Your conclusion is correct that Scottsdale is a more important core than Mesa is or will ever be, Your details as to why are totally whack but thats fine.

Mesa has the 4 mile butt end of a 22 mile system that is about to gain a two additional lines.

Your reasoning is that because Mesa is Big its a twin city and thats just not the case.


I tend to agree with you but that's just not the case, ask anyone from Phoenix if we ever gain a second Urban core of note its Tempe.

And that is why the question was posed. Locals will have a different perception, not saying its right or wrong, but rather greatly appreciated on this global forum.

Look, we all know Tempe is EXPLODING, right now, does that not mean Mesa can't do the same, especially since the pricing in Tempe has become so high?

Already noted above; Mesa has lots of people, is growing rapidly, and part of it is served by a light rail line.

Scottsdale is no urban paradise, but it is more urban and cohesive, is easier to negotiate by foot and bike, has a better central business district and more to do, and is generally more upscale than Mesa. It's got a peak census tract in the same range as Mesa's. And it has curb appeal. Tourists flock to Scottsdale, like they do to Tempe and downtown Phoenix. Mesa--not so much.

Sure, there's 'potential' in any place where it can't get much worse.

What fraction of Mesans work in Mesa? Tempe is a major academic/employment center. Mesa is what you'd get if Hayward and Fremont merged with each other.

St Paul and Oakland both started as independent urban cores and were cities in their own right before they became subsumed into the metro of their larger neighbor. I think that is how it has to work to be a real twin city. I can't think any giant suburbs that grew into that role

The answer is no, plain and simple. How this could ever be considered a legitimate question is beyond comprehension.

What would happen if Mesa merged with Tempe and/or Scottsdale and created a super-suburb-city of over a million people? Would it be on par with Phoenix then?

Mesa has existed as a separate community almost as long as Phoenix has. I don't know if it ever had anything resembling an urban core though.

There would have to be a first city. ;)

Not sure why this is even a question. Mesa is an anonymous bedroom suburb; it's relative size/city limits are irrelevant.

Scottsdale is the high profile Phoenix suburb, with an important corporate and leisure base.

Mesa does have the light rail line, and it's downtown is becoming more popular and getting a big facelift. I understand the question and think it's a possibility. But it would be so far into the future that twin cities would be the norm everywhere.

As said, Tempe almost already is becoming a twin city (it has a booming skyline, ASU, light rail, and a walkable core), and Scottsdale is more popular as a tourist destination, plus a lot of the money of the metro is over there. The downtown area is a night life spot, has some residential (mostly high end), and some offices, but I doubt it will ever be more than that. Those 2 are much bigger players in the metro area as compared to Mesa, although they don't have the population.

And the satellite cities around Phoenix (Tempe, Mesa, etc.) aren't just suburbs in the normal sense, they started out as their own places, and have grown together. Similar to all of the various "suburb" cities around Los Angeles.

That's pretty much the norm with all suburbs. It isn't like suburbs are usually built in empty wilderness; there's almost always an old legacy settlement.

But places like Mesa are about as close as it gets to "blank slate" (sub)urbanism, as there was basically nothing there until very recently.

In the East there's usually a legacy settlement. In the West often there wasn't.

I haven't been to Mesa (unless you count flying over it!) but it sounds like it's just suburbia for the most part that happens to have larger than usual boundaries. Like a handful of smaller suburbs that happened to be one government.

No.

Merging suburbs into super suburbs doesn't make them into cities.

Neither Tempe or Scottsdale would ever agree to such a thing, and I don't think anyone in Mesa is clamoring for that either.

The suburbs of Phoenix were independent towns, little tiny farming communities separated by mile of Cotton, Citrus, alfalfa and lettuce.

Mesa has a little downtown that makes perfect sense for a farming community fo 25,000 people. Mesa as a city went from mostly farms to a giant suburban city almost entirely in the last 40 years

Why would that happen? Its not like there is any daylight between them, in a matter of minutes you can cross back and forth to all of them and not even realize you've done so.

The larger Phoenix Suburbs were independent small farming towns that had been around just as long or even longer than phoenix, Whoever compared it to LA is exactly correct.

By the time phoenix took off in pop growth in the 1960's, it was the largest town in a region of several farm towns (Scottsdale, Glendale, Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert etc.)

All of these just short of grew into each other just Like LA, Long beach, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Anaheim, etc etc. Modern car centric Suburban development allowed these towns to massively grow out and run into each other before ever developing urban cores to match.

Its the reason LA has a downtown, as discussed before, that is relatively small given the region it anchors and why LA has many separate city cores, town centers and downtown's spread out over the metro region.

This is true in all regions to a degree but older (mostly east coast cities) have a much more dominant central core with very minor secondaries, newer cities have weaker central cores and several moderate and small secondaries.

Its simply a matter of the time these places developed and the technology/trends available at the time they did.

Mesa had almost 15,000 people in 1950, and Anaheim California had a bit over 15,000 at the same time, and I think that Mesa has no more chance of being a twin of Phoenix than Anaheim has of being a twin of Los Angeles.

It was a small town that got swallowed up in the growing blob of Phoenix. Mesa just happens to have the largest population of sprawlburbs like Anaheim, Arlington Texas, Aurora Colorado, etc.