I grew up in New York City and then I lived in Chicago for 20+ years. And every square inch of those cities have been paved over and built and re-built since before the beginning of time.
Growth in New York and Chicago meant knocking down a big old building and putting up an even bigger new one.
So I when I moved to the Tucson Foothills in 2000, I wasn't accustomed to seeing the kind of growth that's happening here.
Oro Valley and the entire Northwest Tucson area, Southeast Tucson and Vail, plus the southwest and west Tucson areas, have grown tremendously in that short time. Where once there was desert - hundreds of homes, miles of roads and homes for Home Depots and Wal Marts have sprung up relentlessly. When you read about big growth in Tucson, those are the areas that you're reading about.
In the Tucson Foothills, which was pretty much built out when I moved here, the last large parcel of land was claimed by
Pima Canyon, the luxury home development built in 2001.
Since then, growth in the Foothills, has and will continue to be limited to the few and quickly diminishing number of good lots, and to what I charitably call, in-fill development. There just isn't any land available.
A recent article in the AZ Daily Star talks about current and future growth in Pima county and what's driving it. Some highlights,
Pima population growth to slow — microscopically
Pima County's rate of population growth will slow in the next seven years, but so slightly — despite the housing downturn — "you won't even notice," says planner David Taylor.
These are the latest forecasts from Taylor, of the Pima Association of Governments, and Marshall Vest, University of Arizona economic and business-research director.
Until at least 2015, annual growth rates will stay over 2 percent, where they've been for a decade-plus. "Tucson in really good years will grow 2.5 percent," Vest said. "In bad years, 2 percent."
The reasons: more retirees are moving here, along with people with "a heckuva lot more money," Vest said. "People are able to move here when they don't have a job, when they don't even need a job."
Some choose Tucson for second homes. The population is aging.
All of that is allowing the population to grow even when the economic slowdown could bring a drop in total jobs, Vest said.
And a lot of those retirees, and people with "a heckuva lot more money", choose the Tucson Foothills, because of -Location, Location, Location - there's nothing else like it in Tucson.
And though I have heard rumors that there are people who actually prefer these other areas of Tucson, I've never met one myself.
So as far as I'm concerned, it's just a rumor.
Second homes and retirement homes account for an increasingly large share of the homes that are sold in the Tucson Foothills. And as for the "heckuva lot more money" luxury home market, here's a look at how it's grown in the last 7 years:
In the years 2000 thru 2003, sales of $1mil+ homes in the Tucson Foothills ranged between 24 to 30 homes sold each year.
Then in 2004 that number jumped to 60 homes sold, then to 97 homes in 2005, and to 126 in 2006, about a 400% increase.
Yes, in 2007 that number slipped, to 91 $1mil+ homes sold.
But that's no surprise given the shenanigans of the financial markets and the resulting disappearance of jumbo loans.
The Tucson Foothills, along with Northwest and Southeast Tucson, will benefit from the continued growth that we'll see in all of Pima county, but unlike those other areas of Tucson - which will continue to expand out and get bigger and busier with more and more new homes and shopping centers and roads - the Foothills won't grow, and it won't get any bigger, it will just become more and more desirable because of what it has always been and continues to be.
See TheFoothillsToday.com
to search for and learn more about Tucson Foothills Homes,