Tucson: A Boomtown Becomes a Desert Metropolis

Here's a fascinating look back at life in Tucson and the Catalina Foothills, nearly thirty years ago. Though it's not mentioned in the article, the Alta Vista neighborhood, (where I'm a present day resident) is the 17-mile tract of land sold by Howard Hughes' Estate. It's undoubtedly worth a good deal more now than the $50 million valuation of 1979.

"Tucson: A Boomtown Becomes a Desert Metropolis"
by Robert Lindsey, special for the New York Times
Copyright, The New York Times

Tucson, Arizona, December 14, 1979

At the fringes of this city, housing developments are edging close to the Titan II missile silos built by the Air Force 15 years ago, seemingly in the wilderness; traffic jams and air pollution have begun to bedevil the vaunted desert lifestyle; city dwellers are at war with ranchers because of fears there will not be enough water for all the people who want to move here.  And soon, as if from the grave, the late Howard R. Hughes will begin encouraging even more growth for, a classic boomtown of the American Southwest that is growing rapidly these days, partly because of newcomers' disenchantment with other Sunbelt boomtowns that grew too much.

In the 1950s, Mr. Hughes, who operated an aircraft manufacturing plant here that is still the city's largest industrial employer, bought more than 13,000 acres of land in and near the city, and left most of it to lie vacant, while houses, shopping centers, and factories sprouted up around and beside it.

Last week, his holding company, the Summa Corporation, said that, largely to raise money to pay estate taxes, it would soon begin a three year program to sell the nearly 17 square miles of under-developed land it still owns in the city, and it's immediate environment, hundreds of pieces of property that make up more than 8% of the total metropolitan area.

On assessment roles, the value of the land is listed at $22 million, although in this city where real estate values have tripled in the past three years, and one out of 10 residents is said to have a real estate sales license, some specialists here expect the sale to bring the Hughes estate more than $50 million.

How the land is used once it is sold, city officials say, is likely to help determine 's future shape, although if recent patterns are a guide, little effort will be made to use the massive sale to change the course of the city's future.

Tucson, in recent years, has undergone stormy debate over its future.  Some local officials argued that  should control the rate of its growth, especially at the city's edges, to avoid becoming "another San Jose, "the California city that earned a national reputation for unbridled urban sprawl in the 1960s.

But the local business interests and local residents that oppose the slow-the-growth movement eventually prevailed, and when a new city master plan was adopted last spring, the proposed growth-control strategies were gone, and  is now a city where, with relatively few exceptions, growth at any price seems to be the official civic doctrine.

It is a city where old faster boosterism still prevails, where local officials boast regularly about how few regulations are imposed on business and industry, and where there are signs everywhere of a tradition from cow town to metropolitan area.

"Tucson real estate is like a gold rush."  Said Dave Taylor, a city planning official, "and we've got the camp followers of a mining camp - the white shoe, white belt types, who come over here from California and try to buy up everything."  Real estate agents talk about how a syndicate of California investors bought more than 400 single family houses last year, and about another syndicate that bought 200 homes. Despite recent increases, housing prices here are still considered a bargain.

Tucson is Arizona's second city: with about 312,000 residents within the city limits, plus 200,000 more at the edges.  It is less than half as large as Phoenix, which is 100 miles to the north.

Life in Tucson is slower and less urban and feels closer to Arizona's frontier roots than bustling  Phoenix.  There is more influence of Mexico, which is 65 miles to the south, and Tucson has fewer urban problems than Phoenix.

Still, Tucson, where the population has increased by almost 19% in this decade, is changing.  Traditionally, its economy has had only four elements: the Hughes Plant, tourism, the University of Arizona, and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.  In the past two years, it has begun to develop a significant electronics industry, led by several companies fleeing California's so-called Silicon Valley near San Jose, where growth has been pinched particularly by soaring home prices.

Few Environmental Restrictions

Besides Tucson's climate and housing prices, industry appears to have been attacked by relatively low wage  levels, weak unions, and combatively breezy environmental restrictions.  "We're the last bastion of the laissez-faire, free enterprise city," said one planner, Jack Siry, unenthusiastically.

Last year, the international business machines corporations opened the plant here, and it is building a much larger one for part of a company division in San Jose; National Semi-conductor.  A San Jose area manufacturing company has also opened a facility as have several smaller companies.  "We're just seeing the tip of the iceberg for these companies,"  said James Cocke, a vice president of Valley National Bank.

Tucson is the nation's largest city, relying exclusively on underground wells and in recent years has been taking three times as much water from the ground each day than has been replaced.  Local officials insist, however, that the city is not facing a water crisis.

Farm Versus Urban Demands

If all goes according to plan, they say, the Central Arizona Project, a massive federal effort to tap the Colorado river, should be delivering water here by 1987.  Moreover, they say that local cotton growers and other farmers who make up less than 3% of the population, have now used more than 80% of the water, will eventually have to surrender some of their water to urban demands.

Mr. Taylor and other officials, said that Summa Corporations' decision to sell would be advantageous to the city's industrial development because much of its land is in the southern part of Tucson, which has been the center of the electronics industry growth.

Some residents here express fears about the economic effects of the recent growth. A year ago, the average price of a new home here was slightly more than $40,000; now, it is $62,000. Tucson's overall cost of living, meanwhile, has soared at a faster rate than the national average and, by federal standards, now ranks above such cities as Chicago and Detroit.

Still the mood here is buoyant. The jobless rate is 4.4%, below the national average, and despite occasional references to concern over energy shortages, most official speak glowingly about the march of bulldozers across the desert and into the foothills overlooking the city saying that development is inevitable.