Diamond Does the Desert (reprise)

Caricature of Don Diamond as a King of Diamonds

[Ed. note: First published in our pages in 2012, we are reprinting this piece in the interests of giving a more rounded assessment of Don Diamond’s legacy than that offered by the Tucson Weekly and Inside Tucson Business, who ran identical articles about him, titled respectively “Requiem for a Heavyweight” and “Mourners laud Don Diamond’s …

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Diamond Does the Desert

"Don Diamond, with large red stencil lettering above which reads, 'WANTED'"

OCCUPIED TUCSON CITIZEN First in an ongoing series of irreverent profiles on Tucson’s One Percent Net worth: $400 million, as estimated in 2003 by Worth magazine. Business model: Buys a swath of heartbreakingly beautiful desert—preferably abutting an environmentally sensitive area—and spends a decade or so gaming the political system to increase its value. Then, having …

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