TUCSON, AZ (Feb. 16, 2026) — Two different datasets — one “official” and one “behavioral” — are telling a compatible story about Arizona: the state remains a magnet for movers interstate, even as rankings shift depending on the yardstick.

The most apples-to-apples measure of how many people actually changed states comes from the U.S. Census Bureau. The U.S. Census Bureau released it on Jan. 21, 2026, but it’s based on the 2024 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year estimates. The release includes the Census Bureau’s 2024 state-to-state migration flow tables, which track where respondents lived one year earlier versus where they live now and provide one of the clearest benchmarks for net domestic migration. Arizona ranked No. 4 nationally.

In the Census migration-flow table, Arizona shows a large gross volume of inbound moves and a strong net positive result — about 234,819 moved into Arizona from other states and Washington, D.C., in 2024, while about 179,314 moved out, producing a net domestic gain of roughly 55,505 residents. Flow details also underscore the dominant corridor shaping Arizona’s growth: California remains the largest source of net inbound migration, a dynamic that continues to influence housing demand, labor markets, and commercial real estate fundamentals across the state.

A second lens comes from U-Haul, whose U-Haul Growth Index ranks states by net gains or losses of one-way U-Haul customer transactions (truck, trailer, or U-Box). This is not a population estimate — it is a transactional proxy for DIY moving activity — but it provides a useful momentum signal. In U-Haul’s year-end 2025 ranking (released Jan. 5, 2026), Arizona ranked No. 7 nationally (down from No. 6 in 2024), remaining a net-gain destination even as the top of the list shifted to Texas, Florida, and North Carolina.

Taken together, the combined takeaway is straightforward: Census/ACS data shows Arizona gained tens of thousands of net domestic residents in 2024, and U-Haul data shows Arizona still attracting net inbound one-way moving activity in 2025. The apparent “disagreement” is largely about scope and timing — U-Haul measures only a slice of movers and ranks 2025 customer flows, while the Census release provides population-level 2024 estimates — not about the direction of travel.

For commercial real estate and economic watchers, this two-source view supports a familiar yet important point: Arizona’s demographic tailwind remains intact. Sustained net in-migration generally translates into household formation, service demand, and labor-market churn — dynamics that feed retail absorption, small-bay industrial demand, and office decisions tied to hiring and relocation.

MARANA, AZ (February 16, 2026) – Phoenix-based Worker Power, with ties to UNITE HERE Local 11, owner of the Phoenix building associated with the committee’s address, is listed as the sponsor of the referendum committee and is pushing ballot initiatives targeting both the Marana downtown redevelopment deal and the Beale Infrastructure data center rezoning.

Local reporting indicates that a Phoenix-based activist group, Worker Power, is driving petition efforts in Marana to put two separate items before voters: the Beale Infrastructure data center rezoning and the Marana downtown redevelopment deal. Town Manager Terry Rozema said town leaders expected a possible referendum attempt on the data center and viewed it as part of the process, but not the downtown development.

Now the downtown referendum effort has triggered litigation. The committee leading the Marana push, Arizonans for Responsible Development, listed in state and town paperwork as “sponsored by Worker Power,” has filed a lawsuit against the Town of Marana after the town verified signatures but rejected the referendum application tied to the downtown redevelopment agreement, setting up a legal fight over whether the measure is referable under Arizona election law.

In those filings, the committee’s chair and treasurer are listed at a Phoenix physical address (1021 S. 7th Ave., Suite 202), the same address Worker Power publishes on its own materials. Worker Power has described its roots as an economic-justice organization formerly known as “CASE” (Central Arizonans for a Sustainable Economy). While the committee’s mailing address is listed as out of state in its compliance filings, federal filings for Worker Power PAC also show transactions involving other committees/entities that list Los Angeles addresses. Worker Power has been widely reported as connected to UNITE HERE Local 11 and has operated in coalition with the union on political field campaigns, though Worker Power describes Unite Here as one of multiple partners. Local 11 is a hospitality workers union representing 32,000+ workers across Southern California and Arizona, with an established political program that it says operates in both states.

