What's Going To Happen To Phoenix By 2050?
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- Опубликовано: 29 июл 2023
- Phoenix. Suburbs. Golf Courses. Single Family Sprawl. America's least sustainable city is currently staring down a historic drought that could (hopefully) force it to change it's ways.
This video is about the water situation in Phoenix, the future difficulties we'll have in building housing for our growing population, and what's going to happen to the city in the future.
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"Why are there so many golf courses in the middle of the desert?"
Some guy at the 110th floor in NYC: "I need them"
Snowbirds ... golf
@@bluegrassgalit’s not just snowbirds. It’s other boomers who just live here who migrated en masse and continue to do so. Y’all got yours so you don’t give a fuck about anyone else, or the future of our country.
literally 0% of the water issues are arizona natives' faults. it's all northerners who want to golf, and arabs who want to farm alfalfa.
Stop farming in the desert
@@ZoomZoomMX3let me fix that for you-
“Stop farming in the desert to then serve the harvest to non-locals””
Phoenix should not exist let's be totally real
Also las vegas
I agree it's a sprawling hellscape
@@jonathanastro2531 yep I'm running out of here as soon as possible
Fr Im pretty sure the only reason it grew was because of dirt cheap land for people/businesses but like y’all it’s a desert…
And back in WW2, it was a good place to train military pilots.
I predict that in the future, former rust belt cities will experience a population and economic boom as people move from the American Southwest due to affordability and climate change. The Great Lakes region has an abundant supply of water which could sustain a population several times larger than its current size.
The great lakes area is a "Mediterranean" of NA. Bad environmental and economic policy makes it look dingy.
@@nathanandsugar5252 Are you arguing that the great lakes have MORE environmental issues than building a sprawling inefficient metropolis in the middle of a desert? If so, ROFL bud. You didn't that that one through.
I’m not from the Great Lakes but I would lower your voice
No one wants to drink polluted water
@@nathanandsugar5252absolutely!
I’ll never feel bad for them. Pretty much all my family lives there. I remember in 2018 I was at my grandmas with all the family in town. Her neighborhood has a golf course. She wasn’t allowed to water her 20k yard but the golf course sprinklers ran every 2 hours so the grass didn’t burn doing the heat wave. It’s so ass backwards
yeah I hate it here.
Literally no one is asking you to feel bad for us you goon lmao. Have fun over in whatever god awful town you live in while we figure things out over here in the fastest growing city
@@Zectifindip then
its not that easy to drop everything and leave@@KenPolley
@@Zectifinleave then
Even some rather smart urban planners I know have told me It was crazy to build Phoenix due to the water issue, and they would be shocked when I tell them that no, the crazy idea was developing agriculture, but that urban expansion actually creates a water surplus since urban land use is so much less water intensive than agriculture. Really glad to see a video that gets this issue correct! Well done!!
Idk if it creates a water surplus if the reference amount of water use is zero when there are no people living in the desert
I still remember when SRP came to our school to explain how to use water well and that whole BS. because I was a little smart-ass i asked him about agriculture and he had nothing to say but "we're working on it"
Israel worked on it and managed some amazing progress even if we didn't. Check it out.
But the suburban sprawl the phoenix has taken on is a HUGE detriment to the environment. The excess amount of supplies, pavement, sewage and electrical lines not only makes it overall les tax profitable for the city, but costlier to maintain. Suburban sprawl in the way phoenix did it and other cities like it, especially those in the south, Dallas, Houston, LA, Miami, Phoenix are hellscapes. The massive amount of pavement also dooms phoenix to eliminate the cycle deserts have, of excruciating heat in the day, and cooling off and staying cool at night. Instead the pavement holds this heat, making the night way hotter then it should. And while agriculture is indeed the major draw of the water, the eternal promise of green lawns is just as bad for water as they are the environment in general. Phoenix needs to stop spreading out and start densifying its neighboorhoods if it hopes to stay truly afloat.
Most of these suburbs would do best untouched, with agriculture taking place where more plants actually grow and more dense living concentrated in a more reasonable area
Almost seems like its a bit of a bad idea to built so many suburbs in the FUCKING DESERT!!!!!
Name a place in the US that does not have any negative weather ever,.
@@katydid2877 San Diego.
@@anthonyiannozzi6777 Very true. It just cost 10X too much to live there. And it’s in Cali. And all the illegals getting dropped off may eventually have a negative impact, but sure the weather is nice.
@@katydid2877there’s a massive difference between Ohio who has snow storms and well snow and Arizona which is a desert. Why do you think life is so void there already?
@@pumpkiespoon8524 “Void” like open land? Most of the western US is open land.
Always tune in when you post, but what an awesome surprise to get a shoutout! Thanks for explaining incremental development so clearly, this is really crucial stuff.
P.S. when I (Mike) lived in Scottsdale, I applied to live at cul-de-sac! Too bad construction wasn’t completed in time before we ended up moving to Chicago. We should connect next time I’m in the valley!
Thanks Mike! You guys are doing great work.
@@ThomasFromPHXPhoenix o my gets 7-8 inches of rain a year… there’s not way to make a metro sustainable in that environment. We could have a few people living there to keep the region going; but it would be much better for the planet if people in literal deserts would start migrating back from whence they came. Afterall; the only reason people moved there to begin with is because they could pollute the environment with air-conditioning that kept the heat out.
