Pretty much since Arizona became a state, Tucson has held a comfortable position as the second-largest city in these here parts.
Now, that pecking order is threatened by 35 years of high growth in Mesa. Mesa, you ask? Is that even a city?
Is it ever. Once a suburb of Phoenix, Mesa is now a sprawling metropolis of nearly 450,000 people and the 40th-largest city in the United States. In fact, it's larger in population than St. Louis, Miami or Honolulu and a whole lot of other big cities with much more recognizable names.
Odds are Mesa will be even higher on the list after the 2010 census. In 1970, Tucson had 200,000 more people than Mesa. But between 1970 and 1990 Mesa more than quadrupled its population, and then added another 100,000-plus during the 1990s alone.
Tucson, with its nearly 530,000 residents, is currently 32nd on the national list. It continues to grow, just not at the same pace.
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So, if Tucson steps back to the state's number three spot, will the city's ego take a hit?
Not really, says Jan Ingram, a 24-year resident of the Old Pueblo.
"I'm OK with it," she says. "My husband and I visited San Francisco, and it was great, but man, I was happy to be back in a small city."
Ingram says she briefly lived in Phoenix in the early '80s, when the area was growing. She's never looked back on her decision to leave.
"In spite of our lack of freeways, it's fairly easy to get around," she said.
As far as Tucson city planner Roger Howlett is concerned, Mesa can have the designation.
"It's not a blow to me," he said. "You can breathe down here."
And what's in a number anyway?
"I'm fine with that," says native Tucsonan Dan Maher, a 25-year-old Midtown resident. "I've lived in Phoenix and I have no desire to see Tucson become that big."
Maher, who went to Arizona State University, said many cities have improved economic development and quality of life without becoming gigantic in size.
"You don't need to become a huge metropolis to see those things happen," he said.
Folks in Mesa don't seem to be talking much about the possible shift either. In fact, as the growth begins to slow down a bit, so has speculation about Mesa taking out Tucson.
"I don't hear that discussion anymore," says Mesa's Bryan Raines, financial services manager. "It's not a standard topic."
And since so much growth in Arizona is outside incorporated cities, just because the population in Tucson's city limits isn't soaring doesn't mean that Tucson's becoming some remote island.
But it does mean our dot on the map might soon be just a little bit duller than Mesa's.
