Central and Van Buren circa 1971. This once-vibrant business block is about to be replaced with Valley Center (now the Chase Tower). The old Trailways bus depot that stood at the far left has already been demolished.
Part I and Part II of "What Killed Downtown Phoenix" were the most popular posts in the history of Rogue Columnist. So much for the notion that Phoenicians don't care about the center city. Now it's time to bring the story to a conclusion.
By the mid-1970s, downtown was in a freefall, despite the construction of the Phoenix Civic Plaza, Hyatt Regency, new Hotel Adams, new Greyhound bus depot and skyscrapers housing the headquarters of the state's three big banks.
Unfortunately, in the process many historic buildings were demolished, including a priceless red sandstone multi-story building at Second Avenue and Washington. Block-long parking garages and assembly of superblocks created long, empty spaces along sidewalks where once there were dozens of shops.
Several valuable territorial-era structures were demolished to create the desolate, sunblasted Patriots Square (workers discovered an "underground city" from frontier Phoenix that had housed opium dens and gambling parlors, protected from the heat in an era before air conditioning). These and others lost were precisely the kind of buildings rehabbed in downtown Denver into Larimer Square.
One of the greatest calamities was the demolition of the Fox Theater, the finest movie palace downtown. This happened without a peep of protest. On the land, the city built a "transit center," which was little more than a Maryvale-style ranch house "station" and parking stalls for city buses. The Paramount somehow survived, running Spanish-language films (it would be reclaimed as the Orpheum). Another calamity was the Westward Ho, which closed as a hotel and only avoided the wrecking ball by being turned into Section 8 housing. The smaller San Carlos, thankfully, was saved as a historic hotel.
In the late 1960s, the Postal Service had outgrown the beautiful Spanish revival Post Office at Central and Fillmore. But in a move fraught with symbolism, it built the new main Phoenix Post Office far from downtown on Buckeye Road around 20th Street. Instead of being a critical part of the civic fabric, this important government building was placed in a forbidding industrial area.
Meanwhile, the Post Office canceled its mail contracts with the railroads. This colossally foolish move hastened the end of most passenger trains. Thus, by 1969, the Sunset Limited, once one of the finest streamliners in the world, was reduced to three-times-a-week service, often with as few as two cars. The dining car was replaced with one that carried vending machines.
The other trains that had served Union Station were gone, including the modest but well-appointed Hassayampa Flyer, which connected Phoenix with the elite mainline trains of the Santa Fe Railway at Williams Junction. Although the Sunset improved after Amtrak took over its operation in 1971, Union Station, once a 24-hour operation, was open for only limited hours.
Although agriculture remained important in the Salt River Valley (in 1975, it accounted for 16 percent of the land use in Maricopa County, vs. 6.6 percent for urban/suburban), the once-busy produce district south of Madison Street shriveled. Newer facilities built elsewhere and truck transportation made the old area, so critical to downtown's economy, less attractive. In the 1960s, the city had built soaring overpasses for Seventh Avenue and Seventh Street above what were as many as 20 busy railroad tracks. By the time both overpasses were completed, most of the tracks were being torn out for scrap (only one survives).
Still, as the photo above shows, some businesses hung on. Most blocks were still intact. As importantly, residential areas adjacent to downtown such as Evans-Churchill and the neighborhoods between Seventh Avenue and the state capitol remained. But they were in steep decline. Many blocks in the Deuce also still held businesses and bars, despite the intrusion of the Civic Plaza, the sterile new Greyhound bus station and a new Phoenix Fire Department Station One. A number of single-room occupancy hotels were still in business, a cause of endless amusement, grief and danger during my ambulance days, but often in handsome buildings that in another city would have held great potential. Woolworth's and a few other retailers hung on along Washington Street, almost entirely serving the poor.
Margaret Hance was mayor from 1976 to 1983, and although she had grown up in what is now Willo and attended Kenilworth School, she proved no friend of downtown. Like the popular Milt Graham in the 1960s, she had no vision for the center city aside from agreeing to every upzoning request along Central Avenue. Graham was outright hostile to transit. At least her predecessor John Driggs rode the bus from his home on North Central to downtown. Hance was indifferent. The result was that Phoenix had a terrible bus system for a city its size, and no realistic
Plan B to the freeways most residents didn't want. Initially, traffic engineers made streets wider. Tellingly, three lanes exited downtown, while only two lanes entered the central business district. One "gift" to the old central business district was revealing: The fortress-like police headquarters (above), one of the ugliest and most forbidding buildings in the Southwest. Another, just south, was a new Post-Mortem Laboratory (PML), or county morgue.