Hey. How can I become a member?
@@ThomasFromPHXI feel left out... Can I have a shout out too? Lol 🥺🙊
@@StLouis-yu9iz It's not about rain, it's never been about rain. The Hopi people cultivated the area using the salt river, which we've dammed 3 massive resivoirs, salt lake, canyon lake, and the largest roosevelt lake which all get filled generally during the monsoon season. Just because the way we get water is different than St. Louis doesn't mean it's unsustainable. And your argument for why people moved here to begin with is kinda dumb and very doomer, a lot of people move here for all types of reasons, including to get away from the allergy inducing plants that populate the wetter areas of the country. IMO it's one of the most impressive water reservation/delivery systems since the Romans
great to see a fellow arizonan posting videos about our urban planning woes in Phoenix, and what we need to do to overcome these obstacles. Really enjoying your videos dude
You can’t make water appear from nowhere. There’s not ‘overcoming these obstacles’ with that many people in the region.
@@StLouis-yu9iz once it becomes an actual issue, resources and money gets allocated and things get figured out. If it worries you then relocate
I just moved away from Phoenix in the beginning of 2022 and the climate was a big contributing reason. Based on current trends, I don't see how the city or state will move to curb the urban heat island effect, reduce unnecessary water use for all the grass lawns and golf courses in Phoenix metro, or significantly reduce car use, especially as it is trending hotter every year. I lived at 32nd st and thunderbird, right off AZ 51 and very near PV mall. Valley metro's plans to build a light rail line to one of the more dense, walkable areas of the city were canceled. The line to westgate and metro center are tenuous and take FOREVER to build. Apartment buildings and townhomes were being blocked in the central corridor while single family housing subdivisions that are car dependent and water intensive are exploding in areas like deer valley, cave creek, anthem, queen creek and san tan valley, and of course verrado and buckeye. As much as I love so many things about Phoenix and Arizona as a whole, it's difficult to see a positive long term outcome for most of the valley. Would love to live in a place like culdesac, but it's taken years to get the first car-free development. There isn't currently enough density or transit infrastructure to support that in most of the rest of the valley, meaning more places like that may be DECADES away.
I feel like when people start to leave or when migration to maricopa county (and pinal county) starts to slow, the tax revenue for further development of transit infrastructure will dry up before enough can be built to make a truly walkable metro possible. That isn't even considering the outsized political power of NIMBYs in places like Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Ahwatukee, Chandler, and Gilbert, many of which fight tooth and nail to prevent transit (especially rail) to come into their city.
I was 20 years old in 1987 and was one of the many NIMBYS that stood with signs opposing the new Loop 101 that summer. We knew that moving forward this way would be the catalyst for explosive growth. The freeway planning in Metro PHX is actually good , learning from mistakes made in other cities. This has been a brutal July and it will only continue to get hotter. It is this heat and the dependence on HVAC that makes this population possible. As the CEO of Lennar Homes said , the water will be here. The question on everyones mind is at what cost ? There will be a day where this area simply will become the epicenter of exodus. That day could be as little as 30 years away if some University models are correct.
I've been trying to save up to move somewhere north. I hate it here so much. I hate the heat.
Would you mind letting us know where you moved? I live near PV mall for many years. I grew up in Central Phoenix and like you there’s many things I liked about this area. I just went hiking yesterday and dreamy Drive park and there were hundreds of people out there. The desert was beautiful and green. It was gorgeous. I would much rather have a long gorgeous winter in a few months of hot summer. Well, maybe let’s just call it what it is five months and very hot summer then live in some place like Wisconsin, where it’s absolutely freezing most of the year that being said, I don’t disagree with anything you said it is getting hotter here I was a kid I live near the 51 in Bethany home then Course there was no 51. Actually I lived very close to 16th St. in Missouri and I know it’s hotter now currently I own a home near PV mall that I lived in but it’s a rental now and I currently live near I 17 in Jax where I live I can walk 1:59 different parks I live in a master plan community, anyway I would love to know where you chose to live because I’ve been considering moving to a smaller area to escape the extreme heat the primarily I’m worried about civil and refs. Something does happen like we lose power for a week people are gonna lose their mind and I don’t wanna be in the middle of it no one will be prepared. What happened with Covid.
I’m in flagstaff and I approve this message. We are looking to move from AZ after 18 years. Staying here long term is such a bad idea even in flagstaff. The outlook for the weather and water issues are no bueno. Schools have gone so downhill too so hopefully we’re outta here either this summer if not next summer
Your last sentence there really makes me mad. I’ve gotten to the point that I believe those who fight passionately against public transportation simply do not deserve a voice in such matters at all. They are obviously just fighting for their own desires and their own wants and have no concern whatsoever for what is good for humankind in this matter.
The people who claim the weather is nice in Arizona have lost their marbles
I so totally agree . 117 F in record breaking 30 days straight this past July is not exactly good weather. Especially when you see yellow body bags being placed in vans in parks around the city. Homeless dying of thirst. AC malfunctions and the clock is ticking. Either you get that thing running or die. How is this good weather ?
