Governor Brewer,

I write to you today to express my grave concerns for all current and future citizens of the great state of Arizona. SB 1070, the so-called “safe neighborhoods; immigration; law enforcement” will do nothing to improve the conditions it sets out to. It, in fact, will lead to a rise in unsafe neighborhoods, a more fractured immigration system, and extremely strained local law enforcement agencies.

Neighborhoods will become more unsafe due to the perpetuation of fear that this bill causes. In Maricopa County, neighborhoods have borne witness to these tactics already. The community of Guadalupe has been made no safer due to MCSO’s checkpoints on its citizens. US Citizens across our state feel intimidated. Last week Tucson resident Lynda Cruz came across coordinated ICE raids and had this to say of her experience, “I have never seen anything like this before. Men with AK-47s and black masks covering them. I was threatened by an ICE agent that said I would be arrested if I interfered in any way.” This type of environment is standing to make our state extremely detrimental to our commerce ability and general economy. Arizona’s largest export market internationally is Mexico. Our tourism industry relies heavily on tourist from Mexico coming to Arizona to spend their pesos.

Additionally, this bill fails to provide any guidance on our broken immigration system. The US is currently home to approximately 11 million illegal immigrants; this bill does little to address how we are going to realistically handle such a large volume of people. Immigration is a federal matter. Our state income taxes should not be misdirected at addressing this issue. Arizona cannot and should not act independently when it comes to an issue that is national in scope.

Finally this bill does not support improvement in law enforcement. By directing state, and local law enforcement agencies to direct limited man power and man hours to checking documents we are going to be reducing our ability to ensure the public’s safety from people who are committing violent and serious crimes in our communities.

I ask you to veto this bill, do not allow our state legislator to use frustration at a difficult and unfair situation to turn back the clock 50 years on civil rights progress.

Thank you,
Khamis Hammoudeh
Citizen of the State of Arizona

Immediately following World War II a new pattern of development swept across the United States. Like a plague of insects descending upon carefully nurtured crops, this suburban pattern threatens the health of our country by both contributing to and forming many social, environmental and financial ills.

The consumption of pristine land, separation of people from one another, attack on heterogeneous cities from shoddily-built homogeneous suburbs, proliferation of green-house gas emitting automobiles and many other detrimental changes to a society that was once growing in a healthy manner can be traced to the suburban development patterns which gained momentum in the 1950’s.

I feel that we live in an unprecedented time. Development patterns seem to be leading us in a direction that could throw our country, and possibly the world, into social, environmental and fiscal ruin. It is clear that the solution to this dilemma is to return to a development pattern based upon the traditional structure of the neighborhood, town and city. No longer can we afford to separate land uses into homogeneous configurations that break apart once thriving communities.

The current economic crisis has given us a moment to pause, and to reevaluate the patterns that got us into this downturn. I hope that we use this moment to learn from the mistakes that led us to where we are today.

This is part one of a four part series on the ills that large-scale suburban development has caused. The next topic will focus on select social ills which are particularly pronounced in suburban communities.

Expect frequent posts now that I actually have a platform I can work with.

Anyhow, I am super excited and I can’t wait to continue my clearer vision for the future of my education. These are four programs I am considering applying to:

1. University of Washington’s Master of Urban Planning (Seattle, WA)
2. Portland State University’s Urban & Regional Planning Master’s Degree (Portland, OR)
3. University of British Columbia’s Master of Arts in Community & Regional Planning (Vancouver, BC)
4. Simon Fraser University’s Master of Urban Studies (Vancouver, BC) (non-accredited)

I love the advances ASU has made online, this week they tweaked the MyASU app a bit, and now I can finally see what classes I took before they had MyASU. Plus the added the ability to check grades and your gpa. That’s awesome. The real impressive thing is the Facebook app ASU built. I think it’s awesome.

Today’s song of the day.

Anyway it’s just a shame that Downtown Tempe has lost so much of it’s potential and character during my time in the valley.