During the 1960s and 1970s, most of America was having policy conversations about "the crisis of the cities." One response in many places was widespread and destructive urban renewal. A more constructive reaction began in New York City after the horrifying destruction of Pennsylvania Station in 1963, with the historic preservation movement.
None of this happened in Phoenix. This city saw itself as the future — one popular illustration showed a monorail going down Central above the automobiles. "Phoenix doesn't have slums," local leaders said and some may even have believed this. The newness of the place and the temporary decline of older cities seemed to validate this hubris. It didn't help that the closest big city was Los Angeles, the king of freeways and sprawl. At the same time, after the traumas of the Depression and World War II, America forgot how to make beautiful cities, the critical elements of civic design. In Phoenix, especially after banker Walter Bimson retired, downtown was seen not so much as a problem but irrelevant.
In 1971, Greyhound Corp., the diversified Chicago consumer products company that also owned the bus lines, relocated its headquarters to Phoenix. To civic leaders, this was a sign of the city's attractiveness and economic-development strategy (basically, do nothing and let the sunshine do the selling). It was seen as the first of an exodus of Fortune 500 headquarters that would leave the declining cities of the Midwest and East and come to Phoenix (that didn't happen).
Greyhound built its headquarters at Rosenzweig Center at Central and Clarendon, three miles north of the old central business district. Phoenix was still the center of corporate Arizona — and there were numerous, sizable locally-owned companies in this era before the industry consolidation that began in the 1980s — but it was migrating to Midtown and Uptown.
The city finally tried to put lipstick on the pig of helter-skelter high-rise rezoning by designating the "Central Corridor" in the 1970s. This only encouraged more upzonings and land speculation, disrupting not just the old neighborhoods — many had long since been torn down and replaced with empty lots — but the seamless fabric of single-story commercial buildings along the city's premier avenue.
This was accompanied by no serious strategy for urban quality, especially transit (light rail was decades away). The city also tried to bring some control, at least on paper, to the vast sprawl that had extended the city limits to Bell Road. The answer was the Urban Village concept. In theory, every so-called urban village would have its own "downtown," at least in the eyes of policymakers and, later, in the minds of city council members. This, too, hurt the real downtown.
The 1977 Clint Eastwood movie, The Gauntlet, was partly filmed downtown.
A snapshot in 1977, a year before I left Phoenix never expecting to return: Most Phoenicians had little reason to ever venture downtown, except to deal with the government, lawyers or bankers. A few stores remained, catering to the poor, as did the pawn shops, bail bond offices and bars. A handful of media remained, including the two newspapers. Students still attended iconic Phoenix Union High, although it would close in five years. Conventions and concerts happened at the Civic Plaza, but there was little to keep people downtown before or after. A pervasive seediness and lifelessness hung over the place.
Even though I had gone to high school in Scottsdale, college in Tempe, and carried a heavy case of inner-city burnout from the ambulance, I couldn't quite let downtown go. I would especially drive to Union Station, my special pilgrimage (I still do). As parochial a Phoenician as any, I didn't know any better than city leaders why downtown mattered, something inside me just believed that it should. I was even proud of the new bank-built skyline, trying not to conclude that most of the buildings were soulless.
Yet contrary to Bimson's hopes, the center of gravity has shifted decisively to Central north of Thomas. The nearly two decade wait for the Pagago Freeway had created a dead zone between downtown and Midtown. As the Deuce contracted, the homeless slept on porches in what became the historic districts — there was a real question whether these neighborhoods could be saved.
The closest-in neighborhoods were becoming slums with very good bones. Population was falling. North of Thomas, however, Central was vibrant. Park Central was thriving, even though the massive Metrocenter "super-regional" mall had opened "far out" at Black Canyon and Dunlap five years earlier. City leaders pledged that Bell Road would be Phoenix's northernmost boundary, period. It didn't matter. When I had been a little boy, the streets of downtown had been full of people, commerce and action. Now, less than 15 years later, they were nearly devoid of pedestrians. Downtown was as good as dead.
Or so it seemed.
