Why Being in the Middle Might Be Good...

This article from the Arizona Republic outlines where Arizona supposedly stands in comparison to other states in business friendliness. I actually think the middle is a good place to be because it is a simple measure of costs. Costs are important to business, but obviously other things are also a high priority, like quality of life and the availability of a highly educated or skilled workforce. San Francisco is really expensive, but it has a large business community because it is a nice place to live with lots of highly qualified smart people.


I think we should concentrate on holding business costs where they are and move our primary focus to increasing the quality of life. The problem with increasing quality of life in Arizona is that the real estate development base for our economy is in many ways antithetical to quality of life. Of course, affordable housing is a quality of life issue, but so are education, air/water quality, arts, available park land etc. Developers produce a lot of pollution, eat up park land whenever possible and usually oppose increases in educational funding (which is property tax based). This is why the Governor and the City of Phoenix officials are so smart for promoting biotech and other industries. They should now promote reductions in pollution and improving education as well as affordable housing and middling taxes.