Three unique projects that will enhance Tucson’s appeal

This is a respectful post in an attempt to somehow show that Tucson still offers an Arizona experience that is different from and competing with Technocactopolis (i.e. Phoenix.) And no, I’m not talking about foodie festivals, trade shows, sports venues, street music, art fairs, wine, live LARPs, etc., things that most western cities the size or smaller of Tucson already offer in abundance.

These three concepts not only enhance Tucson’s utterly unique appeal, they are things we can manage, maintain, grow, and profit from: they are environmentally friendly, they attract high-paying global industries that share the same values, and they help employ young people who are leaving the city in droves, keeping families together and preventing the rapidly looming urban population disaster.

Project No.1. Build an aerial tramway from inside the subway to Mount Lemmon Summerhaven. This is a great tourism asset with great potential for environmental education and conservation. Of course, recreation too. But it’s largely ignored because of the long drive and growing parking issues. And when I say “recreation,” I’m not talking about building a new resort or a trinket nightmare like Dollywood. Albuquerque’s 58 years of successful business and environmental experience, Sandia Peak Tramway (see Wikipedia), provides a data-validated model. Local environmental elites like CBD need to stop depriving the masses of what they too need to value.

Project No.2. Short-haul commuter flights operate daily to Baja’s smaller airports. This is also a unique tourism resource. American aircraft manufacturer Cessna has received FAA certification for the SkyCourier, a 19-seat, twin-turbo cargo and passenger aircraft. The aircraft was designed to allow operators of short-haul routes (45-90 minutes) to remain profitable and in business. Tucson’s geographic location relative to the length of Baja allows flying access to smaller airports that various Mexican governors are beginning to realize the potential of. This is real ecotourism, with the novelty of industrial power, without mega-resorts and commercialism. It strengthens people-to-people relations on a scalable level, helping people who have lived in harmony with nature to maintain their way of life. And it also helps give them a new voice in the huge strategic forces now operating in the eastern Pacific. If you are skeptical of the upcoming geopolitical realities, look what happens when Mexico’s Ferromex railroad builds a new bypass and interchange from Tucson to the Union Pacific railroad around the eastern Nogales metropolitan area.

Project No.3. Convince the US Space Force to put a new national laboratory at DMAFB. This would be a perfect fit for the apparently decaying Davis-Monthan Base, now surrounded by Tucson, and the little noise relief that the graveyard storage space still gives to urban areas. Judging by my experience and connections at the US Department of Energy National Labs, the new US Space Force will soon get its own national laboratory facility. Not only that, but political forces are resisting putting such a facility in California, Texas, New Mexico, or Colorado, where many other assets are sent. Tucson is the perfect location, and if the incompetent University of Arizona can get out of the morbidly obese rehab they woke up to in time, their expertise in optics, engineering, and astronomy will be invaluable. Seriously, there is also the possibility that the University of Arizona could join the management team of the Space Force’s “GoCo labs” (government-owned, contractor-operated), which has been the standard management model since Oppenheimer. Not only that, but the commercialization potential for technology transfer of such a national laboratory in Tucson is extraordinary. Oversight and spinoff revenue to the university would complement UA’s research efforts and offset its growing reliance on professional sports and gambling.

That’s it, Tucson. Focus on bigger, more meaningful things. If you’re going to “run with the big dogs,” don’t pee like a puppy.