@@utistudent099 it's good because it makes people like you leave
@@topkek7587 Let me be clear. I have done HVAC here in Phoenix since 1985. In that time I have done a tremendous amount of charity work helping elderly people live through this awful heat by giving them free labor and steep discounts on parts to keep their air on. Why don't you pack up your own goods and hit the road dude. What have you done lately to help this society survive these scorching temperatures over the ever increasing miserable years? I work outdoors in this crap all day since I was 19 years old.
@@topkek7587 the heat will take care of you some day
@@moonshine8255 I only like to visit actual cities, so Arizona isn’t on my radar
The American system of constantly expanding single family home developments may be unsustainable. They don't pay their way.
Hope Phoenix understand they need to make real changes.
They don't
Phoenix needs high density TOD around their light rail stations.
Golf courses and lawns in a desert city feels like a comedy skit. Ban golf courses and lawns in the desert. It's hilariously inefficient.
that would at least take care of the ugly golf shorts problem.
I've lived in phx for 25 years, i live in east mesa almost to AJ and im starting to see a few instances of old department stores, like the old k mart on power, that are empty getting turned into apartments that are surrounded by other stores. i hope to see more of that kind of change. there is so much wasted land where big box stores sit empty for 10+ years and if one does move in they just build a new one somewhere else. and just building smarter in general, you have to design for the heat and energy efficiency since we rely on AC for such a big chunk of the year and instead we build cheaply without any of our actual desert climate in mind.
No. We do not need Phoenix to get more water. The U.S government should relocate the entire city to an area that can actually support it.
gosh also the old bashas strip next to banner. What a waste of space! Banner owns it now and just uses it for storage.
@@AtillatheFun Or cut off the spigot to Cali.
@@katydid2877 To cali? You realise that it contributes more to the federal government than it takes in right? Cutting Cali out would mostly bankrupt republican states.
@@AtillatheFun So sad Cali contributes so little to its own residents.
I am always going to be suspicious of any company who's name is a color followed by "Rock" or "Stone"
All the factors you illustrate here are significant inhibitors to the viability of the Phoenix metro area.
However, I think those claiming that Phoenix will become uninhabitable are thinking of the climate catastrophe. If you can't step outside in the daytime for > 20 minutes without succumbing to heat exhaustion from June - September & can't survive without AC that place is technically uninhabitable.
It’s habitable just not with the modern home.
@@MeloncholyKay With what kind of home then? I agree the houses in Phoenix are crap. I own one so I know from first hand experience. But what do you think is better suited to it?
Just went to visit the Phoenix area for first time in August with 114F highs. I biked for 20 miles in the late morning and had to stop every 30 minutes to chug a bottle of fluids. I pretty much concluded the same thing. My airbnb host couldnt get his house below 80 with full AC at 9 pm. I have a newfound appreciation for SoCal weather and will gladly pay an arm and a leg to live here!
@@AssBlasster That sounds like an undersized unit or a unit low on charge, possible that the insulation has collapsed or been disturbed in the attic but that's only likely in an older home. Living in the desert requires a drastic shift in when you do things and considering you aren't acclimated to the weather it's going to be harder on you than a local that grew up here. I spent two weeks in Denver for work and I couldn't believe that the interior of an unfinished construction site was topping out in the 80s during what they called "summer".
The heats really not that bad
Looking at the weather in Phoenix makes me happy i live in a place that snows.
Looking at videos of snow makes me happy to live in Phoenix
@@danieldaniels7571 Lol well winter/snow is only really bad in the Great Lakes region like Chicago, Buffalo, etc. The shorter days are the real pain if you are up north. Being stuck inside AC all the time during summer is just insane to me.
@@AssBlasster I’m not stuck inside. I have a swimming pool. Most everyone here does.
I don't think it snowed at all in NYC for the past 6 years. I even stopped bothering to take out my winter clothes as my sweater + windbreaker is often enough
Steve Kaiser tried to deregulate the zoning laws to allow duplexes and triplexes but could never get it passed. All the cities lobbied against the bill. I’m not crazy about the idea but I guess it’s better than all the McMansions they flip affordable old houses with.
Same with Texas so many adorable areas even near DT but now any small affordable house has been erased & replaced with McMansions that are poorly built with dogshit materials. New construction is ass
I’m not convinced that the water issue will never happen as you seem to think. Too much short term thinking and profits prevent much change in this area.
Apparently too much bias from people that were raised there too. :/
@@StLouis-yu9izExactly! The same ones who go iTs A dRy HeAt and then spend all summers posting pictures of them baking cookies in their cars and complaining. Like wow you mean the desert is hot? Groundbreaking lol
@@cjthompson420I find it really annoying when people act like it’s so good because “It’s a dry heat” you know what else a dry heat is? And oven a volcano fire. I much prefer a Humid heat anyday of the weak then get baked just stepping outside and losing so much water.
Week*
@@GlassDolphin465 Lol so true. That year in 2012 Houston had Phoenix weather. 112-116 every day and low humidity. It was awful.
I'm actually pretty sure by 2050 Phoenix will be inhospitable for human habitation. This is not die to the water, which would only cause a decline, but the weather. Too many homes won't be able to adequately cool thier house at ~150. That's why i moved away last year. You can stay inside all you want, but you have to leave at some point for groceries and sanity. Then you realize everything outside is literally cooking you. How is infrastructure going to be built/maintained when EVENING temps are above 110?
