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Diverse groups need to team up for Tucson's sakeOur idea: Clubs and other organizations should open their doors to mutual efforts aimed at solving our community's problems
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 10.20.2007
As a community, we tend to belabor the obvious. It's one of the most enduring of Tucson's problems.
We act as though we have no idea what to do about issues like transportation, growth, land-use planning and water conservation, as though these topics were so new that the solutions were impenetrably obscure.
In fact, we've treated all of these issues as though we were engaged in a complicated basketball game where all the players are watching one another and nobody is watching the ball.
The real issue is not knowledge — we have plenty of that in our three state universities, which are giant information reservoirs packed with experts we can turn to if we wish. The problem is really a combination of civic amnesia, myopia, lethargy and an inability to tap into resources sitting on our doorstep.
It isn't knowledge that we lack; it's will.
Fortunately, there is a way out of this malaise. But the journey won't be easy because people who have organized their lives around little power nodes are most comfortable around others who share their beliefs.
Walls are often easier to build than to tear down, but various private groups can at least make a start.
How would it be, for example, if some members of the Southern Arizona Leadership Council, or SALC, a group of senior business executives, were invited to join the board of the Nature Conservancy, the Audubon Society or the Center for Biological Diversity?
And can you imagine the lively exchanges that might occur if members of the Sierra Club, the Sonoran Institute or the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection were invited to participate at meetings of SALC or the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce?
We've heard of crossover musicians — a well-known jazz pianist like Keith Jarrett suddenly defying expectations (and enriching the world) by recording the Handel Suites for Keyboard, for example. It's possible that something similar can happen in the social interaction of ideological and economic opposites.
We've raised this possibility with a few members of SALC, and the reaction was yes, we should be talking to each other, but as members of separate groups that are equally powerful rather than as members of integrated organizations.
That's an understandable viewpoint, though it tends to slow the process of breaking down the preconceptions that each group has about the others. This is a perennial problem, not only in Tucson but everywhere.
Most groups tend to avoid rubbing elbows with their opposites. After all, the majority of clubs are fraternities of people who basically think alike. Those who have something in common typically bond into groups, forming everything from a coffee clutch to a religion.
If members of these isolated little power nodes won't invite each other in as members, they should at least invite each other in as guest speakers who may share divergent viewpoints. That might help move various groups closer to consensus.
State Rep. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, has said more than once, "If we don't grow smarter, we will grow dumber," a statement we know to be true. We scratch our heads and wonder how many times the same message must be repeated before it leads to concrete action.
Farley has a good grasp of the connection between economic growth and quality-of-life issues, and presumably he is not alone, but where are the others?
If divergent groups begin to overlap, two things may happen. First, each group will be less inclined to demonize the other, and eventually an actual community will emerge. If that community builds critical mass, it can start looking for visionary leaders who can lead Tucson into a better future.
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