Skylab I

SUN CITY, ARIZONA from page 31

For) the recreation centers, ownership of which is transferred to homeowners collectively. The Home Owners Association, a massive voluntary organization claiming some 19,000 members, serves as a forceful voice for the common interests of its members and Sun City generally. The Sun City Taxpayers Association, with 4,000 members is more aggressively oriented toward incorporation, and takes a special interest in property tax matters. The Fire District Board, also elected, supervises the business of the fire protection district.

Sun City is a contributor.

A study of the economic impact of Sun City shows that as of December, 1973, Sun City was directly responsible for providing jobs for 4,700 persons. This employment covers a wide range of occupations, from the developer's employees, construction workers, laborers and recreational employees to financial, health, hotel, restaurant, retail, service station and other service employment, drawn for the most part from outside Sun City. It is estimated that Sun City was responsible, directly and indirectly at the end of 1973, for 8,000 jobs throughout Arizona.

Sun Citians bring substantial capital into Arizona with them and many continue to receive income from out-of-state sources (about 77 percent of all Sun City home buyers are from outside Arizona). This helps account for the presence of 14 bank branches and ten savings and loan offices in a community with a population of 30,000. Sun City has generated substantially greater tax revenues for the state, county and school district than the costs of the services it receives from them. Sun Citians in 1973 paid approximately $9.6 million in state and local taxes, with property taxes constituting $4.25 million of this total. Despite the minute demand of a retirement community for elementary and high school facilities, Sun City provided about 80 percent of its school district's property tax revenues, thereby providing some 41 percent of the district's budget. Sun City, an unincorporated community, even contributed $594,000 to tax revenues for Arizona's incorporated cities.

The celebrated beauty, the stimulating vitality, the amazing panorama of Sun City have made it a genuine tourist attraction. More than 250,000 visitors annually give it a major status in Arizona's important tourist industry, with attendant economic and social benefits for the state.

The most important ingredient in the success of Sun City is its own success. That success, at the start, was essential because it gave the developer the confidence to take the gambles that perpetuated that success. Performances measured up to and exceeded promises, assuring thousands of buyers that the risk they seemed to be taking wasn't a risk after all. Gertrude Stein might have said success has bred success that has bred success. Buildings, people, development, planning, sociological phenomenon, controversy, contribution, success these make up the Sun City way of life. And the Sun City way of life is what has made Sun City.