Cities like Chandler Gilbert, and Queen Creek are not concerned about Phoenix, they have major employment like chip companies, building for manufacturing, and other employment, plenty of entertainment, top rated schools, they don't need a rail to go to Phoenix to work. Gilbert is is building many apartments as well. These are independent cities, they don't want to be another Phoenix.
Living in higher density needs to be compensated by the benefits of living close to town and city centers. Putting high density out in the suburbs is stupid. You still have drive everywhere, and get to listen to your neighbors yelling at each other.
Tempe Cul-de-sac looks amazing, I'm sure they are having no shortage of people looking for these types of walkable communities.
Hopefully it will start a virtuous cycle.
Hopefully they will build these in the Southeast
@@railroadforest30yeah and not in a literal desert 🙄
@@StLouis-yu9iz true
@@StLouis-yu9iza hopeless desert.
I imagine a large influx of the population to the Southwest is older people - just imagine all these stroads filled with elderly drivers who will end up isolated in their expensive single family homes. With my grandparents' mental and physical health taking a turn for the worst, I pity what will become of these older folks and for the limited younger population and state sponsored services expected to care for them.
imagine driving behind them in arizona with no AC and they all stop at every light so i drive with a chainsaw now
@@atomictravellerjust ban cars instead
You need to check AZ's statistics. AZ is not FL. -; Zoomer
az has communities and industries oriented toward retirees and snowbirds.
@@timsmith5133 the valley has a bunch of places dedicated to retirees. Sun City, which is just west of Peoria, Sun City West, by Surprise, and huge portions of Scottsdale are retiree communities.
Came to an end at least 10 years ago. Lots of mid-rise and high-rise buildings going up in central and uptown, as well as Camelback east, Tempe, and probably other locations. The Valley is just turning in to LA, which went through this process 50 to 75 year ago.
Thomas in 2023: "Phoenix unliveable by 2050? Doubt it."
Thomas in 2033: "How I BARELY escaped from the Phoenix Death Zone (Our tires MELTED!)"
I work in new construction and man the landscape has changed so much in just the last 4 years
I was in Phoenix last week for a nephew’s college graduation. Knowing a bit about water, soils and agriculture, and given that climate change seems to be speeding up, it felt like I was watching the introductory, “before” scenes from an apocalyptic movie. If the Colorado River flows continue to decline, the Southwest will also lose its cheap power for air conditioning. If it continues to get hotter, as the trends clearly show it will, water and electricity will get more expensive. And, declining productivity in the Permian Basin and completion for gas and diesel will drive up prices, making suburbs less affordable. Add to this, insurance companies are raising premiums, especially in areas prone to disasters. After the Gulf Coast, there is no area more primed for disaster than the desert Southwest.
Ever heard of solar?
The two tanks you circled at the 2:10 mark are nowhere near a wastewater treatment facility. Those are the 1 & 2 Wash water storage tanks at the PHX 24th street water treatment plant. This is a clean water facility that treats Salt river water fed from the canal connection at granite reef to bring it up to potable levels. Completely different systems entirely. For wastewater try 91st Ave WWTP just north of baseline, or Mesa NWWRF where the 202 & 101 meet just north of Sloan park.
I think the reason why people are hesitant to build more high density buildings is twofold. First of all, that tends to lead to higher incidences of crime especially property crime. The effect of that is the second reason which is lowering property values. It’s a complicated issue, but in Gilbert where they’re starting to build a lot more apartment buildings, you’re starting to see property crimes on the rise, which is exactly what people were concerned about. It's up 5% over year and continues to grow especially in the areas near the apartment complexes.
But how much more people live there? Of course Downtown Manhattan has more criminals than some desert town.
Funny thing is, on a per capital basis, NYC is pretty safe.
Thomas you feel the same exact way I feel about Arizona. and how they are building.
Even the downtown looks like car dependent garbage. Why would anybody choose to live in this terrible place?
Feel free not to.
They are expanding the light rail all the time
The downtown is improving. Last I was there lots of higher density housing was under construction but not to the scale of other large cities.
🤣🤣
I've always been impressed by this channel but this is the first video that shows me just how much deeper of a thinker you are than I am. Thank you for doing the work to make this information more easily understandable to people like me. I don't live in Phoenix but these concepts, I imagine, are applicable in more places than one. And thanks for using your platform to draw attention to Strong Towns. They may be the greatest force for good within world of city planning.
Thanks for this video. I live just off of Grand Ave (before it becomes a stroad) and I really hope this line of thinking takes off. More density, smarter water use, and more desert space to enjoy … the desert.
I love your optimism! Keep it up and good luck Arizona! 💪
so let me understand---your solution to water usage is to minimize single family homes in favor of high-rise complexes that accommodate many more people using much more water---correct? I would be in favor of stopping developments that create whole cities in one fell swope to build them out at a slower pace so that infrastructure could keep up with the increase. The issue is "tax greed " by politicians where their only source of income is to drain the pockets of citizens.
Yes. Even Dubai has the Arabian Sea/Persian Gulf. Phoenix needs transit, densification and more trees!
People on reddit were telling me that golf courses were fine, but that people shouldn't live in deserts. I was so frustrated responding to them.
Gulf courses uses nonpotable water, and metro cites of Phoenix also uses nonpotable water for the landscaping.
I wonder what water use patterns per unit are like between different residential land uses.
On average, single family homes use over 50% of their water for landscaping. Denser living would almost certainly decrease the amount of water used per person.
