The Id for the Southwestern American Metropolis

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Quartzsite, Arizona reveals how cities form as emergent systems. Begun as a simple mineral show for desert rock hounds and people passing through the region via highway, it has grown into an instant city and international travel destination that forms every winter with a minimum of pre-planning and instruction.

Quartzsite is the id for Los Angeles and all generic, horizontal cities of the contemporary era. These "urban sprawl" cities, such as Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston are products of mobility, transitory architecture, and relatively little planning. And yet even though they are hated by architects and planners such cities remain popular with people.

Over the last thirty years, Quartzsite has become a major winter destination for owners of recreational vehicles or RVs. Although Quartzsite has only 3,397 year-round inhabitants (2000 census), several hundred thousand temporary campers bring their RVs to Quartzsite every winter between October and March. These “snowbirds,” generally retirees from colder climates, settle in one of the more than seventy RV parks in the area or in the outlying desert administered by the Bureau of Land Management. This mass migration forms one of the fifteen largest cities in the United States, creating an urbanized area more populous than Detroit or San Jose and possibly San Diego and Phoenix. The Bureau of Land Management and law enforcement agencies estimate that a total of 1.5 million people spend time in Quartzsite between October and March.

next: Early Quartzsite