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August 08, 2011

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Brutus is alive and killing.

Outstanding commentary from Soleri, and Jon, of course. I was a teenager and eventually, in my early 20s when Teets led Dial, so I'm familiar with his leadership. Still, it's fascinating to read about him from someone with an insider's perspective.
Thanks to you both.

I had the pleasure of having lunch at Gabriel's once. The meal was excellent, but I thought it strange that it was on the second floor!

No one's going to mention that the Dial Building was constructed in the shape of a bar of Dial soap? That's one of the great Phoenix architectural legends!

Well, Deputy county attorney Howard Schultz and I put one of Greyhounds book keepers in jail.

Pardonnez-moi, but in AZ it's Carl Hayden's shade who has the primary claim to "après moi, le déluge"; and with far, far more irony.

I was in Denver a couple of weeks ago and this topic, stewardship, weighed on me. I wish I had a better grounding in its current economic situation because I have many more questions than answers. Denver is, from virtually any comparative standpoint, a vastly better city than Phoenix. In the summer, the magic is palpable: bosky neighborhoods and parks, lovely old buildings, and a deep core of urbanity that supports bookstores, genuine diversity, and a significant wealth advantage.

The problem is that downtown now seems afflicted by the same issues we complain about here. The first thing I noticed was the unsettling number of vacant lots along Broadway and Lincoln. Land banking, perhaps? Then there's the sparse foot traffic on major streets like 17th St. And there's also the so-so nature of the retail sector that seems oriented mostly to tourists although there is, blessedly, some real-world commerce going on as well.

Denver's boom, like just about everywhere else, mostly shut down three years ago. It did leave some major new buildings downtown, including a Ritz Carlton, several condo towers, along with some new office construction, mostly near LoDo. What I didn't notice, however, was the energy I remember from the 1970s. Of course, back then there were major department stores, along with strong local banks, that emphatically stated downtown was Denver's hub.

Today, I can't honestly tell where Denver's heart is. Cherry Creek's busy traffic makes a strong claim. So does the Denver Tech Center with its many office and condo towers. Further south, the Park Meadows agglomeration is choked with traffic. I-25 itself is now a super-expressway with 12 lanes of traffic. Denver's light rail, by contrast, looks marooned in this tumult.

Something happened here that can probably teach us something about Phoenix. Local headquarters merged or left (I forget the details about Qwest and US West). Newspapers died and downsized. But the sense I came away with is that the economy itself no longer organizes itself here. Rather, it comes from some other place, maybe even from different continents. Denver is not its own master anymore. It is, for better or worse, simply a nice place enjoy and live in.

I was in Vancouver last week and the pattern clarified for me. That city is buzzing, alive, affluent, and expensive. If you see a construction crane in the sky, it's probable that there's yet another condo tower going up (Vancouver has the highest ratio of high rises to population of any city in the world). Downtown Vancouver is magnificent mostly because, like Seattle, it's the spectacular focal point of its impressive geography. Downtown Denver? Not nearly so much.

But Vancouver is not building office towers. Indeed, there's more outflow to the suburbs during the workday than inflow since it's cheaper to rent office space in the boring 'burbs. This is, less and less, the economic heartbeat of the region. It is, emphatically, the place to be if you're affluent or, like me, a tourist.

The stewards we once took for granted lived in a different world. You nurtured your city because in doing so, you nurtured your business. You weren't shamed into doing this by urbanists or business columnists. You did it because your empire had a defined geographic center.

That center no longer applies. Blame globalization or a weak economy if you will. We live in a world now where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Phoenix is stuck with its own bad bargain: a downtown without a focal point or even a strong business legacy. We have a few good restaurants, a couple of sports venues, some decent museums, etc., but we are not sexy. That's why we're so compulsively engaged in cosmetic surgery, from streetscapes to art installations not to mention inert plazas. It's all we can do.

About 2002 I worked in Boulder for a couple of months and the thing that struck me about Denver, was it had become a metropolitan area. The 'burbs and spread in all directions and the locals were putting up with CA-sized commutes. People in Fort Collins or Colorado Springs or the mountains would drive daily to the Denver area for work. The center had left Denver I think with the closing of its airport and the suburban cancer grew out to meet the new airport.

Electricdog, the demographics of Denver are similar to our own. The huge immigration of recent decades came largely from Texas and California. These people want it all: big house, big cars, and mountain views. Fortunately, there was a real city in place before they got here, so at least liberals had a place for themselves besides Boulder. Today, those cities (including Aspen and some other ski towns) keep Colorado from sliding into the septic tank of right-wing craziness.

