It is with a combination of pride and chagrin I relate to you that ground was broken last week on Spaceport America, the world’s first facility built specifically for space-bound commercial customers and fee-paying passengers. British tycoon Sir Richard Branson’s firm, Virgin Galactic, which is investing $300 million in the idea of sub-orbital and orbital space flights, will be among the users of the facility. The $198 million project is being funded by state government.

Oh, not Arizona’s state government; New Mexico’s state government. “[This] is an important step toward our goal of being at the forefront of a vibrant new commercial space industry,” said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson at the groundbreaking near Truth or Consequences in southwestern New Mexico.

It begs the question: Do we in Arizona, and more specifically Tucson, have a goal to be at the forefront of anything vibrant?

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We wish New Mexico well with its venture, but we can’t help but wonder why it is located down the road and across the state line? It’s about 250 miles away as the Cessna flies, but Tucson will be lucky to get any spill-over benefit from it.

When it comes to forward-looking, 21st century communities, the name Tucson does not leap to mind.

Imagine you’re the head of a forward-looking 21st century space-age manufacturer of things few people have ever heard of. You’re in the forefront of the technological revolution. You have a choice of great cities to locate your world headquarters in, or even a regional headquarters. Is “The Old Pueblo” even up for consideration? What image does that moniker raise? A dusty one-horse town suitable for tourists and retirees but not a center of world commerce much less interplanetary commerce.

Of course, there is cutting edge research and manufacturing going on here – a lot of it - but it is burdened by the image projected by our self-description as an “old pueblo.”

If we want this region to grow, we have to start thinking like a 21st century city. Not a town at all. Not a dusty one-horse resort. We need to express the image of at least a two- or three-horse town to start. Contain the dust, retire the horses (green thought they may be), dump “The Old Pueblo,” and get a rocket.

Raytheon Missile Systems is here. But who knows it? I suggested last year renaming the airport Raytheon Tucson International Airport. Of course I was expecting they would be happy to pay for that naming right. But it would put Tucson on the space age map.

Of course, I could be wrong. I just assumed we all wanted to see Tucson grow and thrive. I got that impression from the leaders of the community, the politicians who purport to speak for us all. I deduced it from what Bill Buckley used to call “their rhetorical emanations.”

But judging from what is done as opposed to what is said, perhaps we are satisfied to be a scenic backwater (or back desert), a destination for visitors who will pay any amount of special taxes levied exclusively on visitors who don’t vote here. People come to visit and sometimes they stay. They love the climate. The people are nice. It’s not too big. You can still get almost anywhere in 20 minutes. Maybe that should be our goal. We could be just what we are and not aspire to be Phoenix or, heaven forbid, Los Angeles.

If Tucson is willing to be just what it is and no more, that’s fine. That’s a respectable goal. Then we could stop wasting money and effort trying in vain to get the big names in here. We would just keep building more houses and hotels, punctuated by shopping centers.

But in just a few years, like it or not, we will be a suburb of Phoenix. That is not a contingency. That is a certainty.

Will we be distinguishable from it or will we be as thoroughly integrated as Tempe, Glendale and Chandler? Will we become the Tucson section of Phoenix? How will that change our options?

We need to decide as a community how we want to deal with the changes that are coming and what we want for our part of the region.

It is important to deal with the here and now. But the future is coming fast and we need to make organic decisions. We can no longer afford to be an old pueblo. We need a new nickname and we need it now.

Contact Lionel Waxman at territorial@waxmanmedia.com or visit his website: www.newflashpoint.com.