Midsummer Night's Dream in the Arizona Desert

It’s summertime in Phoenix, Arizona. Temperatures soar to over 100° F, sometimes reaching 115° F, or higher. After June, the heat island effect kicks into gear. Buildings and streets – especially asphalt surfaces – absorb the day's solar energy, then release it slowly through the night. Even though the sun goes down, the built environment is still hot. The hum of air conditioners is a constant auditory feature of summertime.

In many communities throughout Phoenix, residents open aqueduct valves in their yards once a week to water their landscapes from the flood irrigation systems held over from the 1900’s when Phoenix communities were tiny agricultural towns.

People moved here to enjoy the dry, mild climate, and to escape allergy causing vegetation. However, the Eastern trees and plants people brought with them (mulberry and olive, for example) – and their love of grass – made Phoenix the asthma capital of the west.
Throughout the city are houses surrounded by large trees and a grass lawns -- remnants of an outdated way of life in the desert: just add water and cultivate an oasis. It was a way that made sense to residents and developers when water was plentiful, populations were smaller, temperatures were cooler, and summers were only four months long.

Over the last 50 years, however, the average low temperature has increased by 10° F. The city’s growth is exponential now. The population since 1990 increased by 59%! ASU studies are reporting loss of indigenous biodiversity on mountains in Phoenix surrounded by an urban sea of human activity. The old, water intensive, sprawling lifestyle is unsustainable with available water, even though theoretically there is much more desert to develop across the expansive valley floor.

One of the most harmful assaults to native species diversity is the introduction of non-native plants and animals. Successful non-natives have no natural predators, so they out-compete native species for habitat and resources. Fragile riparian green belts (areas where the water table is close to or above the ground) have been reduced by 90% in Arizona over the last century due to human activity.

For thousands of years these riparian habitats supported the greatest species diversity in our state. Beavers and otters abound in rivers and streams, and mega fauna like deer found sustenance there. Today one has to visit a museum or zoo to know what native species Arizona once supported.

Similar urban experiences play out all across the Western United States. A profound shift is happening throughout the region where growth is out of control and the Earth is showing strains of overuse.

What Phoenix, and cities like it, do over the next decade to slow and manage growth, and to clean up and use water more responsibly, will be particularly critical as baby boomer retirees migrate to the sunbelt.

Tucson, Arizona, where I now reside, follows the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, a multi-agency and community-based initiative, to shape its growth. Although Tucson has reached nearly one million people in the metro area, it is still known for preserving open, green space and encouraging residential landscaping with native desert corridors. Native Tucsonans are desperately trying to hold onto this legacy, as new residents arrive who do not understand desert ecosystems or appreciate the way of life necessary to protect water reserves.

Since I moved to Tucson from Phoenix five years ago, I can enjoy a cool summer night at the decent hour of 7 pm when desert soils release the heat of the day. This is the natural desert rhythm that Phoenix has lost by asphalting over much of the valley floor.

On morning walks in central Tucson, I can still enjoy a covey of Gamble's quail running wildly through the native vegetation in alleyways and yards. Many residents pride themselves on landscaping with desert trees like the graceful desert willow with its lavender throated blossoms or uniquely shaped cacti placed like sculptures in the landscape. They tend gardens where heirloom vegetables conserved from the Americas grow with little water. The Tohono O’Odham still “dry farm,” using only annual monsoon rains to grow corn, beans, melons, and greens of all kinds.

Striking the balance between natural communities and human communities makes sense. We are in a new period of understanding the intimate and wholly necessary relationships with nature that maintain us physically and economically, emotionally and spiritually.

Gazing at the twinkling midnight sky above me, I imagine the ancient Hohokam people also lying outside in the heat of summers thousands of years ago.

Soft warm breezes move across the yard as I doze off in my chaise lounge, in my pajamas, on a summer’s night in a desert of the Southwest.