@@derekkellogg8414Yeah, this is a great point. From just a landscaping perspective, living in an apartment uses less water. But don't forget that many people in the suburbs have their own pools, and those consume tons of water as well.
@@derekkellogg8414landscaping water use is based in how compatible your landscaping is with your climate.
In the Northeast if you ignore a patch of bare dirt it will start growing grass and weeds in a couple weeks. The problem is people are trying to bring our grassy aesthetic to a desert and being surprised that it isn't sustainable.
My general philosophy is that the only effort you should need to put into your yard is trimming and cleaning. If you add something then it should be a native, ideally to the area but atleast to the climate zone. (Meaning plant desert plants in desert cities)
Thank you for your fine video which explained everything very logically. I could run back to the great lakes region, or I could just stay here. By the time Phoenix runs out of water for real, I'll probably be gone. Carry on.
What I see from my town is the unbridled greed that my town leaders exhibit, as they continually accept money from builders of these small, crap box apartments. There is no consideration of the impact that more people have on a community: increased traffic on small roads; sewage issues; higher crime. When I look around, I feel like I am back in NY, where I came from. I LOVED the farmlands and these are good for the desert, as they dissipate heat from the day. People grumble that we are experiencing high temps because of climate change when it's really the lack of open land. Asphalt and ceramic tile absorb heat without letting it go at night, so the daytime low is not as cool as it ought to be. I will be leaving Phoenix metro for a more rural, less populated, with less chance of becoming populated, as soon as the mortgage rates allow.
im still mindblown that phoenix exists and is growing. its so hot and car dependant. what do people do for fun? what do you do on a day off? what do kids do before they have access to a car? why do people want a grass lawn if they live in the desert? why did they build a city in the hottest valley of an already hot region? i will never understand this city
Maybe you people just shouldn’t build a mega city in the middle of a desert
Here in Australia it’s similar. but what there doing in the suburbs is making the blocks so small the roofs of each house almost touch. So they can fit as many single family homes into a new suburb as much as possible
If you are living so close the houses are almost touching, then it sounds more like a townhouse with a few inches of separation. Maybe thats great as a starter home for young adults, but having practically no yard (because the houses are almost touching) as a homeowner sounds unappealing.
@@DethflashA yard to me has always seemed like a bunch of extra chores and work for little meaningful payoff. I don't want to spend every Saturday morning in the summer slaving away behind a lawnmower. If I want to have a barbeque, I could just as easily go to a local park and use one of their pits. If I want to garden, there are many community gardens I could join or do the rental garden plot thing like they have in Germany. The fact that single family homes with Lawns are mandatory in most of the US is just imposing an unnecessary burden on much of the population.
@@Dethflash it really is all you get for a yard is a square patio area and some grass down the sides but not much
@@jonathanbowers8964 My married friends swear by their big yards but they never use them. Even when they host a party we all mostly gather around the small paved area around the door. Personally I prefer a smaller inlet type of a yard and only because I have a dog that needs to poop and play fetch.
Big yards are kind of a necessity for Americans. We don't want to be close to our neighbors. Privacy is important to us.
As someone from Surprise, thank you for calling attention to this
Phoenix and water... I have been saying for YEARS - that there are idled desalination plants in california, and at some point, some Arizona government entity will pay to activate them in order to acquire the colorado river water rights for the same volume of water as the plants produce. your example of the farm is slightly smaller but EXACTLY what that transaction could look like.
Thank you for this video!
The shots of the freeways and Grand Ave, are making me homesick for Phoenix!
Great video! Would love to see you interview locals from different perspectives.
Funny thing is the suburb is better than the farmland water use wise. Way better in fact.
They gotta ditch the farms and treat it like how we do in Vegas. You live in a desert. No farms.
We also reuse all water that goes down all sinks and drains and toilets. Yes including black water and it all gets cleaned and put back into the system. We actually as a city put water back into Lake Mead every year. Only water “wasted” is water used outdoors that doesn’t get into a street drain.
I truly don't understand why people want to keep coming to Phoenix.
Absolutely. We need food, water, and shelter. Water scarcity is a terrifying thing
I remember flying over Phoenix as my first time ever leaving the PNW and it was absolutely wild to me
How is the PNW? I’ve been looking into moving to Washington State from New York
@@lanxy2398 i mean I love it but obviously I'm a bit biased. I've never been to New York but from what I've heard west of the Cascades has similar weather
Your channel is getting great keep it up love learning about AZ
You should go somewhere else to get AZ information. This guy doesn't know much about the history and is wrong several times in this video alone.
It would be great for you to talk how taxes differ in Chandler who is 93% built out vs a growing city. Most cities rely on fees for new development
Good video! A lot of useful information.
Love your videos and I am happy to say I am near downtown Tempe and a lot of high-density (apartments) projects in my area and also around downtown Mesa, where I also enjoy going. Great info on how zoning changes work. Oh, and loved the info on developing the car-free community here in Tempe, hoo hoo! :-)
Alot of them are empty also
soo wild seeing footage of what used to be my old commute on grand
Thank you for your very informative and well thought out video. 😊
The fact that the Phoenix metro is not dense is what made it affordable. Suburbs offered the trade off of having to commute in a car everywhere in exchange for affordability compared to dense areas.
