Yes, City of Mesa Planning Director John Wesley does know full well about conservative politics here in the Blob that's eating-up the eastern part of The Valley of The Sun - the seeds of sprawl were planted over 135 years ago by the so-called "Pioneers', a contingent of Mormon families sent from Utah to establish their corner of The Kingdom called Desert on their way trying to claim more territory in Mexico. The named the original one-square mile Zion:The Promised Land, with some of those promised gains continuing to materialize for a selected few of their descendants here in Mesa today
Some commentators use the phrase 'Mormon Mafia' to describe them, while Wesley smartly uses the less-tinged word 'Tea-Baggers' in this article published yesterday.
In the online post at Planetizen reporter Josh Stephens interviews Wesley back in March. He's a long-time holder of the planning director's office - who uses an analogy for what he calls Tea-Baggers to refer to the LDS descendants who still exercise control and monopoly on the lands and real estate holdings [and affiliated businesses] here that have now sprawled over 133 square miles, who have controlled conservative politics for 4-5 generations and continue to control real estate development now with overlapping interests in family members' trusts and undisclosed business relationships throughout the chain-of-command inside and outside City Hall.
Indeed many former and present office holders - or appointed and/or hired officials on city boards and committees throughout Mesa's history - have been either presidents or bishops in a widespread network of LDS wards and stakes located everywhere in the City of Mesa. While now a demographic minority, members of the faith exercise a majority control in nearly everything here where very few citizens and other members of the public are not engaged or involved.
Perhaps the reporter didn't know that in March a group of let's just say 'like-minded investors' somehow managed to buy up about a dozen properties in the downtown area, getting owners to sell-out by manipulating the real estate market with offers to purchase @ $100 per square foot - wanna call that 'flirting with urbanization'?
It's a good read nonetheless if you want to hit the underlined link provided
FEATURE
America's Largest Suburb Flirts With Urbanization
John Wesley leads the charge to introduce urbanism into mega-suburb of Mesa, Arizona.
A time-line of Mesa's sprawl can be seen in the video insert to the left.
Mesa sprawls and sprawls-some-more into the record books as America's largest suburb. At 472,000 residents, it tops Atlanta, Miami, Minneapolis, and Cleveland, among others. . . the non-stop sprawl expanded just this week with another 700+-acre expansion at master-planned community Eastmark in the approval process with the Planning & Zoning Board.
Here's the video, uploaded to YouTube on Dec 14, 2016 with a 32-year time lapse of urban sprawl in Mesa, Arizona . . it goes by fast!Mesa is a city in Maricopa County, in the U.S. state of Arizona, and is a suburb located about 20 miles east of Phoenix. Mesa is the central city of the East Valley section of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. Readers can hit the link to Planetizen to read more.
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