By the mid-1980s, it was becoming clear that downtowns were still important, even in a post-industrial age. Jane Jacobs was being rediscovered and James Howard Kunstler was beginning the intellectual spadework that would lead to his seminal book The Geography of Nowhere in 1994. Healthy downtowns provided a host of goods to entire metropolitan areas. Today, they are attracting young talent and hot companies that don't want a car-dependent suburban "campus." They're more efficient, innovative and environmentally advantageous. Also, every city competing against Phoenix has the same suburban sprawl — but the best also offer vibrant downtowns. As importantly, the urban ills of sick downtowns had a way of spreading.
Cities around the nation began focusing on their cores with fresh approaches and the renaissances were plentiful. And Phoenix elected an urban thinker as mayor in 1984 with Terry Goddard, the man who smashed the Charter movement's lock on power of more than three decades. Meanwhile, a cohort of artists established studios and galleries in the warehouse district. One pioneer, Beatrice Moore, founded her studio in 1987. What began in 1989 as an annual Art Detour tour of downtown galleries became the monthly First Friday in 1994. Urban pioneers began the long pull to save what became the F.Q Story, Roosevelt and Willo historic districts.
The attempts to kill downtown were far from over, however. While I was gone, Central experienced a phenomenal boom through the 1980s, capped off by the city's one distinguished piece of highrise architecture, the Viad Tower. Only the two Renaissance Square towers were raised downtown. The remainder (nine) were north. Even worse, more was destroyed than created. In the speculative mania fueled by risky savings-and-loan money, property was assembled for literally dozens of proposed skyscrapers. Few were built, but land was cleared and remains so to this day (you can read more about this era on Central here).
When the real-estate crash came in 1990, the long-lasting consequences for downtown were two-fold. First, the entire central core was stigmatized by the development industry. From then on, it would make its money elsewhere. Second, as the depression on Central lingered, with even Park Central mall closing, it prevented any comeback downtown. The closest-in neighborhoods continued losing population at a dramatic rate.
More blows came as Phoenix's foremost downtown companies were lost and severely mauled. The Arizona Bank was purchased in 1986. First National went soon after. Arizona Public Service, which morphed into AZP Group and then Pinnacle West Capital Corp. in an attempt to diversify, was wounded in the S&L crisis by its Merabank subsidiary as well as high debt. It shed workers on a vast scale and never recovered its old pre-eminence or employment levels. Merabank closed, leaving the art deco Professional Building an empty shell, and so it remains.
Then, in 1993, giant Valley National Bank, which almost single-handedly slowed downtown's demise, was bought. (Central Newspapers, publishers of the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette, would build a new downtown headquarters and hang on until 2000, before being acquired by Gannett). The overall loss of well-paid headquarters employees ultimately reached into the thousands in the years ahead. And nothing was replacing them. Their civic leadership and philanthropy were never restored (things worsened when Wall Street wrecked Viad, the former Greyhound, leading it to radically downsize, including killing its planned second tower).
Here, again, was a situation other large cities didn't face: A total clearcutting of downtown headquarters and even the regional headquarters of, say, the acquiring banks were located in other cities. Phoenix's core became dependent on subsidies from City Hall and real-estate plays.
Another heavy blow came when the city allowed the Esplanade to be built amid the pleasant, single-story area of 24th Street and Camelback. A Ritz-Carlton tower followed, and in the coming years more office and condo buildings would break ground. Low-rise offices proliferated along a newly designated "Camelback Corridor." Here was a new "downtown" — without poor people, without messy public spaces, closer to Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. It would draw numerous companies and law firms from the real downtown and from Central.
The Goddard years had hits and misses. Establishing the historic districts was a clear success. He championed historic preservation, with the Orpheum Theater being a triumph. At Third Street and Van Buren, he laid the groundwork for the Rouse Co. to build a version of its highly popular "festival marketplaces" with Arizona Center, which opened in 1990. It included towers for APS/Pinnacle West and the Snell & Wilmer law firm and an exquisite shaded garden. A year earlier, the Herberger Theater Center opened across the street. Also nearby, the Latino-flavored Mercado opened a year earlier, a partnership between developer and soon-to-be-governor Fife Symington and Chicanos por la Causa. With all this new development adjacent to the Civic Center, downtown regained the potential for some critical mass.
Alas, the Mercado proved a disaster and soon closed. Arizona Center was initially popular. But it was too inward-facing, not dramatically different from what one could find in the suburbs. It didn't provide the dense, up-on-the-sidewalk authenticity and energy of real downtown shopping. In a city where most of the population with disposable income lived ever farther out and lacked an urban sensibility, Arizona Center began a long swoon. Also, Goddard's success in creating an all-district system for City Council left downtown with potentially only one champion — the council member who represented that district. At the least, a mix of district and at-large representation could have provided more incentive to look after the central core.
