Tucson — Boom City in a Booming State

TUCSON-boom city

Tucson is a modern boom city in a boom-ing state and region. The extent of its growth and economic transformation during the past decade and a half and the pace at which these are maintained continue to astound even hardened ob-servers of western social dynamics.

For in the series of historic population and economic explosions that have rocked the American Southwest in the postwar years, Arizona's second largest city is a major ground zero-one of the points where the force and the impact of expansion are at their most intense and the results correspondingly startling.

The process really began with the Second World War though it has been gaining momentum ever since. In 1940 the Old Pueblo was a slow-paced tourist and rail-road town of 58,000 people (only 35,000 in the city limits) centering a sprawling cattle, farming and mining county with a total population of less than 73,000. By 1950 the county population had jumped 94 percent to a little over 141,000, of which all but about 20,000 were residents of urban or greater Tucson. This is the area where virtually all of the county's new growth is taking place.

Today the “Tucson Standard Metropolitan Area” (which is the same as Pima County by U. S. Census defini-tion) is estimated to have a population of nearly 250,000,

in a booming state

CASADAY RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA of which at least 225,000 are residents of the greater Tucson community. The municipal limits, still, despite annexations, far behind the growth of the urban area, contain well over 100,000 persons. Thus the population of metropolitan Tucson, after nearly doubling (94 percent gain) during the decade of the '40's has increased approximately 75 percent since 1950 and is expected to nearly double again between 1950 and 1960, the projected figure for the latter year being 275,000.

Growth of this order of magnitude is spectacular even in spectacular Arizona.

Winter visitors and other newcomers and even some old-timers in sunny Tucson have been heard to inquire: "But what do people do here to earn their daily bread? What kind of economy supports this growth? What makes Tucson tick?"

That questions like these can be asked about a bustling metropolitan area of nearly a quarter of a million people suggests the diverse character and somewhat deceptive appearance of this charming desert city.

For Tucson is not an obvious or easily typed community. To illustrate, although manufacturing payrolls constitute its largest single source of basic income, the city's skyline is unmarred by smokestacks, its desert air innocent of smog, and its residential sections unblighted by "industrial" housing. Although long known as a tourist and health center, it is not dominated by plush skyscraper hotels, aggressively advertised nightclubs or by any of the commoner signs and paraphernalia of organized adult play. And, although traditionally and still today the capital of a mining and cattle region, the city boasts no smelters, slag-piles or stockyards.

Other factors likewise contribute to the city's generally deceptive first appearances. It is the home of the highly rated University of Arizona, with its nationally eminent faculty and an enrollment of approximately 10,000 regular, day-time students drawn from throughout the nation and from more than forty foreign countries. In addition, Tucson is the home of many prominent writers, painters, musicians and other exponents and patrons of the arts and the humanities. As a result, the city is justly famed as an educational, cultural and artistic center with a distinctly cosmopolitan atmosphere-a highly unusual circumstance in what is, after all, an industrial city.

And finally, to compound the newcomer's confusion, Tucson has somehow managed to retain, in the midst of industrial boom, much of the casual manner and leisurely pace of its earlier and simpler era as the Old Pueblo. This heritage from the past frequently masks, though delightfully so, the underlying energy and drive which make the city's economic wheels hum.

What then are the major elements in Tucson's economy? In terms of estimated annual payrolls here are the principal categories:

Manufacturing and processing $59,000,000

Military 46,000,000

To the above sources of income must be added the estimated $50,000,000 spent annually by tourists, health seekers, and other visitors in this resort and convention city.

Some wag once remarked that before the war Tucsonians made their living by "taking in" tourists and each other's washing. Of course this was never even approximately accurate and is far less so today. Nevertheless, tourist expenditures remain one of the important sustaining elements in the economy and will undoubtedly continue to do so. In fact many competent observers feel that, despite the long history of tourism in the state, the surface has hardly been scratched in developing either Tucson's or Arizona's tourist potential.The foregoing figures pertain entirely to Pima Coun-ty with the exception of the military item, which includes payrolls of the recently established (1954) United States Army Electronic Proving Ground located at historic old Fort Huachuca, some seventy air miles south of Tucson in Cochise County. It should be understood, however, that mining, farming, ranching, trade, and other activities in the neighboring counties of Cochise, Santa Cruz, Graham, Pinal and Yuma are partly or largely tributary to Tucson. The Old Pueblo is truly the economic metropolis of Southern Arizona and even of points further south. For to an ever increasing extent Tucson serves as a two-way distributing point for imports from and exports to the booming west coast of Old Mexico.

