Phoenix Is The Quintessential American City

During Trump’s first term, we were the only country in the world to reject the Paris Agreement, and we will surely be again. Now, the Paris Agreement does not go far enough, and there’s no real enforcement mechanism even for countries that remain in said agreement, but at least the rest of the world is doing something as opposed to less than nothing.

No matter how much evidence we get that we need to change our policies, whether it’s on gun violence, health care, or the environment, we continue to stick our heads in the sand and deny, deny, deny that something needs to be done differently. As a society, we tend to believe that we can throw as much money as we need at a problem, and it’ll just go away. 

And there is perhaps no place that’s a better example of this cultural mindset than the “city” of Phoenix.

Golf courses in suburban Phoenix, Arizona, United States. Image taken from Thrillist.

Historically, major cities have been constructed on or near bodies of water for a number of reasons. Water is essential for life, and access to the sea is invaluable for any political entity. The four largest cities in the United States are all near the water. You have New York (Atlantic Ocean), Los Angeles (Pacific Ocean), Chicago (Lake Michigan), and Houston (Gulf of Mexico). 

Phoenix is the fifth-largest city proper in the country, and it’s a major outlier. Instead of being near a major body of water, it’s in the middle of the desert, reliant largely on groundwater in order to sustain itself. Per Wikipedia, the city has a hot desert climate with an average July high of 106.5°F (41.4°C)! And that’s the average daily maximum - in practice, there are often dozens of days a year where the high rises above 110°F. In fact, there’s a famous cartoon scene in which a character states that Phoenix should not exist.

The city proper has a population of about 1.6 million people, but the metropolitan area, the definition some people prefer to use, is estimated to contain about five million people as of 2022. That’s a 3.5% increase from 2020, which is more than a 20-fold increase from 1940. And it’s not called the “Valley of the Sun” for no reason! 

So why did Phoenix get so massive? Well, the start of the city’s rapid growth was around the end of World War II in 1945. Things were looking pretty good for the United States economically at that point, as many places in Europe had to rebuild post-war. Additionally, air conditioning became far more commonplace around that time, which made it more comfortable to live in the desert. 

Peggy Hill once said Phoenix was a monument to man’s arrogance, and I tend to agree. After winning the largest military conflict in human history, America wanted to flex its muscles. The planners probably thought “If we can win World War II, we can build a metropolis in the desert!” With this newfound superpower status, they figured that if you threw enough money at this project, it could work. And, well, it depends on what you mean by “work.”

Homelessness in Phoenix, Arizona. Picture taken from r/UrbanHell.

To be clear, Phoenix is not the only city in the country facing a housing crisis, nor is the United States even the only country with this issue. However, when increasing housing costs coincide with a hot desert climate that’s only going to get hotter, and is indeed already doing so, you have a recipe for real trouble. 

Some people have asked how homeless people manage to survive the extreme temperatures in places like Phoenix. The sad answer is that some of them don’t. In 2023, Maricopa County (anchored by Phoenix) lost some 645 people to heat-related causes, and 290 of these victims were homeless. We can talk all day long about how hazards like extreme heat exacerbate existing injustices, but homelessness is not the only problem facing Phoenix.

Consider the first photo in this post. Despite the lack of water, Arizona is a very popular golf destination. In the winter, the weather is seen as perfect. It’s pleasantly warm but not scorching, and it rarely rains because it’s still a desert. I’m not a golfer, but I’d imagine that’s the sort of weather conducive to that sport.

There’s just one problem, which is water. Namely, the lack thereof. In June 2023, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs declared that new subdivisions could not be planned in Phoenix due to the water shortage. The majority of the region’s water supply comes from groundwater, which isn’t an infinite resource, and it takes many human lifetimes to replenish. And yet, people continue to flock to the region for the low cost of living and the nice winters.

A golf course in Buckeye, Arizona. Picture taken from the New York Times.

Golf tourism has been controversial in Arizona in recent years. At a time when water shortages partly induced by climate change have gained increased attention globally, and residential areas are sometimes told to reduce their use of water at home, the golf courses very often remain green all year round. And that takes water, an essential resource anywhere that is especially precious in a place without much of it.

Recently I was reading a thread on r/FuckCars about golf and how bad it can be for the environment, and one of the users made a great point. For obvious reasons, nobody goes to Iowa expecting to surf. So why should people go to Arizona and expect to play golf? Golf is for climates with more water security - it was invented in a country with a reputation for rainy weather.

Finally, let’s talk about sprawl. It’s no secret that American cities have a reputation for being car-dependent and sprawling. This stereotype is completely accurate - the relatively few cities that are walkable, such as New York, Chicago, and my beloved Boston, are very often expensive places to live. But I don’t think there’s any American city that exemplifies sprawl more than Phoenix. Just look at it.

All of this is Phoenix. Image taken from the Britannica website.

Now, as bad as things may be in Phoenix, as much as I might say that the city “should not exist”, the fact remains that it does exist. Indigenous peoples lived in the area now known as the Valley of the Sun many centuries ago - there are rivers near it. But not millions of them. Even so, there are steps the city can take to mitigate the uneven impacts of extreme heat.

This Vox video from a couple years ago was pretty fascinating. The dark gray pavement that comprises so much of Phoenix absorbs heat like you wouldn’t believe, whereas tree cover makes a noticeable difference in the opposite direction. 

Currently, Phoenix classifies trees as private property, meaning that anyone wishing to grow trees to cool their neighborhood down must use their private resources (i.e. their own money) to do so. Consequently, wealthier neighborhoods whose residents can afford to plant and maintain trees in the desert heat contain far more tree cover. More affluent regions of Metro Phoenix such as Scottsdale and Paradise Valley have abundant shade - it’s still very hot, but shade does help! And if the authorities classified vegetation as infrastructure, then public funds would be used to maintain them, meaning that (in theory) their distribution would be more equitable around the city.

In the end, though, we have to be honest with ourselves. As it stands right now, I think the necessary changes are unlikely to be made any time soon. This “monument to man’s arrogance” will remain standing.

But not only is it a monument to man’s arrogance, it’s also an illustration of how those with any power in America always look at the evidence staring them right between the eyes and pretend not to see it. Truth be told, because it’s so unsustainable and is only getting more so, Phoenix is the quintessential American city.