A new city hall was a lost opportunity. With the Municipal Building outmoded, Phoenix set an international competition for a new city hall. It attracted proposals from some of the leading architects in the world, some of which would have been masterpieces. As with so much else, the 1990 crash dashed it. A mediocre tower was built instead — it would have fit in any suburban Dallas office "park" — with the only flourish being a "crown" that inadvertently gives the finger to south Phoenix. A happier outcome was a new main library, designed by my friend Will Bruder. Although it was delayed by the downturn, opening in 1995, it provided a distinctive new building to help reclaim the dead zone between downtown proper and Midtown. The Papago Freeway had been completed in 1990, placed in an underground tunnel with a park overhead, instead of the 100-foot flyover originally planned.
A new downtown steward emerged in Jerry Colangelo, managing partner of the Phoenix Suns. He led the relocation of the team from the Veterans Memorial Coliseum to a new arena downtown opening in 1992. It was a homely affair until new glass facing was added in the early 2000s, but it brought people downtown. Colangelo would lead the building of a downtown ballpark for the expansion Diamondbacks (1998) next door. Although Colangelo himself was not rich at this point, he could assemble capital and persuade the city to invest in these arenas. He became downtown's foremost champion, yet was widely villified (and that's another column).
Assessing the net gains or losses is difficult. It would have been a huge blunder to put the arenas out on the freeways (e.g. Glendale). They added to the appeal and prestige of downtown, helping draw the Collier Tower. They also displaced artists, some longtime residents and destroyed some historic buildings. I'm unconvinced that if the arenas had never happened, downtown somehow would have organically arisen. There wasn't the capital or employment base anymore. The artists didn't have the capital, for all their passion. A middle ground to preserve more buildings, as with Denver's LoDo, was impeded by a lack of stewards with means and skills. And Denver still has a major private employment base downtown as well as close-in neighborhoods with affluent residents.
City Hall caused much destruction during the years I was gone. It failed to put in place policies to prevent massive tear-downs and penalize land banking. Thus, vast tracts of downtown, including most of the last territorial-era buildings were turned into parking lots or vacant, blighted expanses. Hundreds of historic houses were demolished in the "capitol mall," adding to the 3,000 lost for the Papago Freeway, many irreplaceable bungalows, Victorians and territorial and early 20th century apartments with distinctive sleeping porches. Imagine the quality urban neighborhoods these could have made. The city didn't get serious about reforming its suburban-centric zoning code to include, for example, mixed use and historic reuse, until the late 2000s.
The state did no better, even before the current anti-urban bunch had taken over. Astonishingly, it refused to partner with the Southern Pacific Railroad to improve the rail line between Phoenix and Welton. As a result, Amtrak service was halted in 1996 making Phoenix by far the largest American city without intercity passenger rail service. As of this writing, beautiful Union Station remains, privately owned and housing telecom equipment. But it could be torn down tomorrow. In a healthy city, every effort would be made to acquire it and use it as a center for multimodal transportation, including commuter rail service and the return of Amtrak.
There was also a conscious effort to push the working poor out, the people that still rode buses to shop, the better to keep them away from the swanky new downtown assets. Later, when an effort was being made to bring a new county hospital to the downtown biosciences campus, a leading player from the 1980s and 1990s told me, "They're not going to allow those people near their billion dollars in investments."
The trouble, of course, was that most of the investments were heavily subsidized by taxpayers, including those people. The last stores closed in the 1980s and the historic block on Washington with its wonderful mix of architecture, was wiped clean. By the time I returned in 2000, the Greyhound bus depot was located out by Sky Harbor. I can think of no other major city that did this.
Rock bottom: Here is Sixth Street and Monroe in the 1980s with the beginnings of Heritage Square. The surrounding parking lagoons and empty land once had business buildings or houses on every lot. Monroe School is at right. The loss of fabric and cohesion from all the teardowns was catastrophic for downtown and its adjacent neighborhoods.
As the 1990s came to a close, downtown was, to most people, still "dead." One lost opportunity came when USAA chose the Valley for a massive back-office complex. Although Mayor Skip Rimza tried to get the company to move downtown, it wanted a "greenfield" site for a sprawling office "park." Rather than lose it to burgeoning north Scottsdale, where most of what was left of corporate Arizona was relocating, Rimsza settled on a site at I-17 and Happy Valley Road (so much for the vow that Bell Road would mark the end of Phoenix annexation).