Of the payroll categories listed above, those representing industry, the military, government (except local), mining and agriculture, along with the expenditures of tourists, are to be regarded as “basic” or “supporting” elements in Tucson's economic structure in that they represent activities which bring money into the area from the outside. The other items, with some partial exceptions, represent “dependent” activities, a kind of mutual selfservicing within the “closed circuit” of the local exchange economy.

Since industrial payrolls clearly represent the biggest single segment of Tucson's basic income, and since this development is of recent occurrence, two questions logically arise: what kinds of industries are these? and why have they chosen to locate in Arizona and in Tucson?

Regarding the first question it can be said at once that electronics and aircraft account for the bulk of industrial employment and payrolls in the city. Hughes Aircraft, producing the famous Falcon guided missile, selected Tucson as a location in 1951. Today, with 5,500 workers, it is the largest single employer not only in this community but in the state. Its securely guarded plant just south of the municipal airport covers thirteen acres of ground under one roof.

Douglas Aircraft came to Tucson in 1954. With current employment of more than 1,500, its municipal airport plant is Tucson's second largest.

These two major firms together account for more than 7,000 employees or well over half the city's total industrial and allied labor force of approximately 12,000. Parenthetically, this current industrial employment figure for Tucson exceeds the number of industrial workers in the entire state less than a dozen years ago. The state figure stood at 11,600 in June 1946.

Despite the relative prominence of its two largest firms, Tucson is by no means a oneor two-industry town, nor does all its industry relate exclusively to the electronics-aircraft complex. Altogether, 203 industrial establishments have located here, 115 of them since 1951. These smaller firms in the aggregate represent an extremely wide diversity of products and activities.

Some of the small firms, it is true, were attracted by the market for their products or services created by the advent of Hughes, Douglas and the electronics center at Fort Huachuca. Seven small electronics manufacturing firms have located in Tucson and there is a like number of dealers in electronics equipment of various sorts. At least two small firms produce experimental aircraft and aircraft components or engage in aircraft reconditioning and maintenance.

Several small factories are engaged in such fields as precision tool and die manufacture, screw machining, precision heat treating, metal plating, and the manufacture of electrical equipment.

These and many other kinds of small plants in a score of related activities may have come to Tucson in the first

On lines and truck lines, rapidly being followed by adequate transportation by air. . . . The supply of electric power and natural gas is excellent."

On climate in relation to industrial processes: "Another feature required for precision electronics manufacturing is the requirement for controlled temperature and low humidity. . . . Much of the installation and proof-out of electronic equipment in aircraft is performed outdoors. The climate in this part of the country is most ideal for outdoor work. Also, should flight tests of aeronautical electronic gear be required, flying conditions are excellent . . . with the largest percentage of clear flying days available for this operation."

On climate in relation to labor procurement and labor efficiency: "Doctors had recommended this area for relief to either [these workers] or members of their families. . . . Once these new employees had established their new homes and had their children located in new schools, and felt their new-found security, together with improvements in health conditions . . . they in turn wrote back home to their relatives telling them how pleased they were with their new-found life.

"We found then that our newly imported employees were our best employment recruiting organization and during the past three years hundreds of friends and relatives of our early nucleus followed to establish themselves here. We have no labor procurement problems."

"Our . . . Our labor turnover is 1.6 percent per month versus the national average of 3.4 percent and our absenteeism is 2.5 percent per month versus the national average in this type of industry of 3.2 percent."

On educational and cultural advantages: "One of the most important advantages in this area . . . is the educational and cultural facilities. . . ."

"We consider the progressive University of Arizona with the rapidly growing Engineering College as a tremendous asset and advantage to our type of industry.

"Together with this asset we have found that the secondary and primary schools are excellent in this community. . . Our employees have recognized the improvement in their children as compared to their attitude and general educational indications before coming to the Southwest."

Bill Wooldridge's foregoing comments are typical. Executives of other firms, large and small, voice similar views.

A Douglas official has been quoted as follows: "We came here for the flying conditions and the airport facilities but we've been pleasantly surprised by other advantages. The labor supply, for instance. We can get engineers, electronics people, machinists-anything we need. Workers like it here and don't want to move away. They are healthy, and our absenteeism is incredible-about one half of one percent. The in-and-out turnover is less than three percent a year." (Reader's Digest, Sept. 1957.) The manager of a firm employing about one hundred women workers said: "People are more cheerful in a sunny climate, and cheerful workers are good workers."

Another small employer put the same thought this way: "There are hundreds of trained men in this city who are here because of the health of some member of the family. Probably hundreds of others are in retirement or semi-retirement but still want to keep busy. These are here but thousands like them would come if they were sure of a job. At the worst, a little direct advertising in the eastern part of the country would solve any labor supply problem Tucson is likely to have. So far we've never had to advertise for help outside the city.

