![]() In the kind of air-conditioned bubbles Leggett described, it is actually possible for people like me, who work indoors, to forget the heat and oppression of Phoenix’s summer-that is, until we have to scurry across a parking lot or cross concrete plazas between buildings. I work in an air-conditioned office, eat in an air-conditioned restaurant, and perhaps go to an air-conditioned theater.” In 1961, Herbert Leggett, a Phoenix banker, spoke of his normal summer day to The Saturday Evening Post: “I awake in my air-conditioned home in the morning … I dress and get into my air-conditioned automobile and drive to the air-conditioned garage in the basement of this building. ![]() Air-conditioning is the lifeblood of Phoenix, as much a part of the city as the subway system is in New York. Developers engage in a struggle to secure water rights, tapping groundwater aquifers, drawing water from the Colorado River brought to the city by aqueduct, and purchasing water from local farmers. Even today, the speed of construction can create confusion, as residents puzzle over the location of Heartland Ranch or Copper Falls or other new subdivisions that include most of the 250,000 homes built since 2010.Įven in the summer, you might not always notice just how harsh of a terrain Phoenix can be. Five years later, more than 22,000 people lived in the neighborhood now more than 200,000 do. Long was constructing Maryvale, then on Phoenix’s western edge, he quickly turned a cantaloupe farm into seven model homes. Subdivisions have popped up in irrigated farm fields seemingly overnight. The Valley of the Sun’s ongoing commitment to new housing development continues to keep housing prices well below those of neighboring California, drawing many emigrants priced out of the Golden State. Most people surely move to Phoenix not because of the weather, but because of the housing. ![]() “But it’s a dry heat” has a long history, one in which generations of prospective newcomers have been taught to perceive Phoenix’s climate as more beneficial than oppressive. In 1895, when Phoenix was home to a few thousand people, a local newspaper reported that it had been proved “by figures and facts” that the heat is “all a joke,” because the “sensible temperature” that people experienced was far less severe than what the thermometers recorded. They traded the desiccated “Salt River Valley” for the welcoming “Valley of the Sun.” Efforts to downplay the dangers of Phoenix’s climate go back even further. Outside the summer months, the quality of life in Phoenix is really quite high-a fact that city boosters have promoted stretching back to before World War II. As the sun turned the mountain golden and I stripped down to short sleeves for the first time in months, I realized the Valley of the Sun’s charms. ![]() I had arrived the previous night from Michigan, leaving behind the late-March dreariness that passes for spring in the Midwest for several months of research that would become my book, Power Lines. My first morning in Phoenix, more than 20 years ago, the sun broke the horizon two miles up a trail in South Mountain Park, one of the largest municipal parks in the United States. Perhaps not even a heat wave like this one will change anything. Along the way, a series of innovations has made the heat seem like a temporary inconvenience rather than an existential threat for many residents. Pleasant temperatures most of the year, relatively inexpensive housing, and a steady increase in economic opportunities have drawn people for 80 years, turning the city from a small desert outpost of 65,000 into a sprawling metro area of more than 5 million. For many people, living in Phoenix makes perfect sense. Last year, Maricopa County, where Phoenix sits, gained more residents than any other county in the United States-just as it did in 2021, 2019, 2018, and 2017.Īt its core, the question makes a mystery of something that isn’t a mystery at all. “Why would anyone live in Phoenix?” You might ask that question to the many hundreds of thousands of new residents who have made the Arizona metropolis America’s fastest-growing city. Over the past month, hospitals filling up with burn and heat-stroke victims have reached capacities not seen since the height of the pandemic. One woman was admitted to a hospital’s burn unit after she fell on the pavement outside her home, and towering saguaros have dropped arms and collapsed. The toll of this heat-a monthly average of 102.7 degrees in July-has been brutal. On Monday, America’s hottest major city ended its ominous streak of 31 straight days in which temperatures crested past 110. In Phoenix, a high of 108 degrees Fahrenheit now somehow counts as a respite.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |