Let’s dust off the crystal ball this morning. “Dust it off” is the operative term. Here in lovely uptown Arizona, gale-strength winds have been blowing every day and most nights for the past several weeks. Clean the furniture, and the next day it looks like you haven’t dusted in the past ten days.
Arizona is still mired in a decade-long drought, with no end in sight. Actually, the drought has gone on longer than a decade, and “normal” summer temperatures have been steadily rising as development runs amok and cities get bigger and more hectic. When I moved here in 1962, a 110-degree day was hot. Summer temperatures might rise as high as 112, but 114 was unheard-of. Now we regularly get 114-degree days, and we have seen highs of 118. In some parts of the Valley, unofficial backyard thermometers hit 120.
The City of Phoenix, now the eighth- or ninth-largest metropolitan area in the country, has not yet instituted water rationing, although it has raised water bills into the astronomical range, our City Parents hoping to discourage water use. It now costs as much to keep my xeric landscaping alive as it used to cost me to water lawns in front and back yards: often the water bill is higher than the exorbitant air-conditioning bill. The Valley avoids having to force residents to save water, by law, because of the Central Arizona Project, which diverts Colorado River water into the low desert.
However, the Colorado is running low, and the reservoirs that impound that water are running lower.
Outlying towns are forbidding residents to wash their cars, to refill their swimming pools (which means when your pool drops below the level of the tile rim, you have to shut off the pump and drain the pool, or let it turn into a green mosquito nest), to water their lawns, or even to use their garden hoses at all. Exceed your allotment or get caught in the act and you’ll get a stinging fine.
So…the question is, how long is this region going to remain livable?
If tomorrow the City informed me that I couldn’t run my irrigation system, couldn’t keep my pool full enough to operate the pump, and couldn’t water the trees, life here would take a decided turn for the worse. The shade and citrus trees temper the heat inside the house and help keep air-conditioning bills marginally under control. The pool, besides providing therapy for the chronic back and hip pain, makes living through a Sonoran Desert summer marginally tolerable. Without it, one would either suffer some serious misery for three or four months or, if at all possible, leave town for the summer.
The gardens and the flowering desert trees and the springtime abundance of citrus form a major part of what makes the low desert a good place to live. If suddenly we were told we could no longer have those things…well, it would no longer be a good place to live. My guess is about 90% to 95% of Phoenix dwellers would agree with that. Give us water rationing, and we’ll give you out-migration.
And, as you can imagine, if a lot of people start to move away, property values will drop as dramatically as they did during the Great Recession. Only this time they won’t come back up.
Right now, prices are back to where they were pre-Bubble. Most people are no longer underwater. And interest rates are low.
If I were a young Arizona professional, business owner, or craftsman able to make a decent living, I’d start looking right now for work someplace at least 20 or 30 miles inland – more, preferably – where they have water but no tornadoes. And precious little snow. This could be one’s last chance.
Wow. 120F sounds like a preview of Hell itself.
The water situation is a nightmare. Like most systems in nature (and society) you won’t experience a gradual, imperceptible decline in quality of life due to rationing; a tipping point will come, when a balance point is reached and things rapidly tumble. I expect that 2015-2020 will see one of the largest migrations in North American history, as Arizona/Nevada/New Mexico are emptied and Minnesota/Wisconsin/NoSoDak are filled.
You heard it here first. Why don’t you apply for a Canadian visa and come on up to take advantage of the housing bubble burst? Great houses, low, low prices. Lotsa water. Some of it liquid form.
O Canada! What a lovely country! Spent some months hitchhiking and busing around up there — loved the Canadians, loved the country.
Hm. Could you do something about the snow, though? 😉
Every area has it’s benefits and drawbacks. There’s no such thing as Utopia or if there is, the people that live there have smartly kept it from the rest of us.
Michigan has lots of water 🙂
A-n-n-n-n-d…mosquitoes the size of F-16s! To say nothing of Detroit…
“I’d start looking right now for work someplace at least 20 or 30 miles inland – more, preferably – where they have water but no tornadoes. And precious little snow.” And where might that be? Or are you just not wanting to give away your secret answer! 😉
I seriously cannot think of a place that fits the criteria of lots of water, little snow, and no tornadoes other than parts of far northern California and Oregon. However, they have earthquakes and are in an area with potential for volcanic activity, too. With the exception of Portland, OR they also don’t have a lot of jobs.
I’ve been looking for a place that meets similar criteria — strong job market and mild winters — and came up with Portland and a couple northern CA cities. Unfortunately the strongest job markets in northern CA are in cities that are also suffering from drought. There’s just no perfect place!
If I were a young person, I would not restrict my search to the US.
We’ll we here in MN have to suffer through 4-5 months of winter where it is just as miserable on the extreme cold side. But the economics are relatively good. Seems that everywhere has crosses to bear. My personal solution is to be a snowbird just as soon as I can. If anyone has the perfect place, please let us know.
We are retiring from Southern California to Tennessee next month, assuming we survive the fires currently raging around us.