Phoenix is hard-hit by the recession. One of the best barometers of how things are going economically has been the prayer request email that gets sent out as needed from the church office. Our church is pretty solidly middle class– lots of teachers, nurses, mechanics, construction workers, police officers, handymen, and small business owners. People call in with their requests and depending on the urgency, they get broadcast to the church body in batches. What is happening in the church is what is happening in the city.

Last year this time, or a little earlier, many of the requests were for people trying to sell houses– they were losing money, potential buyers couldn’t get loans, things were sitting for months. Next it was the health problems. Some of it was run-of-the mill requests for illnesses and accidents, but several were related to problems with insurance and covering medical costs. Next it was small business owners whose capital and access to small business loans had dried up.

I haven’t seen a lot of church emails about layoffs and paycuts yet, but many of the people I know, here and in California, are facing imminent change. As employees of the public higher ed systems, both Dr. G. and I have our work emails flooded with budget-related memos, dire warnings, and drastic measures, some of which affect us.

In the past 8 months or so, I have only bought clothing from going-out of business sales. Those directional sign-holders now line the streets to advertise close-outs and liquidations in most parts of town. A few months ago, I counted six of them in a quarter-mile section of a major shopping area.

The constant building of gated communities and subdivisions, which was a main source of Phoenix wealth that fed off the constant growth, seems to have mostly stopped. Zillow alerts me monthly to the number of foreclosures in my immediate neighborhood. A friend’s daughter just bought a 2-yr-old foreclosed upon house for $90 k; it would have gone for over $200k in the past. I know a handful of people who have gone through foreclosure or had to destroy their credit and short-sell their houses.

The dominoes are still falling. And yet, among my friends and family, I do not find the grimness of mood that I might have expected. Some things are hard; but many other parts of life are good and full of hope. Things may, and probably will, get worse; but there is a feeling in the air of surely being able to face them when they come. My church is especially family-like, with an ethos of all pitching in when one has need, so maybe some of it is unique to that group. But I also think the optimism is particularly American, and a quality I have sorely missed when I spend lengths of time in other countries. Even though our optimism becomes annoyingly blithe and simplistic far too often, it is still, overall, good.