Because I lived there back in the '70s, I remember just how lovely the Front Range was. There was 60 miles of uninterrupted beauty between Colorado Springs and Denver. Today, it's down to 10 miles or so. The sprawl from Denver north to Fort Collins is equally dispiriting. And even on 1-70, the sprawl extends from Dillon to Rifle with only a few gaps here and there. If there was ever a state that desperately needed urban growth boundaries, this was it.

A while back, Jon did a great retrospective on the evolution (and glut disease) of Phoenix retail. Another interesting backward look might be some more profiling on the key movers within the Phoenix 40 . . who they represented and why their ilk disappeared . . like the Hohokam maybe?

soleri,

It's eclecticdog.

He only goes by Electricdog around the holidays when he walks around with Christmas lights on his body.

Speaking of electric dogs dont forget the Martini tasting party at Urban Bean the evening of the 26 th

I worked in Denver at the "Rocky Mountain News" and lived downtown in the early 1990s. Soleri's report is disheartening. I haven't been to Denver since before the crash, and the takeover of Qwest by a MON-roe, Louisiana, company.

What I will say is that the city of Denver has built up enough critical mass of smart talent, civic stewardship, an impressive light-rail system and reinvestment in the city to survive. Phoenix has none of that.

Much of Colorado is crazy, especially down in "The Springs," with the combination of evangelicals (and some of their major organizations) and the military. Still, there's some balance. A Democrat is governor. Impossible in today's Arizona. Even Washington state is more purple than blue, so compelling is the right's narrative and superstitions, and the mindset of sprawl.

Sprawl has ruined all our states. So the question is how healthy is your core major city?

Tombstone is solid. There is two trains every day and plenty of horses. See u at the corral. Wyatt

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2011/08/09/phoenix-near-bottom-in-personal-income.html?ed=2011-08-09&s=article_du&ana=e_du_pub

Phoenix is near the bottom for personal income growth (#335). Maybe Baghdad Bob Robb can find the silver lining in all that. Also, housing prices are predicted to decline another 9% next year. Yay, Phoenix.

Denver, btw, is close to the top at #19.

The rich get richer....

The last comment appears a bit misleading (or at least it seemed so to me) because the rankings cited (335 and 19) are for different categories.

According to the bizjournal link, Denver is #19 in total personal income. Phoenix is #15 in total personal income.

Phoenix was a pathetic #335 in tpi growth. Denver did better, but it was #247 in growth.

The rich aren't getting richer. Sounds like Denver is closing the gap between itself and Phoenix.

westbev, thanks for the correction.

My sense about these stats is that they usually reward points for the wrong reasons. Until a few years ago, Phoenix was close to the top for growth in most if not all categories. Ditto, Denver. But growth only tells one part of the story and usually in a rather deceptive way. It often didn't explain the economic distribution, the public investment for future wealth creation, or some of the quantitative measures of "quality of life". I wrote Bob Robb back in 2007 after one of his obnoxiously boastful columns on the Phoenix/libertarian paradigm. I told him that the coming economic crisis would "brutally expose Arizona's economic weaknesses". Robb didn't answer, but then he doesn't write those columns for anyone but the cheerleaders and converts. Phoenix is an Applebee's kind of city. It's quantity over quality and noise over substance. We were happy to validate Joel Kotkin's viewpoint when the going was good. Now, we look around and wonder where all our friends went.

Rogue asks: "so how healthy is your core major city"?

Well, downtown Lehigh, AZ is doing just fine. We still have a four-way stop at our major intersection.

We're doing alot better than London.

I realize many of you will have to Google map Lehigh, but I guess it's time you city folk learn something other than how to live like canned sardines.


If God intended for people to live like ants, he wouldn't have invented acre lots.

cal, the wife and I were married in Tombstone next to the OK Corral, reception was at Big Nose Kate's saloon. Honeymoon in Bisbee at the Copper Queen. Don't get any better than that.

Big spread on Teets in AZ Republic obit today.
AZ Rebel; The whiskey is still good at Big Nose Kates and the weed in the back lot aint bad either. For all you optimists out thar, Grover Norquist and them blackwater christians are just biting at the bit to have a riots here so they can participate in a good ole fashion peasant shoot.

Many of these income numbers can be highly misleading. Phoenix's numbers are distorted by the sheer size of the metro, and until lately, by population growth.

Metro median household income was $53,205 in 2009, ranking it 44th among 100 metro areas nationally. Denver was $59.032; No. 20. This is a much better indicator than personal income growth, but it's not surprising that Phoenix's was abysmal given the housing depression.