As far as multi-family residences are concerned, they are popping up everywhere in the valley in dense areas such as Westgate and Norterra as well as less dense areas along the 303 and 202 extension. The prices are outrageous though, so hopefully demand dries up and they'll be forced to reduce asking rent prices to fill them.
As far as NIMBYs, I don't blame people living in suburbs for not wanting skyscraper apartments or subsitized duplexes in areas zoned for single-family homes.
Once water really becomes an issue that cannot be addressed the city will collapse and real estate will implode. People sitting on commercial or residential will be bag holders when the music stops.
If you use an aquifer faster than it's recharge rate, it will run out. Arizona is using it's aquifers faster than they are being recharged. I don't know how long that will take to run out of ground water but I know it will happen.
An "acre-foot" might be the must cursed unit of measurement I've ever heard of
Then let me introduce you to the kilofeet per second. (Its used by NASA)
And acre-foot is reasonable for measuring aquafirs, acres is a unit for measuring land area, and rain fall usually ranges from inches to several feet per year depending on climate zone. Multiply them and you get the amount of water entering a watershed/water system. (Or the feet can be taken from measuring the depth of the aquafir, something also generally measured in feet) And in context its way better than measuring in tiny gallons or liters with no direct connection to what is being measured. (Embrace cursed units, they fit their contexts way better than normal units can)
Hydrologeologist here -- I've worked on many international projects using milllion-cubic-meters and of course, domestic with our acre-feet.
Acre-ft is basically the one and only time our freedom units make more sense--easy to visualize, explain to clients and have usable values that don’t seemingly always require scientific notation.
@@jasonreed7522the metric system is designed to be scalable. Millilitre... decalitre... litre... kilolitre... megalitre... gigalitre. Your choice, you're welcome.
@@junkboxxxxxx thats not my point, sure i could measure my aquafir in gallons, or kilogallons or even gigagallons to get the order of magnitude right, but gallons have no direct connection to aquafirs. And neither do liters, most base units are fundamentally completely arbitrary being based on some physical object of convenient comparison, even the meter is originally just a precise fraction of the meridian passing through Paris.
But acrefeet is directly tied to the thing being measured. Volume is just an extruded area, generally described as either cubic lengths or named precise volumes. In the case of water in a lake or volume delivered in rain we have a very large area affected so the extruded area is measured in anything you would use to measure land, in this case acres which are 200ft by 200ft. And then rain and water levels generally fluctuate only a few inches at a time, sometimes a few feet. Multiply the area the water fell on by the amount of rain and you get the volume, if we measure area in acres and rain in feet we are done, math is over after 1 step. Its also very easy to envision the 1acre lot your house is on with 4ft of water on it. I have no idea what 1.3 megagallons (1,303,403gal to be precise) looks like, despite this being the exact same volume.
Tldr: metric prefixes work for imperial units, but just scaling units around my be convenient for converting stuff but it loses all context and can make the math of finding a single value harder. Unnecessarily so if you have no reason to convert after getting the base value.
May I introduce something called, a cubic metre?
The habitability of Phoenix will also depend on if we follow the RCP2.5 to RCP8.5 model. At 8.5, there will be many days in summer by 2050 that may fall out of the standards of human habitability even with air conditioning. Air conditioners in Phoenix are rated for 107F (older homes), 113F (newer homes). They will work beyond that temp but they lose efficiency exponentially after 113. Temps of 120+ cause AC's to cycle 5x more which leads to them breaking years ahead of their operation life-cycles and juicing the grid. Luckily Arizona can offset with solar for electricity but the cost of an AC replacement can bankrupt a family and trying to go more than 24 hours without AC at 120+ is not possible.
People have decided the best place to grow alfalfa, run golf courses, and build semiconductors (three of the most water intensive industries on earth!) in the middle of a desert... and they wonder why we have water issues lol
Soaring temperatures and water shortage in a desert will definitely affect it, worse than Las Vegas.
It’s all about housing affordability at the end of the day. Yes there are some weirdos who like living in the middle of nowhere and commuting an hour to work and 30 mins to a grocery store but I don’t believe that the majority of people who buy in these far flung suburbs do so out of their will. No one wants to be that isolated and far away from everything. It’s just that you can’t buy a decent starter home in central Phoenix/Tempe/Glendale in reasonable prices anymore. Young family, people on limited income, single people etc. City center living is just not possible if you’re not able to get a half a million mortgage.
This problem could be solved with density.
@@oliverparker425 Not really. Not at the rate people seem to want to move here for some reason.
@@oliverparker425That's not true. High-density cities have higher costs of housing and living because they are more desirable.
@@dougboal7425 true, but no matter how you look at it, an increase of housing supply reduces the overall price
@@dougboal7425 no, it's a combination of high demand/desire and little supply that makes high density neighborhoods so expensive in the U.S.
Build more of these types of neighborhoods, and you'll see their prices drop to a reasonable level.
