The nice thing about living in a small, landlocked city like El Mirage is that it limits the ambitions of the local politicians: no water parks, no trains, no mega-garages for mega-malls. So I'm disappointed when I have to read something like
this.The sad thing about moving back to Phoenix is that during my workout at the Y I will have to look out the window at
the giant fishnet and think, "I'm paying for that."
Kids don't play "economic development director;" universities aren't known for their economic development programs; when I was heavily into this stuff I searched high and low, back to front for some theoretical or empirical work to lend some hint of science to the field. Instead, it seems mainly to revolve around fads, specious analogies, buzzwords, and flashy powerpoints.
And bits of folk wisdom like "Glom onto every source of sales tax revenue you can find." After all, what is the rationale of Glendale's gerrymandered city limits if not to surround every mall and ballpark west of I-17.
So I'm disappointed to read El Mirage's economic development director say: We are stable and financially secured now, but if we cannot grow in some meaningful way, we will decline."
Was Talton right? Are our city leaders so lacking in imagination that they can see no way to a higher standard of living except through continual development?
The article was disappointing, but the comments (14 pages!) were scary. Apparently, there are dozens of who have nothing better to do at 1:00 am than read the Republic's web site and append their semi-literate, vulgar, and mean-spirited comments. And these people look down on El Mirage! Hey, the only thing worse than living in El Mirage is living next to you guys.