The deeper problem is that Phoenix consistently underperforms its competitive, similarly sized metros in incomes, wages, etc. In most cases, it does not have lower living costs, and certainly not for the holy gasoline to propel the "drive to qualify" lifestyle. There's no way to brightside this away. Not only is this a sign of hardship for individuals and lack of opportunity, it shows an economy that isn't prepared for the 21st century. Worse, such a huge metro area has high carrying costs (infrastructure needs, law enforcement, schools, etc.), but it lacks the means to pay for it.

Per Paul Gilding former head of Greenpeace; "I have come to the conclusion that our human society and economy is now so large that we have passed our the limits of our planets capacity to support us."
Amen Bro,
Malthus


I maintain that it’s possible (note that I’m not saying probable) that Phoenix can become a world class city –or at least “nation-class”. There are many theories of urban hierarchy. Natural advantage, agglomeration, “booster”, central place, etc (William Cronon’s “Nature’s Metropolis” is the most accessible book on this topic for those with a strong interest, but want to stay away from academic journals)

Empirically – especially in 2011 - it’s not a necessity for a city to be in a stunning natural location like Vancouver or even an important transportation node to be an important city. It boils down to a pretty simple question: Do people want to live there?. Yes, dollars and cents play a role. Cost of living, economic opportunity matters. But, as Richard Florida suggests, good jobs – those that advance economic development – follow people, not the reverse. And people follow place. Intangible quality of life and desirability of a location, particularly for those empowered by their talents to have the luxury to choose, is the answer to this fundamental question.

Why Phoenix then? As Cal’s wisdom often suggests – the Sonoran is truly a national treasure. The challenge is, can we create a sense of place? A Sonoran urbanism, that leverages this advantage. Can we leverage our other assets. Can we capitalize on the world’s largest urban canal system (larger than Venice or Amsterdam). Can we capitalize on modern light rail system? Can we exploit “Phoenix Cool” and it’s Mid-Century Modernism. Can we create a “Latino Urbanism”, full of bright colors, Zocalos, outdoor vending, late nights, family park life and passive-solar adobe. Can we invent an urban-agrarianism that utilizes our unique flood irrigation infrastructure to flood the market with locally-grown intensive, organic agriculture? Can we invent a “punk-rock” economic development model? - one not dependent on fortune 500 headquarters or China, but that embraces our history of independence, risk taking and “fuck it” irreverent attitudes. Can we capitalize on our proximity to Mexico, instead of wasting our resources denying our geography. One answer is “we won’t”. But, that’s different than “we can’t”.

If you can indulge for a moment in long-range thinking, and a sense that humans can control their own destiny – you'll realize that this can be done.

Well said Phx planner

Re: Stewards, what about the ASU:
http://www.slate.com/id/2300739/

I'm not versed in the current university landscape, so is it any good?

Phx Planner,

We can't. So we won't. Cause we can't.

So I'm sad.

The Phoenix idealist/lover in me — which is very different from a Valley booster, con artist or defensive-ite — agrees with Phx Planner. I would add: Shade, trees and grass in certain districts, and quality density. It was terrible that we lost the cohesion of city/agriculture/desert. That was protection for the Sonoran Desert. Putting subdivisions into it will only hasten the day it becomes just another world desert, without the magic that those living now recall.


Phx Planner, back in the late '80s, when The Arizona Republic was a good newspaper and Terry Goddard was mayor of Phoenix, there was something called the Futures Forum. It was put on by city government at Goddard's direction, and had as its goal a kind of urban charette process where citizens talked to each other about Phoenix and what they wanted its future to be like. It went on for a couple of weeks during which we "thought out loud" about specific ways to make this a more cohesive, attractive and dynamic city. I thought of that tonight reading your comment because one of the ideas offered dealt with the canals and how to improve them by integrating with the existing urban fabric. Goddard himself had suggested giving urban villages incentives to create more social identity. That never quite happened but most central Phoenix neighborhoods at least have names now, which helps give its residents some focus for their community efforts.

We've been at this a long time, needless to say. I wish we could claim success on most of these fronts but the challenges remain formidable. As much as I want to play God and rewrite Phoenix history, if only to conjure a counterfactual to existing reality, I have to think back on all our great ideas and why they never really bore fruit. That's why we chat compulsively about this place and why it seems snakebit to some of us. Phoenix has never wanted for energetic and creative types. But we need to account why they would come here and then leave exhausted after several years of banging their heads against the brick wall of Phoenix inertia. I have stopped counting the people I know who moved to Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, and Denver simply because they didn't want to grow old trying to midwife something creative and urbane only to realize most people just wanted to be left alone.

