither was put off by a lack of fine restaurants and upscale facilities, which will undoubtedly come to satisfy new demand.

There is one common characteristic of these three venues that the arriving companies all agreed was critical. They are in right-to-work states. They all want to be free of the thugocracy of unions. Oh, if only Arizona were a right-to-work state. Hey, wait. It is.

Comparing Tucson with the three locations that hit the jackpot, there are few obvious differences. In fact, Tucson has better facilities and an educated and multilingual work force as well. Everything about Tucson says we should be getting such industries here. We have the stores, restaurants, rail and highway connections, and proximity to markets. We certainly have the weather and a plentiful availability of utilities of every kind.

We have it all. Except…

We don’t have the will to do it. Tucson grows only by virtue of retirees who come here for golf, sun and a steak. They don’t care about bringing industry to Tucson. We can barely get them interested in supporting the schools in which they have no kids.

Tucson has a disproportionately large number of people who have little to gain from the economic success of the region. They don’t really care what happens to downtown Tucson. If it is uninviting, they just won’t go there.

They allow the election of officials who are incompetent, who can’t get things done, who waste taxpayers’ money, and mostly stand around dumbfounded when sports teams — and now probably, the annual gem and mineral shows — leave.

Alexis de Toqueville is attributed with the saying that people get the government they deserve. Pogo famously said, “We has [sic] met the enemy and he is us.” Now what are we going to do about it?

Contact Lionel Waxman at territorial@waxmanmedia or visit his website: www.newflashpoint.com.