One of the first requests by territorial Arizona was for the federal government to use the military to place native populations on reservations. An initial allocation of 75,000 acres was followed by monetary appropriation by 1867 to accomplish this task. The end result was native populations living on reservations comprising one fourth of the land mass of the State, meaning one fourth of the state ruled by tribal law, one fourth of the state not subject to state taxation, one fourth of the state subject to very limited jurisdiction by state government, one fourth of the state with a direct appeals process to federal rather than state courts, one fourth of the state semi-sovereign nations within a sovereign state. A percentage of Arizona's native population has successfully maintained traditional lifestyles. This, coupled with a state dotted with the archeological remains of the past, has made Arizona truly a living museum.
Cultural diversity is very real.
In addition to the tax base issue, there exist several other problem areas, such as environmental issues with the federal government over the use of land under federal jurisdiction, interpretations of the Indian Gaming Act as applied on the reservations, the vast distances between islands of privately developed land that require the building of stretches of highway through non tax-bearing lands, and federal policy as it relates to logging, mining, and grazing, to name a few. It is the sixth largest state in the Union. The state of Massachusetts would very easily fit within the boundaries of Maricopa County, and Connecticut could be enveloped within the Valley of the Sun. The smallest county in Arizona, Santa Cruz, is larger than the state of Rhode Island. All of Arizona's fifteen counties are larger than some eastern states.