The special suitability of Tucson as a location for industrial research deserves a lengthy treatise of its own. The unique combination of climate, superior educational facilities, and cultural and living conditions attractive to highly trained men and their families has brought many research organizations to the Old Pueblo. Some of these are firms engaged wholly in research and others are the research staffs of industrial concerns located elsewhere.

One research director, representing the local research branch of an eastern manufacturing concern says: “It would take wild horses to get me to leave Tucson but even if I did have to go back to headquarters I would see to it that the laboratory operations remain right here. There couldn't be a better location for that type of work.” One research director, representing the local research laboratories to its west coast operating units in terms of flying time for executive conferences. He said, “I can be in conference in Los Angeles just as quickly from Tucson as if the lab were located only fifty miles from the plant, southern California traffic being what it is.” Last March at the University of Arizona's Third Statewide Industrial Development Workshop, the Tucson manager of Armour Research Institute's Southwestern Laboratories said: “Arizona's big research advantage is that people like to live here. Turnover is practically nil, and this seems to be the rule rather than the exception in other organizations engaged in the research business.” The electronics and aircraft industries and industrial research, along with some others, have often been referred to by economists as “footloose” in that they produce high value, low bulk commodities (or services) and hence presumably can be located almost anywhere at least they need not be located near mass markets or the sources of bulk raw materials. That is of course one reason (but only one) why there are so many of these industries in Arizona.

But in recent years it has begun to appear that electronics, aircraft and research companies are by no means as “footloose” as they seem. In the first place they are finding it ever more necessary to locate where they can attract and hold the highly trained technical and professional personnel they need. That means, increasingly, that they must locate in communities where the climate and other amenities will prove congenial to the new prima donnas of industry-the technical and professional men and their families. These people will not work and live just anywhere.

This situation stems of course from the critical shortage of trained manpower throughout the nation-a problem dramatically highlighted by James P. Mitchell, United States Secretary of Labor, when he addressed the Third Arizona Statewide Industrial Development Workshop held at the University last spring.

A second consequence of this national shortage is that few companies, particularly in electronics and research, find that their staffs are highly trained enough. College graduates are snapped up so fast that few are going on into graduate work. More and more, however, such advanced work is required to cope with the dizzy pace of scientific progress and technological change.

Almost of necessity, therefore, companies in this situation need to locate within reasonable proximity to a first-rate university where refresher courses, and courses for both the baccalaureate and advanced degrees, for key industrial personnel are offered, and where adequate research facilities are available.

Tucson, and indeed most parts of Arizona, meet both these requirements for the so-called “footloose” industries. The climate and the community amenities are there in superabundance and the University of Arizona's facilities, specially adapted to the needs of industry, are available both locally in Tucson and in off-campus classes in most parts of the stare.

One final question deserves comment. Is there enough water to support Tucson's growing population and industrialtry? The answer is an emphatic yes, Obviously, few cities in the Southwest are suitable for industries that consume vast quantities of water. But many experts have testified that for all ordinary industrial and other urban purposes, Tucson's water supply is good for a long, long long time to come. In the words of the Arizona State Land Commissioner, “The ground water supply for domestic and industrial use is one that can be judged more reliable than that of a great number of communities in the United States which depend entirely on surface streams and reservoir systems for their water needs.” (Western Electronic News, Feb. 1956.) The big water user in the desert country of course is agriculture. Last year, of all the water pumped in the entire upper Santa Cruz Valley, which extends from the Mexican border northward beyond Tucson to the Pima-Pinal county line, and includes the cities of Nogales and Tucson as well as numerous smaller communities, only twenty-five percent was for domestic, commercial, industrial and other urban use. The rest was for agricalture.

It has been said that the water put on one acre of cotton in a year would support at least twenty persons living in on urban-industrial situation-this means it would meet all the urban requirements of these twenty people, not just their personal, domestic needs.

In the long run, therefore, as the city of Tucson grows, agriculture in the upper Santa Cruz Valley may have to diminish or even disappear.

Someday, throughout Arizona and the Southwest, many of the great river basins may see their cotton plowed under and their orange groves uprooted to make way for subdivisions and supermarkets. These beautiful valleys may eventually cease to be agricultural and become instead urban-industrial in character-the homes of healthy, cheerful, highly paid workers in diversified industry, havens for the retired, and playgrounds for tourists. If this happens it will not be because of water shortage but because such a way of life will come to be considered the highest and best use of the land, the water-and the climate.

Someday, the wide bowl rimmed by the rugged ranges of the Catalinas and the Santa Ritas, the Rincons and the Tucsons, will be filled from edge to edge with urban people-a half million of them at least. In fact, that is Tucson's projected population figure for the year 1975That way the future lies. Who is to say the way is not good?