Phoenix?

I earned my Southwest A List preferred status flying to Phoenix and LA region from SF, and spent considerable time in PHX, including dealing with finding sites, entitlements, and managing a workforce and doing business development.  Also, my very first real estate transaction I worked on was an Archstone apartment development in Southeast Phoenix (Loop 202) area 20 years ago.

I think Phoenix’s advantage to becoming a big city is availability of land that allows development in all directions.  Compare that geography to San Francisco or Seattle and you have the dynamic of lower income people living far away, having to cross bodies of water to get to their jobs in the high income / business areas.  
 

In Phoenix, you can find 1980’s built workforce housing (privately owned, not government housing projects) within three miles of luxury SFR homes on one acre plots.  And there would be still open tracts of land in between.  
 

The advantage is the abundance of land supports income diversity, which is appealing for immigrants.  
 

From a real estate investment perspective, back in 2016, I had this saying “70% the revenue of the Bay Area, 50% of the cost.”  So I looked at the relative value of PHX and liked the attributes (quick flight, growing, more streamlined regulations and city services).  
 

Notably, if you want an example of a decently well run Democrat controlled city, it is Phoenix.  Something like 10 out of 12 districts are D.  
 

Back in the early days of the city, Scottsdale was the “white” town and Phoenix was for everyone else.  The cities grew so that they melded together.

A lot of migration happened from the Midwest, rust belt.  A lot of that started with them buying vacation homes in AZ and then eventually moving there and starting families.  But I’d say, up until 2010’s, Phoenix had the seasonality feel to the economy and real estate driven, but more and more it is becoming a year around economic powerhouse.  I think the outsourcing trend (from California) was a catalyst, and now we’re are seeing more manufacturing (TSMC factory plans). 

Lastly, the availability of land has allowed the formation of naturally occurring affinity group communities to thrive.  Much like LA’s growth was fueled by areas of the city that was Koreatown, Little Tokyo, Melrose-Fairfax district, the automobile companies of South Bay, Winchester, etc; the sprawl in Phoenix help create a large Mormon population center in Gilbert, Chandler and Mesa areas.  SoCal lifestyle in Scottsdale and the Biltmore.  Workforce living in central PHX.  Sun City retirement in the Northwest PHX.  Tracts of affordable, entry homes in the West and Avondale.  Multimillion dollar homes in Arcadia, Paradise Valley.

Water is a problem.  A lot of the water comes not just from the rapidly depleting Colorado River, but also the White Mountains to the east.

A pretty interesting living set up from talking to Uber drivers is to live in Las Vegas / Phoenix and during the summer live overseas in a lower cost country. 
 

Anyways what fueled Phoenix’s growth is low cost living that creates a situation where there’s something for everyone. It’s all “greenfield” development.