Phoenix is demonstrably weaker than it was back then. We have fewer resources, fewer headknockers, a much larger underclass, a damaged and dysfunctional political system, and the sinking feeling that our best days are behind us. My feeling is that there are no grand initiatives ala ValTrans or Rio Salado that can leap from the drafting table to public debate. What we can do is dream small and nurture the few flowers that grow in our empty lots.

Given the enormity of growing economic crisis, along with Arizona's dizzying descent into the bottom tier of states and its well-deserved reputation for crankiness and meanness, what can we do realistically? This is a state that measures success by the amount of desert it paves over, not by how many saguaros it saves. We deny global warming, detest environmentalists, loathe Mexicans, and want to starve government to the breaking point.

The only faint glimmer of hope I can summon comes from the simple facts of birth and death. Old teabaggers are dying and being replaced by mostly non-Anglo youth. Still, the young are being denied the best education as the old seek to burn down the house in a fit of spite. If there's still a state worth fighting for in 10 years, I think Arizona might finally turn around. But the odds seem very long.

"good jobs – those that advance economic development – follow people, not the reverse."

Let's dispel this myth, forthwith. The dynamics of job growth are certainly not dichotomic, precursive, or even linear on only the single dimension of jobs-people.

"Can we capitalize on the world’s largest urban canal system (larger than Venice or Amsterdam)."

Perhaps, "larger", but with entirely different form, function, and constraints: evaporation being a significant constraint not shared by either Venice or Amsterdam. Then, imagine the downstream liabilities that would (literally) arise if canals were integrated into the urban sackcloth of Central Arizona. Phewww! As flat and lifeless as the Tempe Town Puddle. No thanks.

"Phoenix is an Applebee's kind of city." - soleri

In a nutshell.

"a kind of urban charette process where citizens talked to each other about Phoenix and what they wanted its future to be like."

I wonder, how many of these citizens were familiar with "A Pattern Language"?

"most central Phoenix neighborhoods at least have names now"

How were these names applied and how (well) do they correlate with identity? Did any identities arise organically? How do identities vary amongst neighborhoods on economic and social dimensions?

That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet

Rate Crimes; can you please broaden and simplify for this ole guy your thoughts on Jobs follow or don’t follow people. I am sorta caught up in the migration stuff in the book Moving Millions by Jeffery Kayes.
Jon, Correct me if I am wrong but I thought early (1900-1930) Phoenix business types planned on a upward Philadelphia type city not outward as Rosenzweigs and charter government boys , “zoning is where the money is” believed?

Rate Crimes, the names derive from the rather thin reeds of neighborhood location and origin. Willo's name, for example, derives from the two voting precincts in the neigbhorhood, Wilshire and Los Olivos. Coronado is more organic - it was called that when I was a child. Ditto, Garfield. Windsor Square was the original landowner's name for this 1940's exurban development.

Granted, it's not much but in a city that didn't evolve so much as explode, you'll take your identity any way you can find it.

Cal, Phoenix like every other town was centered on the railroad. Places such as Kenilworth and Willo flourished as streetcar neighborhoods. Some City Beautiful movement civic design happened, e.g. the Moreland and Portland parkways. The Depression killed bigger ambitions. Then, postwar, the car killed the city.

Mary-vale came from John F. Long's wife Mary and from the veils that women in that area wear at funerals for the victims of nightly drive by shootings

Ur a bad ole dude AZ rebel
how's bout a drink?
Bring Ur pistola

Off topic, but catch Dylan Ratigan on our "bought Congress". He describes the hold that $pecial interest$ exert while we sleep.
http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/dylan-enough

I had to look up "charette" in the Free Dictionary. That's some mighty fancy writin'!

You folks talk about "headknockers" regularly.

Why do people have to have their heads knocked to do the right thing?

Doesn't that raise a deeper question about human behavior?

Kind of makes you think the "herd" instinct of man must be overcome by force, whether that be good force or bad force.

Just wondering??

Nice blog..keep it up ..i was searching for this a long back..The only faint glimmer of hope I can summon comes from the simple facts of birth and death. Old teabaggers are dying and being replaced by mostly non-Anglo youth.thanks for the great information..

@cal,

A specific type of job, "good jobs", was under consideration.

Phx Planner stated, "good jobs – those that advance economic development – follow people, not the reverse."

Such over-simplification does not serve to enhance understanding of the pertinent issues. The terms in this sentence are fuzzy. What is "economic development"? What can advance it? Should it be "advanced"? What people? What does "follow" mean here? Why must either one "follow" the other? What other factors might contribute or even predominate? etc., etc., etc.

Even if one makes broad assumptions in accepting the statement, I would argue that the idea of 'good jobs follow people' is neither informative nor correct.

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