Glad to see your apartment get gradually better furnished over time :)
I remember seeing them digging for water in Buckeye AZ last May 2022
I feel like recently Gilbert has built alot of apartments and townhomes along the santan mall area but outside of there, there isn’t much
I live in the area between San Tan Valley and Florence, used to live in Columbus, OH. I have family in Chicago, LA, NYC, Charlotte, Fort Lauderdale, and Las Vegas... I actually think Phoenix has an optimistic future compared to the other ones I mentioned. Phoenix is still young enough to drastically improve with lots of area to fix things. Housing is still relatively affordable, compared to the East (Northeast, Midwest, and South) the weather here is actually pretty nice. It does get hot, but there are plenty of days Eastern cities get nearly as hot with high humidity and lots of rain. I personally enjoy living in a master plan community... but there is alot that can be improved upon as a whole. The Phoenix metro needs more mass transit like the subways of Tokyo, Biking of Seattle, or Cable cars of San Francisco to connect suburbia to the main city. We also need better planned developments with a mix of residential and commercial inside these master plan communities. I also think designing infrastructure to be more eco-friendly will help lower temperatures city wide (look at Singapore and the United Arab Emirates). Lastly, I actually think more communities need to switch to artificial grass instead of real.
I moved to a neighborhood close to the middle of Washington, DC in 2018 to escape the sprawling suburbs where I grew up and have never had any desire to go back even though I live in a condo about 1/5 the size of what I was able to afford before. Phoenix sounds like an absolute nightmare to me. America definitely needs to rethink the practicality of sprawling suburban development. I’ll never understand why people actually choose to live this way. I think they’ve all been brainwashed.
I got out of AZ three years ago. I couldn't be happier with that decision. I do not miss the sprawl and the heat and the no seasons. My kids are a lot happier, too.
Thank you for your more reasonable approach and what looks to be a really cool housing project. I tend to get really frustrated with the narrative of this area being too hot and dry for a city of this size. There is a way that you can have a city of this size that uses water sustainably, is cooler, and receives more rainfall. That way just isn't car-centric.
How do you plan on increasing rainfall?! 😅
@@StLouis-yu9iz By asking the clouds nicely.
Actually, there are a couple of issues at play. The first is the heat island effect. The massive heat island of the Phoenix metro area disrupts weather patterns and weakens storm systems. This leads to less rainfall.
The second is that rainfall is a complex interaction between soil, plants, and atmospheric moisture. For the sake of simplicity, you can think of a healthy soil as a living sponge. When it rains, a healthy soil can absorb that rainfall locally rather than having that water drain off and leave the system. Indeed, there is a vast body of information out there showing how no-till farming increases water infiltration (I can provide if needed).
Next, remember that plants that are not water stressed will release water vapor as they respire (especially at night). Indeed, more than water, plants release nucleating agents that promote cloud formation. In other words, healthy plants increase atmospheric moisture and promote cloud formation. This means that healthy soils and plants could accelerate storm systems rather than weakening them. If you would like examples of how to increase soil health and plant coverage in the desert, I would highly recommend Brad Lancaster (Tucson) and/or Geoff Lawton (Australia and Jordan). Both of their actions are on too small of a scale to change rainfall, but their efforts applied over an area as large as the Phoenix metro area could very easily have an enormous impact if it were paired with an urbanist approach to city planning.
It’s not a narrative though it’s factual. Phoenix area has the lowest density of any metro in the US. Are you going to tear it all down and start a new? There’s no saving Phoenix from being car centric
@@cjthompson420 Please cite your source for the PHX metro being the lowest density of any metro area in the US. A short perusal indicates that metro areas like KC and Las Vegas both rank lower. I've also lived in the KC area and would concur with this assessment.
Second, low densities are actively maintained through construction codes and zoning laws. Change the laws favoring cars and developers will do the work for you.
Cities like Houston tore down car-unfriendly city centers to make room for cars. It seems hypocritical to think that the reverse is somehow out of bounds.
Whats worse is that Tucson isnt learning from Phoenix's mistakes. The Sardine Suburbs are getting ridiculous. Houses so close with so little land they may as well be town homes.
15:12 proudly c:
Unfortunately that just makes the traffic even worse; extra density, but without the infrastructure catching up. Regardless, people WILL come. Something Austin didn't realize back in the 90s...
You say we have the water now, but other cities besides Phoenix use the same water supplies too, and they are running out.
My GF pays 1,2k for a tiny studio apartment in a Phoenix suburb. It’s madness!
Wisconsinite here and even though my state is wet and has shoreline on the great lakes it also has unusually strict laws about getting water, waterights the preservation of wetlands and laws protecting water quality my city isnt even able to properly salt most roads due to concerns it will cause saline runoff into the lake. The state also made transporting water outside of its basin or source illegal. I see people in arazonia that are free to drill as many wells on private land as they want and are tapping water from hundreds of miles away and in many cases must use all their water allotment or lose their water rights and are not allowed to collect rainwater all so they can grow strawberries in a desert seems crazy.
The problem with the 'by right' argument is that apartment complexes, at least, put massively different traffic demands on their immediate area. I'm thinking of my neighborhood and, if there were room for an apartment or three at the end of the street and they were built, the street would be clogged like nothing else in no time. Duplex and the like aren't nearly the same.
Great video. One aspect you're missing with these high-density, public transportation focused communities you say is the way to go is this: When you're young & single or young & married with a small family, this lifestyle is tolerable. Hell, even may be desired. But once you're older, have suffered living around annoying people for a decade or so; you suddenly want to live in areas/communities that are less populated.
Before Zoning became a four letter word, older cities in the northeast and rust belt saw wave after wave of conversions of existing single family homes to multi unit buildings as the need and market for rental housing boomed in the past century. Would be interesting to see how successful TOD project in Tempe is with no parking.