But as the petition campaign expanded, Rozema said Marana’s bigger concern has been how the downtown project is being described to residents during signature gathering. He said circulators are spreading information he considers misleading, specifically, that Marana was “giving $84 million in resident tax dollars to build a hotel.”

Rozema said the downtown plan centers on a 20-acre town-owned parcel across from town hall that has long been intended for a walkable downtown. Since municipalities don’t operate hotels, restaurants, or spas, he said the town partnered with a private developer, Marana Urban LLC, through an agreement negotiated over roughly a year.

Under the structure Rozema described, the developer would construct the buildings and infrastructure, and the town would reimburse the developer over time, not with upfront general tax dollars, but primarily through a portion of the sales tax generated by the development itself. Rozema said the arrangement includes returning about 45% of sales tax and 75% of construction sales tax to the developer until the reimbursable amount is paid. When the project is completed, he said, the buildings would belong to the town.

Rozema compared the model to other municipal development approaches, including outlet mall-style infrastructure financing, where a share of sales tax revenue is used over time to repay upfront costs. The agreement also includes a ground lease, he said, with the developer paying $0.26 per square foot to lease the downtown land. After eight years, the town would begin receiving 3% of the developer’s gross receipts through a profit-sharing mechanism. Once reimbursement is complete, up to the $84 million cap, Rozema said the town would receive 100% of the sales tax.

A third-party analysis by Elliott D. Pollack and Company projected that after reimbursement, the town could net about $160 million, though Rozema emphasized the payoff period is expected to take decades and depends on future sales tax generation once development is built.

That dispute is no longer just rhetorical. While the data center referendum petitions are in the clerk’s verification process, and town officials have said the rezoning is on hold while they determine whether the referendum qualifies and, if it does, potentially through the election outcome, the downtown referendum effort has already moved into court.

In the downtown case, Arizonans for Responsible Development, sponsored by Worker Power, filed a lawsuit after the town verified the submitted signatures but rejected the referendum application, setting up a legal fight over whether or not the Marana downtown agreement is referable under Arizona election law.

TUCSON, AZ (Feb. 16, 2026) — Affordable housing construction has hit a turning point nationally, and Phoenix affordable building surges is showing up in the data as one of the fastest-growing major metros for income-restricted apartment deliveries. In a new RentCafe.com analysis, the U.S. completed more than 91,000 affordable apartments in 2024, the highest annual total in the past decade, and nearly 310,000 affordable units were delivered nationwide from 2020 through 2024.

In Metro Phoenix, developers completed 4,625 affordable apartments between 2020 and 2024, roughly tripling the prior five-year period (2015–2019), placing the metro 19th nationwide for affordable housing construction. Even with that acceleration, the analysis shows affordable deliveries remain a relatively small slice of overall apartment production in the metro: the 4,625 income-restricted units represent 6.27% of the 73,758 total apartments built in Phoenix over the same five-year period.

The broader takeaway is that Phoenix’s affordable housing segment is expanding rapidly, up 206% compared with the pre-pandemic period, but among the nation’s top 20 affordable-housing builders, it allocates one of the smallest shares of new development to income-restricted projects. By contrast, the report notes that roughly one-third of new apartment construction in some high-cost coastal markets is income-restricted, while only Dallas posted a smaller affordable share than Phoenix among the metros highlighted (4.9%).

For a Southern Arizona yardstick, Real Estate Daily News on Friday referenced separate RentCafe research showing where total apartment construction has concentrated in Tucson over the last decade. Using Yardi completion data as of July 2025, the analysis found Tucson delivered 5,011 new apartments from 2015 to 2025, with the largest share clustered in five ZIP codes: 85719 (1,377 units), 85705 (945), 85701 (841), 85742 (836), and 85747 (624). A pattern described as a mix of university/downtown infill and reinvestment alongside suburban-style growth in the northwest and southeast corridors.

Important note: Phoenix’s figures above reflect income-restricted (affordable) apartment completions from 2020–2024, while the Tucson figures cited from Friday’s local coverage reflect total apartment completions from 2015–2025 (Yardi data as of July 2025).