Survey: Most people don’t know Arizona’s 5 C’s

Quick: Can you name the five C’s that formed the basis of Arizona’s economy? Don’t be ashamed if you can’t.

GRAPHIC: Five Cs survey

A new survey by the Social Research Laboratory at Northern Arizona University found that only 3 percent of the 400 people questioned could rattle off all five. And two-thirds could not name even one.

“No idea,” San Diego native Alexandra Raykoe said while on campus Wednesday at Arizona State University in Tempe.

She said she moved to Arizona just recently and never heard about the five C’s.

Arizona native April Nelson did a little better after some prompting.

“Let’s see,” Nelson said. “Can’t I even get one?”

With a bit of prompting, the Laveen resident eventually listed all the five C’s except climate. “I knew that when I went to school,” Nelson said.

Mike Casavantes, 58, a graduate student of history at ASU, knew all five: cattle, citrus, climate, copper and cotton.

What pollster Fred Solop found may not be totally surprising.

The five C’s were at one time a staple of public education in Arizona.

But the state is changing: Many of the elements that made up the original five C’s are no longer major factors in driving the state’s economy — having been replaced by electronics and other high-tech manufacturing, back-office administrative operations and just growth in general.

Another factor is that most people who live in Arizona today were born somewhere else.

In fact, only about one-third of Arizonans are natives. And 48 percent were born in other states, with the balance coming to Arizona from other countries.

Solop said the one item on the list that could be named most is copper, perhaps driven by the resurgence of mining in Arizona as worldwide prices climb. More than one in four of those surveyed could identify copper as one of the five C’s.

Cotton was identified as one of the elements by 23 percent of those questioned, followed by cattle at 15 percent and citrus at 12 percent.

And just one out of 10 Arizonans identified climate as one of the five C’s, even though weather remains a key driver of the economy by attracting tourists from around the nation and the world.

Gov. Janet Napolitano did manage to come up with all five. But the governor, born in New York and an Arizona resident since about 1980, said the results of the survey are not surprising.

“Maybe it’s a sign of transition in Arizona, that we are moving into a different type of economy,” she said. “There will always be room for the five C’s, but there’s a lot being added.”

Joshua Zuber contributed to this story for the Tribune.