Morrison Institute for Public Policy Publications Archives

During the mid-part of the last decade, when the population growth rate was at its highest, the Phoenix area experienced rapid development and urban sprawl. The result has been an intensification of the Urban Heat Island effect. In this edition of Decades, author Sally Wittlinger discusses this uncomfortable consequence of urbanization.

Public finance—taxes and other revenues collected by government and the expenditure of those revenues—always has been somewhat controversial because of wide philosophical differences among residents regarding the role that government should play in providing public services and in collecting taxes and fees from its residents. Recently, public finance in Arizona has become a prominent public issue due to the need to resolve the deficits that afflict state government and most county and municipal governments in Arizona.

In a desert city such as Phoenix, summertime heat is a way of life, but how much does the built environment contribute to the intensity of the heat on a summer night? In urbanized Phoenix, nights don’t cool down as much as in the surrounding rural areas and on more and more summer nights, the official Phoenix temperature fails to drop below 90 degrees. Climate plays a huge role in the comfort and quality of life of residents, with numerous implications for tourism, energy demand, water use, and the vulnerability of low-income families.

Arizona is emerging from one of the worst state budget crises in the nation. Entering 2003, its projected deficit, measured as a percentage of the general fund, was the fifth largest in the country.1 The state had slashed spending in 2002 in the face of a $900 million deficit, but still faced a $400 million shortfall for fiscal year 2003 and an estimated $1 billion deficit in fiscal 2004. Although improved revenues have reduced the anticipated gap, fundamental underlying problems remain concerning the ability of lawmakers to control the budget. Some observers consider this a revenue problem, others a spending problem. Our concern in this paper is whether state lawmakers have enough control over either revenue or spending.