GUEST OPINION: Difference in attitude
By Hugh Holub, special for Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, February 26, 2010

One of the interesting pieces of information from the Census statisticians is the difference in median household income between Tucson and Phoenix. According to the American Community Survey compiled in 2003, in Phoenix the median household income is $40,919 a year and in Tucson it is $32,414. That’s a difference of more than $8,500.

So if you want to make $8,500 a year more in your family, what is the answer?

Why is this the case?  Local government being hostile to business?

My favorite Tucson story involves a business that put flags up in front of its headquarters in honor of each country it did business in. They were cited for violating Tucson’s sign code. They moved their headquarters outside the area.

But the governments of Tucson and Pima County reflect the people who vote and participate in the political process.

It could be said that a whole lot of people in Tucson do not depend on the local private sector to eat. And even if they do, they don’t vote their paychecks. How could they when Tucson is a franchise town?

Tucson is also a government town.

If you look around the broader region, from Austin to Albuquerque to Maricopa County and westward, you see communities with very strong and clearly identifiable private sector business leadership. They have big plans. They have a “can do” attitude about improving the income levels of their areas. They have courage and confidence.

When the other cities go looking for jobs, they land Intel plants. When Tucson looks for jobs they land call centers that compete with workers from India.

Recently when companies were solicited by the federal government for renewable energy proposals, all of the companies on the short list were from Maricopa County. None were from Tucson.

There is also a healthy respect for the private sector in El Paso, San Antonio, Austin, Albuquerque, Phoenix, Las Vegas and San Diego. Not so in Tucson. The private sector is viewed by many as the enemy of desert rodents.

Look at the downtowns of the cities in the region. You see lots of privately owned buildings.

Tucson has an almost total governmental monopoly of ownership of its downtown. The only cities with higher percentages of government buildings might be Washington,D.C., or Moscow.

The private sector in downtown Tucson was bulldozed out of existence in favor of monuments to tax revenues.

A friend once suggested making the downtown library building — which is spectacularly out of place architecturally — a mausoleum for dead Tucson politicians. Government workers could have an annual parade down Stone Avenue, with local politicians standing on the roof of the building.

The lawn next to the mausoleum would have gravestones for all the downtown businesses that have died since 1950. There would be lots of them.

What is Tucson the headquarters of besides one of the most obstructionist environmental groups in the nation?

What is Tucson famous for making, besides a sign code that makes it difficult to fly an American flag at your business?

Inside Tucson Business came out with its 2010 Book of Lists at the end of January. A suggestion for a new List in the 2011 edition might be: Regional Business Leaders. Who are they?

And besides reducing the amount of red tape businesses have to deal with, what should  business leaders be doing to eliminate that $8,500 a family income gap?

Contact Hugh Holub, an attorney who works in real estate development, public utility, water and environmental law, at HughHolub@msn.com.

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