Welcome To Phoenix In The Year 2030 - Darkly Funny Satire

[hatrack]

"On this last Friday in August the radio says the current temperature is 110 and will hit 123. Cooler spots today outside the heat island will include 117 at Gila Bend Estates and 113 in New River Ranch, two gated communities rumored to have undocumented outdoor fountains.

EDIT

Outside, she sprays Max and Katy with SPF 100 sunblock and everyone climbs into the family's 15-year-old SUV. Liz notices the gas gauge is barely at a quarter of a tank. Quickly she tries to calculate how much gas she will need to reach school, the Valley Metro lot, her second job that evening, and home. She'll likely have to wait in line at the gas station. At $12 a gallon, she'll have to go to an automatic teller machine for the $300 fill-up. Discount stations are cash only. Liz pulls out, her yellow smog lights poking weakly through the dense early-morning air and falls in line for the slow crawl to the freeway. "For sale" signs lean at odd angles in many of the bare dirt yards. Every block has a couple of homes wrapped in yellow "no trespassing" tape for foreclosure. The Garcias moved to Eloy 13 years ago for an affordable home and the last scraps of rural landscape left between Phoenix and Tucson. Light rail was talked about but never happened. Metro buses don't come down this far. The crumbling I-10 is still the only way north for the 25-mile run to Phoenix.

Their plan was to live in this house two or three years and move to a bigger place. David drove a forklift at a Wal-Mart distribution site until the Great Sale of 2018 when Wal-Mart was taken over by the Chinese conglomerate, Mao-mart. The center closed and David found work with Mao-mart's trucking division driving big shipping containers from the Long Beach dockyards to stores around the Southwest. He sleeps at home every eighth night, the other seven in his truck.

Liz reaches the I-10 ramp in half an hour and joins the slow crawl north. Even when traffic is light, between 12:45 and 1:20 p.m. weekdays, the speed limit is just 40 mph, another gas-saving concession. Along the center median in the bike lane, a few brave cyclists sucking on respirators pedal past the lines of cars and trucks.


http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/1219house-bad19.html

[saracat]

1. Scary. Probably too accurate!

[phantom power]

2. I've heard that they are planning 2 million new houses down here

in the next 5 years.

I don't doubt that the building companies are planning it, but I wonder how the city planners reconcile this with the ongoing drought, and need for water.

Or, maybe they just don't give a shit. Build it all, and worry about water later?

I also wonder what in the hell these people would do for a living. The building "front" is already a good 45 minutes from the main metro area. In good traffic. Assuming there are enough businesses to hire an additional 4 million people (assuming 2 working adults per house), are these people all going to commute 3 hours a day?

[midnight armadillo]

4. Degradation of life

Suburban sprawl eventually just degrades everybody's quality of life through endless commutes, traffic, pollution, and elimination of natural environments. Plus, everyone wants the same thing: an acre of green lawn...

That story writer got those aspects spot-on.

[umass1993]

3. I lived in phoenix...

and I left. I now reside in Pittsfield, MA.

I consider the place to be unfit for humanity. Too bad, the old Phoenix had some charm and character. Now it's been paved under asphalt nation. :-(

[Pooka Fey]

5. I live in Phx. No doubt in my mind this will happen. Looking to move.