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Sources for “Why Bisbee Sucks”

Last updated on October 29, 2025

If you are reading this first, you’re doing it backwards. Start with the introduction over in the sidebar or, if you’re on mobile, the top menu.

I. Economy, Employment, and Cost of Living

This section addresses the claims made in “Chapter 1: The Job Market Mirage” regarding the local economy, limited job opportunities, and the true cost of living when factored against low wages.

  • Bisbee, AZ, City Website. “Job Postings.” Accessed September 12, 2025. This official source directly lists the limited number of available government positions, highlighting the scarcity of stable, benefited employment in the region.
  • Cochise County, AZ. “Employment Opportunities.” Accessed September 12, 2025. Similar to the city’s listings, this provides a real-time look at the narrow scope of professional jobs available, primarily centered around county administration.
  • PayScale.com. “Cost of Living in Bisbee, Arizona.” Data from 2024-2025. This database provides the specific metrics used for claims about housing, utility, and healthcare costs relative to the national average, which, when paired with wage data, illustrates the economic challenges.
  • U.S. Census Bureau. “Bisbee city, Arizona – QuickFacts.” Data from 2020 Census and subsequent estimates. Provides essential demographic and economic data, including median household income, poverty rates, and population trends, which support the analysis of economic stagnation and the aging population.
  • Indeed.com / LinkedIn.com. Job search for “Bisbee, AZ” and surrounding areas. Performed September 12, 2025. Real-time searches on these platforms corroborate the book’s claims by showing a market dominated by low-wage service, retail, and part-time tourism-related positions, with a distinct lack of professional or skilled trade opportunities.

II. Housing, Infrastructure, and Municipal Governance

These sources support the arguments in “Chapter 2: The Crooked House Hunt,” “Chapter 3: The Infrastructure Illusion,” and “Chapter 7: Political Quagmire,” concerning the challenges of the housing stock, failing public systems, and local politics.

  • Bisbee, AZ, City Website. “Agendas & Minutes” for City Council and Design Review Board meetings. 2023-2025. Public records that provide direct evidence of the political infighting, bureaucratic hurdles for homeowners, and the city’s ongoing, often unresolved, struggles with infrastructure maintenance.
  • Bisbee, AZ, City Website. “Advantages Challenges – Hillcrest Apartments Redevelopment.” 2022. This official city document, while focused on a specific project, details the broader systemic challenges in Bisbee, including the difficulty of securing funding, the presence of asbestos in older buildings, and the overall obstacles to housing development.
  • CoverTree. “Resource Bisbee, AZ.” 2025. This insurance and risk assessment resource provides specific data on the extreme risks of flooding and wildfires, confirming the difficulties and high costs of obtaining homeowner’s insurance as stated in the book.
  • BroadbandNow. “Top 10 Internet Providers in Bisbee, AZ.” Data as of September 2025. Details the limited, slow, and often unreliable internet options (DSL, Satellite) available to residents, supporting the critique of the “work-from-home” fantasy.

III. Environmental and Health Concerns

This section provides the scientific backing for “Chapter 4: The Environmental Legacy” and references to healthcare access.

  • Environmental Working Group (EWG). “Tap Water Database: Arizona Water Company – Bisbee” and “Naco Water Company Bisbee.” Data from 2021-2024. This is the primary source for the specific claims regarding contaminants like arsenic, nitrate, and trihalomethanes in the local water supply, showing levels significantly above EWG’s health guidelines.
  • Arizona Center for Rural Health. “Copper Queen Community Hospital.” Profile and designation information. Confirms the status of Bisbee’s hospital as a small, 25-bed critical access facility and its designation as a Level IV Trauma Center, supporting the argument that serious or specialized medical care requires travel to larger cities.
  • University of Arizona Superfund Research Center. “What is Superfund.” While Bisbee is not an official Superfund site, this resource explains the nature of mining contamination, particularly with arsenic, which is endemic to the region and directly relevant to the health risks from mine tailings.
  • Bisbee, AZ, City Website. “Bisbee History.” This official history, while promotional, confirms the scale and duration of mining operations (e.g., “8 billion pounds of copper”), which is the foundational fact for the environmental legacy discussed.

IV. Crime, Education, and Social Dynamics

These sources substantiate the claims in “Chapter 5: The Social Scene” and “Chapter 8: The Family Un-Friendly Zone” regarding crime rates, school quality, and the challenges of raising a family.

  • CoverTree. “Resource Bisbee, AZ.” 2025. Provides specific crime rate statistics, stating Bisbee’s crime rate is “higher than the national average” and surpasses 70% of other cities in Arizona, directly supporting the book’s claims about public safety.
  • USAFacts. “What is the crime rate in Arizona?” Data from 2024. Offers a state-level comparison for crime rates, providing context for the local statistics and confirming that Arizona’s violent crime rate is higher than the U.S. average.
  • GreatSchools.org & Movoto.com. “Bisbee High School” and “Bisbee Unified District” ratings and reviews. Data as of 2024-2025. These platforms provide the low school ratings and qualitative parent/student reviews that form the basis of the critique of the local education system.
  • Benton-Cohen, Katherine. Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor War in the Arizona Borderlands. Harvard University Press, 2009. A historical academic source detailing the deep-seated social and racial divisions from Bisbee’s mining past, which supports the chapter’s analysis of underlying social frictions.

“Bisbee ’17.” Directed by Robert Greene, 2018. This documentary film explores the lasting social trauma and division stemming from the 1917 Bisbee Deportation, providing powerful evidence of the historical fissures that still impact the town’s social fabric.

Published in"Why Bisbee Sucks" Book