The Graham County, Safford, Thatcher, Pima Small Area Transportation Study was initiated by Graham County, in conjunction with the Arizona Department of Transportation, to develop a countywide, long-range multimodal transportation plan for this growing rural Arizona community. The project sponsors selected the PB Americas team to conduct this study under the direction of a Technical Advisory Committee, which included representatives from Graham County, City of Safford, Town of Thatcher, Town of Pima, Southeastern Arizona Governments Organization, and ADOT.

In 1992, Graham County conducted a transportation study for the Gila Valley Region. This study prepared a long-range transportation plan and a transportation improvement program. Many of the improvements have been completed. The purpose of this study is to update the 1992 transportation plan and to address the current issues within the area.

This report of the Indian Firming Study Commission will provide as background an overview and description of the State’s obligation for Indian Firming and an overview of the modeling efforts completed by Arizona Department of Water Resources staff to determine the estimated volumetric obligation for Indian Firming. Additionally, this report will summarize the solution elements reviewed by the Study Commission, including the water supply availability analysis and a review of the estimated cost and availability of funds to meet the obligation. Finally, the report will provide the recommendations from the Study Commission to the Arizona Legislature.

This pamphlet describes CyberPort as multinational in its approach, considering the impacts of cross-border traffic at the local, state, and regional levels. The goal of CyberPort in Arizona is to increase the capacity of Nogales, San Luis and Douglas to serve as safe, secure and efficient gateways between the United States and Mexico. Nogales, as Arizona’s primary commercial port-of-entry, is naturally positioned to serve as the port of choice for western U.S.-Mexico trade.

The Nogales CyberPort Project began in the Spring of 2002 amid dramatic changes to the safety and security of U.S. borders. Throughout the following year, extraordinary change was experienced in policy and practice regarding the treatment of the border at the local, state and federal levels. While the movement toward a more efficient and effective border crossing environment has been underway in Arizona and the U.S. for a number of years, there is perhaps a no more appropriate time to undertake the effort to define and implement a CyberPort than right now.

The Nogales CyberPort Project began in the Spring of 2002 amid dramatic changes to the safety and security of U.S. borders. Throughout the following year, extraordinary change was experienced in policy and practice regarding the treatment of the border at the local, state and federal levels. While the movement toward a more efficient and effective border crossing environment has been underway in Arizona and the U.S. for a number of years, there is perhaps a no more appropriate time to undertake the effort to define and implement a CyberPort than right now.

The quality of jobs in the United States became a national concern in the 1980s after a long period of losses of relatively high-paying manufacturing jobs and gains of frequently low-paying service jobs. National job quality remains a concern today, as witnessed by the debate in the 2004 presidential campaign. The overall average wage is a measure of prosperity or well-being, but is not in itself a measure of job quality since job quality is just one of several factors — including cost of living, productivity, and desirability of an area — that affect the overall average wage. Little information on these factors is available by state. Adjusting for job quality reduces the state-by-state variation in wages. However, even after adjusting for job quality, the average wage still varies substantially by state.

The long-term trend toward lower-quality jobs in the United States continued between 2001 and 2004. Industrial job quality fell 1.6 percent nationally between 2001 and 2004. The decrease in occupational job quality was not quite as great at 0.9 percent. Thus, overall U.S. job quality dropped 2.5 percent during the three years, causing the U.S. average wage to be 2.5 percent less than it otherwise would have been. Arizona’s job quality fell between 2001 and 2004 at a pace worse than the national average. Relative to the national average, the industrial and occupational job mixes each slipped a bit more than 0.3 percent during the three years, for an overall decline of 0.7 percent. In Arizona, job quality in 2004 was 2.0 percent below the national average, but Arizona ranked 23rd among all states.

Available data on the cost of living indicate that living costs in Arizona are close to the national average — thus, the state’s lower-than-average wages are not offset by low living costs. No productivity data exist for Arizona. Worker productivity in Arizona could be below the national average due to lesser investments in physical or human capital, which would result in lower wages. Labor market supply and demand factors are a likely cause of the low wages in Arizona. A substantial number of people seem willing to move to Arizona and accept a substandard wage in exchange for perceived qualitative advantages to living in Arizona, primarily climate.