The argument that would define the decade was already taking shape. The city had been advancing plans for a Desert Discovery Center, an education attraction proposed for the Preserve’s Gateway Trailhead — and a large share of residents, who had taxed themselves to buy that land in the first place, saw commercial development inside the one place they had all agreed to leave alone. The opposition was organizing under the banner of Protect Our Preserve; the reckoning would come at the ballot box in 2018.
Meanwhile the recovery economy ran at full throttle: the Airpark thick with technology, finance, and healthcare employers, the museum and the aquarium drawing their crowds, the Entertainment District booming, and cranes edging back over Old Town with the height-and-character battles they always bring. A quiet year in the record — but only in the record.