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Yuppie Revolt Tucson media ignore the Eco-Raider renaissance. By Susan Zakin Ecosaboteurs are burning down trophy houses in Phoenix. Why haven't you heard about it? Tucson's daily newspapers are ignoring the resurgence of Arizona's grand tradition of ecosabotage, so clearly it's up to me to fill the gap. Here's the story, as reported in the Phoenix New Times: Since 1998, a group of people thought to be mountain-bikers started firebombing big, vulgar trophy homes that were encroaching on the 29,000-acre Phoenix Mountains Preserve. According to New Times reporter James Hibberd, the ecosaboteurs have recently ramped things up, burning down nine luxury homes since December. They even struck the same house twice, leaving a message: "U Build It We Burn It-Again." Hibberd interviewed one of the arsonists, who turned out to be a pretty middle-of-the-road guy. A Christian, no less. The Eco-Raider described himself as a family man, a management professional with "an advanced degree" and "healthy income." His co-conspirators included a female who works in health care, a guy who works at an outdoor equipment store, and someone employed by a "local government agency." They are all avid mountain bikers. Call it Revolt of the Yuppies. It's about time. Developers have corrupted our fundamental political processes so pervasively that even conventional people are taking to nachtwerk, as it was called by Ed Abbey, author of The Monkey Wrench Gang. Their perception is that there is simply no other way. They might be right. I found it hilarious that Arizona Republic columnist E.J. Montini lambasted New Times for failing to call the authorities to bust the ecosaboteur. The Republic is in no position to criticize the New Times. In 1999, the Republic hired a Growth Lobby shill named Robert Robb to write a column three times a week. Robb is a public relations man, a hired subverter of the truth who once worked for the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce. His only journalistic experience was as an intern at the suburban desk of the Los Angeles Times, presumably when he was a college student. Robb isn't the Republic's only problem. The paper's blatant shilling for the growth lobby is an embarrassment. By contrast, New Times head honcho Mike Lacey is not only one of the state's best reporters, but he also believes in spending the bucks to commit real journalism. Lacey pisses a lot of people off, but you can't argue with his product. New Times is now the largest chain of alternative weeklies in the country, and the one-time hippie antiwar activist from a blue-collar background is a millionaire. The fact that New Times' Hibberd reported the news instead of making it is squarely within the bounds of what most people consider good journalistic ethics. That leaves the question of whether the ecosaboteurs are right. I may not be objective about this. I live in the Tucson Mountains, the second-fastest growing part of Tucson, trailing the dread ur-suburb of Oro Valley. I rent a funky old casita on a non-working ranch right next to Saguaro National Park. My neighborhood-a friend of mine calls it The Village-is more protected than most from the ravages of sprawl. But every time I go to town, my blood pressure rises as I see vulgar trophy homes sprouting like poisonous mushrooms after a toxic rain. I know that I should worry about how sprawl hurts endangered species instead of angsting out over the aesthetics. But the affront is simply too great. Once I leave my dirt road, I literally do not see one house that isn't remarkably ugly. How can so many people have such terrible taste? Alas, this is one of the great mysteries of life in Arizona. Long ago, I achieved a level of self-knowledge that told me I could never be an eco-radical. (I'll tell you that story someday.) I believe in working within the political system to create change. But two things make me less than sanguine about the prospect of doing that now. One is the election of George W. Bush. I don't remember feeling so alienated from my own country since the Vietnam War, which I was almost too young to have understood. But I remember well the pervasive sense that the government did not represent us, the people of the United States. When we went abroad, we pretended we were Canadian, or apologized for what our country was doing. Sadly, the second reason is the ineptitude that I see in Arizona's environmental community. Arizona environmentalists show very little ability to organize their own side. They show even less ability to deal with developers. Developers need incentives for infill. They need to be educated about the environment, instead of hearing things like: "There are plenty of pygmy owls in Mexico!" and other unscientific tripe from their cheerleaders. They need to understand that the sky won't fall if they negotiate with environmentalists. But even if our environmentalists were the toughest, smartest folks around, they would be undercut by Governor Jane Hull, who seems to take pride in her ignorance of environmental matters. Her lack of leadership on the environment is a microcosm of the Bush administration's corrupt, single-minded allegiance to corporate profits. Unfortunately, Hull's repeated violations of public trust mean developers have no incentive to compromise. The defeat of Proposition 202, the Citizens Growth Management Initiative, was yet another instance of Arizona lagging 30 years behind other parts of the country. Perhaps we're reliving the 1970s, when the Tucson Eco-Raiders, a sub-rosa, subversive band of college students, made headlines by toppling billboards, pulling up developers' survey stakes, sabotaging bulldozers and vandalizing the cancerous tract homes that were debasing the magical Sonoran desert where they had grown up. So I understand why the yuppies in Phoenix are revolting. I just hope they don't get caught before they can come down here. I have a couple of houses I'd like to show them.
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