Arizona

Phoenix is the largest city in Arizona. It's name comes from the mythical bird that rises from the ashes. The city of Phoenix "rose from the ashes" of an ancient Indian civilization, the Hohokam. Some of the canals dug by the Hohokam are used by modern Phoenix.

Arizona does not participate in Daylight Savings Time, in order to save energy, because it is air conditioning, rather than lighting, that is the main electrical use concern. People are more likely to use air conditioning later in the day than in the morning so that Daylight Savings Time would only be counterproductive by prompting more use of air conditioning.

Phoenix is a relatively new city, founded late in the Nineteenth Century. It's real growth came with postwar suburbs with, of course, the invention of air conditioning. The headquarters of a number of major banks are in Phoenix. Higher education is now often done online and one of the most prominent universities to get e-learning underway was the University of Phoenix.

By the way, I would like to remind readers in the sunbelt to thank Buffalo, NY for the invention of modern electric air conditioning.

Both Phoenix and Las Vegas are ideal examples of what I refer to as "The Inverse Geographic Prosperity Principle". There are logical places for major cities, in terms of physical geography, that we can see on any map. But sometimes we see major cities in places where common sense would seem to dictate that there should definitely not be a major city, such as out in the middle of the desert.

But, in terms of economics, that is actually a good sign. If a major city is found where it would logically seem that there should not be a major city, then that means that the city must be prosperous. It is wealth that overrides the rules of where a major city should be located, and that explains why there are wealthy cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix out in the middle of the desert.

Here is a look at downtown Phoenix. The first three images are from Google Earth.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4470165,-112.0750758,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sPJDvVHUsk_B7eYw9jmwtcA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

This is Papago Park, within Phoenix and which maintains the surrounding desert environment. During the Second World War, this was a P.O.W. camp and the Axis version of The Great Escape took place as more than 20 prisoners escaped by way of a tunnel. They asked for gardening tools and then used the tools to dig the tunnel while using the garden to conceal the soil taken from the tunnel.

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4601448,-111.9538617,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sV5xM75a75WDg8t9_hyW5rg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

The sun makes Arizona a popular place for retirement. One of the best-known retirement communities is Sun City, in Phoenix. Because women tend to live longer than men, there are 7 males for every 10 females.

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.6264302,-112.2799139,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s0p5B5X7ZmpYUR68wihG-pQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

New residential developments are continuously being built in Phoenix. You can see that there is a lot of space within the city, having a relatively low population density for a major city. That is what some people would refer to as "sprawl". It also makes the city not very walkable. But there must be a lot to like about Phoenix simply because of the way it keeps growing.

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.3492826,-111.7896925,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sXcUPLlROvg7uAq75YW-H_w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

In the far south of Phoenix, a recent housing development is Queen Creek. The economic crash of 2007-08 was caused by continuously building homes in places like Phoenix. New homeowners were given mortgages, which were then bundled into securities and sold to the U.S. government entities that buy mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The trouble was that so many of those people had been given mortgages that they couldn't really afford. The foreclosure crisis followed, with about half of all foreclosures being in four of the fifty states, Arizona, Nevada, California and, Florida.

I do not want to get into politics here but the idea of the government buying mortgages, from banks and other lenders that originate them, is that the banks will then have more money to lend out so that more people will be able to buy homes. The trouble with passing debt along like this is that the original lender then has less incentive to make sure that the borrower can actually afford to pay the mortgage payments. The lender will get their commission and by the time the borrower defaults, it will be "somebody else's problem".

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2461384,-111.6275862,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sIFBIrna77QVCQEFWdY9sJw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

The second major city in Arizona is Tucson. it is much older than Phoenix, having began with a Spanish fort, before passing to control of Mexico and then of the U.S.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.2236545,-110.972847,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1srPu8qkoYDFva0wBisv8fVw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

The dry air of the desert and the abundance of high terrain makes Arizona an ideal place from which to observe the night sky. Pluto was discovered at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2027791,-111.6647621,2a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1scGMTbGVLcOfvujbBMzgR4g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

A very special Arizona story is that of London Bridge in Lake Havasu City. London Bridge was built, in London, in the 1830s. In the 1960s, it was deemed to be unsuitable for the increasingly heavy traffic. The old bridge was dismantled and replaced. An American businessman named Robert McCulloch got the apparently absurd idea of buying the dismantled bridge, having it shipped stone by stone, and reassembled in Arizona, but now this is the second most popular tourist destination in Arizona, after the Grand Canyon. Las Vegas has all kinds of copies of famous places around the world, but London Bridge is for real. The first of the following images, from Google Street View, shows a British-style phone booth alongside London Bridge.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.471767,-114.3474115,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sdn7Q9KoVQaqXnV7fz6BOEQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

Here is more of Lake Havasu City, where London Bridge is located.

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Just as Boulder (Hoover) Dam on the Colorado River is located on the state line between Nevada and Arizona, further downstream on the river is Parker Dam, between Arizona and California. The Colorado River forms the boundary between the two states. Just as Boulder Dam forms Lake Mead, Parker Dam forms Lake Havasu. This artificial lake is so important because it is from where a canal originates that carries much-needed water to Los Angeles and San Diego.

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.2966363,-114.1392651,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1syucULgHaafmMT7P4nF5pIA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

The one sight that Arizona is best-known for is, of course, the Grand Canyon, in the basin of the Colorado River. The first two images, from Google Earth, are of the Grand Canyon.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.112764,-113.9960696,3a,75y,358.72h,82.21t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOkdDeIwtH7MmTQz0y_YfiO1BBvrncWalslKwHB!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOkdDeIwtH7MmTQz0y_YfiO1BBvrncWalslKwHB%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya159.68451-ro-0-fo100!7i5376!8i2688

The cross in the following image, from Google Earth, is made of concrete. The cross is 60 feet, about 18 meters, wide. These crosses in the Arizona desert were used to focus the cameras on satellites.