By All Means, Arizona - New Development For Planned 900,000 Residents Sounds Like A Dandy Idea!

[hatrack]

There's a city twice the size of Tucson out in the desert south of Apache Junction. It houses 900,000 people in thousands upon thousands of homes. But it just hasn't been built yet. The area is 276 square miles of empty desert called Superstition Vistas. It stretches from the southern border of Apache Junction, down the edge of San Tan Valley, all the way down to Florence, then across to the US 60 and beyond. It follows the edge of the Tonto National Forest and wraps around Gold Canyon, and then back to Apache Junction. And for all that area, with all those people estimated to live there upon completion, there's not enough water. Not yet.

EDIT

"It is huge," Grady Gammage Jr., a lawyer and water expert with the Kyl Center for Water Policy said. "One of the things we said is this could be the San Fernando Valley of Phoenix." Gammage Jr. wrote one of the first reports for Superstition Vistas nearly 20 years ago. At the time he predicted the area could house 900,000 people by 2060. It would take some creative water choices, however. "We can grow another million people or more, frankly," he said. "But we have to start making tough choices."

The problem is that the Superstition Vistas has no dedicated water source, Gammage wrote. The entire tract of land is in Pinal County, a county so strapped for water that the state has refused to let any development take place that uses groundwater alone.

EDIT

But also, as of now, there's only a four-square-mile area of Superstition Vistas that's under construction. "This first piece is the launching off part," Apache Junction City Manager Bryant Powell said. The first phase calls for 10,000 homes built by two developers. Those neighborhoods, Powell said, have been annexed into Apache Junction and the city will provide the water for them. But, that's as far as Apache Junction's water commitment goes. "We prepared for many years before this land was even going to go to auction," Powell said. There are still 274 square miles of land left to be developed, and most of that hasn't been sold yet. The state owns it and has been selling it at auction.

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https://www.12news.com/article/news/regional/scorched-earth/how-will-1-million-people-get-water-in-arizona/75-29202f9c-137e-41e8-909c-a665f65a83fe

[Ferrets are Cool]

1. How indeed?

[eppur_se_muova]

2. No water ? No problem ! nt

[Ritabert]

3. Arizona's water allotment from the Colorado River

....is way down. Farmers are having to forego planting some crops this year. There is literally no water for a new development.

[Doc Sportello]

4. But hey there's money to be made

Damn the drought, damn climate change. Why worry about tomorrow when there's money to be made today?

[Mickju]

5. Insane

[CanonRay]

6. Apache Junction was always a shithooe

Still is, apparently.

[patphil]

7. P.T. Barnum had a phrase for this.

There's barely enough water to support Arizona's current population, let alone 900,000 more people.
Ground water is pretty much tapped out, and surface water is evaporating as we speak. "Getting creative" and "tough choices" are a different way of saying that farmers are going to suffer.
As we get deeper into climate change and global warming the chances are the Southwest will get dryer.
The people buying houses here will discover the old saying, "there's a sucker born every minute" applies to them.

[asiliveandbreathe]

8. Rio Verde foothills..run out of water in December..

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/water-wars/running-dry-rio-verde-foothills-heads-toward-water-cutoff-in-6-months/75-d21c586c-9649-47a4-8297-6146496be593

No longer will they be able to obtain water from Scottsdale..and if the water hauler has to go to Maricopa..well, that is a long haul..my question?..And then what!!!??

What a nightmare for these folks..

[DBoon]

9. sounds like California City

n 1958, Czech-born Columbia University sociology professor and real estate developer Nathan "Nat" K. Mendelsohn purchased 82,000 acres (33,000 ha) of Mojave Desert land with the aim of making California's next great city. California City Development Company (CCDC) was aggressively marketing the city by running a "real estate school" to license and train a large salesforce, and a quarter-page Los Angeles Times advertorial described it as a "giant venture" and "inevitable growth".[13][14]

Mendelsohn hoped it would one day rival Los Angeles in population, and CCDC had the Smith and Williams architects master plan the community in 1961; Garrett Eckbo also contributed. Mendelsohn built a Central Park with a 26-acre (11 ha) artificial lake. Two golf courses and a four-story Holiday Inn[15] were built next to the park. Ultimately the actions of CCDC caused the town to become known for land speculation through CCDC and successors. Mendelsohn was advertising the city for land speculation by 1962; 175 homes had been built by then. The city has a rich history of promotion, including hiring Erik Estrada to advocate for the city;[16] in the 2000s land was sold through infomercial.
...
The Federal Trade Commission also began inspecting the company in 1969, and Ralph Nader's 25-person California task force (part of "Nader's Raiders&quot published "Power and Land in California" in late 1971. The book accused various individuals and agencies of ineptitude and corruption, as well as focusing on California City, calling it a fraud and "a particularly stark study of government failure." By that time Mendelsohn had sold over $100 million in land.[29][17][27][28]

By the 1970s over 50,000 lots had been sold and the market dried up. The FTC filed a cease and desist against the company for misleading advertising, with a consent order coming in 1972 from FTC's Richard Lavine. Charges (which White effectively agreed with in 1971[30]) included the real estate school was primarily geared towards selling land, not providing training; enrollees were required to bring in land prospects; the property was encumbered, not fee simple, advertised improvements (e.g. roads) did not exist; it failed to meet the Truth in Lending Act. In 1974 The New York Times described Great Western City Corporation as "the troubled land development subsidiary" of Great Western United. After taking CCDC to court, the Federal Trade Commission's Ken Donney reached a settlement in 1977, with over 14,000 landowners receiving partial refunds from a $4 million pool, the largest FTC settlement to date. CCDC was also required to invest $16 million in long-promised infrastructure developments at CCDC's three cities

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California