I used to live in Phoenix when I was a kid, but even as a kid I thought that Phoenix was...kinda big for a desert city. I went back recently in 2021 and the city has seemed to grow even more since then.
R1 Zoning really needs to be upended. There are SO many direlict properties that could become multi-unit apartments that could further encourage growth inward. Really hate to see my childhood town turn into Los Angeles. It's a freaking desert! Stop planting lawns and making golf courses! Or just use turf! What the heck?
Phoenix shouldn't even exist.
I’m not sure about your opinion, you can’t even spell Phoenix correctly.
@@genxtechguy Thanks for correcting me.
Shout-out to California's Senate Bill 9, which ended single-family housing in the state, in the sense that if you have a house on a lot, you can add an ADU and/or split the lot to construct a second house (and second ADU) on the other lot, for a total of up to 4 units anywhere that is currently zoned/built out with just 1.
The only problem is that other municipal codes (e.g. setbacks, driveway requirements) still apply, which eliminates probably 95% of houses from the pool. After all, you would need 12-20' for a driveway (depending on jurisdiction) to the second lot, but most houses are built with a 5-10' side yard.
Your Internet research has concluded that food can be grown w less water? That Arizona needs more strip malls and roads and parking lots and less farmland? Used to be riding into Phoenix at night you could immediately tell when you were nearing the city limits because the temperature would go up.. still happens but now it's many many miles earlier because of sprawl and endless increases in pavement and blacktop and building, you can still smell the desert, but it's getting harder as you need to drive 50 miles away
Great video, I live downtown and my lease is almost up so looked at Culdesac-it’s a complete joke. Overpriced microscopic units with limited amenities and not even an option to pay extra to park a car. I’m a business owner and not having a car doesn’t work for me. It’s not feasible to endlessly pay for Uber or deal with crackheads on the Metro because some developer wants to prove a point. I would have paid extra to park but was not an option offered to me.
Very smart thoughts and video.
So you won't "run out of water," you just wont be able to afford it? I'll never understand how people in a desert can afford to be complacent about water "after" a 20+ year drought.
Need to account for wastewater injection into aquifers, "Artificial Storage and Recharge". Overdrawing starts to draw this wastewater, before depleting the aquifer of all water. If water really isn't dooming phx, there's worsening heat
great content as a fellow Arizonians this was cool to watch. Make a video on the housing crisis
Really appreciate the non-partisan approach this topic. I have two questions relating to water usage in Phoenix I'd love to get your thoughts on. First: How does the density of housing reduce water usage? Whether ten poeple move into single family homes or ten people move into duplexes doesnt change the water usage as there are still ten new residents showering, flushing toilets, ect. Second: you mentioned a couple times how much water usage is used agriculturally. Are you advocating for less agriculture in the Pheonix area?
Lawns use a tremendous amount of water. When I got rid of my 600FT^2 lawn my household water usage dropped by 1/2. Also any water used inside goes down the drain to the water treatment plant and is then used for watering golf courses, parks or recharging ground water. It isn't wasted.
@@jamestucker8088 I don't have any quantitative data for this, but I would assume based on trends in the industry and anecdotal data that most of the new suburban construction in the area does not have lawns and uses desertscape. Regardless of this however, excess water in the irrigation of landscpaing returns to the water table where it is again used and again. It too, isnt wasted.
It’s mainly about landscaping and other amenities (e.g., pools).
@@grahamturner2640yeah, it seems like a no brainer that you'll use less water if you share a pool with 40 units than if every one of your neighbors has their own pool in their own back yard
Good video! You got a new sub!
FYI grande ave was there b4 the freeway system so it's literally the old highway into phx which is why the road is the way it is...
That Murphy bed couch combo is smart. Does it have a stand for the end?
its so annoying when people confuse pessimism 'phoenix is going to fail' with realism 'the data shows that if they dont change, they will fail'
been living in the phoenix valley for 5 years. moving out in 2 weeks. counting the days.
live in the PHX area OR live sustainably and healthy. choose.
also: It's been one record-breaking summer after another. the older people keep saying "it's hot ~3 months of the year" - by now it's intolerably hot for almost HALF the year...
How many days in a row was it 110° or hotter?
Lucky! These upcoming years are gonna be a really rude wake up call for the rest!
@@VulcanLogic It's been a record-breaking 30 consecutive days over 110, with lows rarely dipping below 90. Hopefully, we'll fill up the month today. Fingers-crossed.
@@BlueHans Apparently it rained and was "only" 106
@bootmii98
So are kitchens just optional now in Phoenix? You could probably cook all of your food just parking the car under the sun
It's funny I see this video recommended since I just drove through Arizona a few weeks ago as part of my road trip from Virginia to Los Angeles and back. Going west I drove through Tucson and kinda liked it (except for the sprawl). Then coming back east I hit up Flagstaff and most of the towns on I-40 and Route 66. Was wondering if any Arizonans could recommend a town that's higher ranked in walkability? I really enjoyed my time in Arizona (first time I experienced a desert) and have been looking for a long time for an escape from the swampy east coast weather lol
It's indistinguishable from other sprawl areas.
Hi Thomas, solid video buddy!
Density makes sense when no other city has rent hikes or a disproportionate housing crisis quite like Phoenix