With the completion of the Central Arizona Project canal in 1993, massive, industrial-scale sprawl began, creating huge suburbs that would become serious rivals to Phoenix. Here is a great counterfactual: What if more creative thinking and incentives could have brought USAA to a low-rise office "campus" in or near the abundant empty land in downtown? The same is true of Nordstrom, which didn't want to be downtown. Margaret Mullen, head of the Downtown Phoenix Partners, graciously sent it to Scottsdale instead. What, again, if some different approach could have landed it at Arizona Center, as a unique draw? Rimsza had better luck with Phelps-Dodge (now Freeport-McMoRan), the first major headquarters win for downtown in decades. But, revealingly, it was poached from Midtown, not brought in from elsewhere thanks to an economic-development strategy or effective eco-devo organization for the core.
Phoenix still didn't understand quality urban placemaking, how to make downtown different from the suburbs in a good way. Thus, the new City Hall was built on another superblock, connected to the Orpheum by a park. But it's a concrete/desert "park," blazingly unapproachable even on a mildly sunny day. The longtime oasis around the old City-County Building was ripped out in favor of dirt and palo verdes. Patriots Square set the pace with a bleak, hostile expanse. Walkability, shade and the constant surprise of dense, unique storefronts on regular-sized blocks eluded downtown.
Meanwhile, teardowns continued. The county kept expanding the jails, demolishing irreplaceable historic buildings in the warehouse district. Each step forward seemed marked by two steps back. Still, a variety of leaders and entrepreneurs refused to give up, accomplishments accumulated, Rimsza maintained a pro-downtown consensus on Council, ASU arrived — and in the 2000s downtown finally rebounded, after a fashion.
Second Street and Monroe, with the new Phoenix Convention Center, right.
Today, a walk around displays a remarkable change from even a decade ago. The two new buildings of the rechristened Phoenix Convention Center are much more appealing than the old brutalist Civic Plaza. Although too limited and too slow out of the blocks, the Phoenix Biosciences Campus with T-Gen, the University of Arizona medical school and other operations has at least established a beachhead of research and a quality economy in the core. CityScape is too suburban and lacks architectural inspiration, but it is the most promising mixed-use project yet. ASU's downtown campus has created the greatest sea change for the central core with thousands of students and more growth ahead. And light rail — yes, We Built It, You Bastards and it's a success.
Downtown faces daunting challenges which we discuss in depth on this blog. It is not where it should be, where it must be, for a city Phoenix's size to be competitive. But it is not dead. In many ways, it came through the Great Recession better than much of the metropolitan area. I can't think of another major city downtown that came back from such a deep hole.
Sometimes, when I am on Second Street it's as if I'm living a dream of the future from, say, 1970. Where once was the gritty, disorganized heart of the Deuce, is now a sparkling new avenue with its impressive though mostly sterile modern buildings and futuristic, arty streetlamps. It is undoubtedly an improvement, indeed an achievement that took decades to complete.
What's lacking are the consistent pulse of life that was still there even in the 1960s and the uniquely urban vibe that comes from a sense of history, authenticity and human-scale shops. It can't be master-planned. It can't be an echo of suburbia. I am one of the relative few of my generation of Phoenicians who even remembers the wonderful downtown that was and mourns the losses and missed opportunities. Yes, Phoenix had a downtown. It does again. Bad fortune, worse policy, poor timing, civic vandalism and indifference did their best to kill it. They failed.
RELATED: Filling In
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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.
Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.
Speaking of good bones... the content is there, the interest is there. A Talton's-eye view of latter 20th century history - boom, bust, and (?)revival - through the Phoenix lens should find an easy publisher.
Tell me you're not thinking about that.
Posted by: Petro | March 25, 2013 at 09:57 AM
Finding a real publisher would be very very hard. Alas.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | March 25, 2013 at 11:56 AM
Great Series Jon - -
Thankfully, I left before the real decline began. I still remember cleaning an office downtown (and riding my bike to get there) and going to the Greyhound Depot for a coffee.
Phoenix always seemed to be 25 -30 years behind LA. Perhaps the climb back up is beginning.
I'm amazed by the progress Baltimore has made in the 20 years I've lived there. They have engaged in a great program of "Urban Homesteading," brought more business and housing to the core, re-established old neighborhoods and been more concerned with preserving the old architecture than tearing buildings down and putting up concrete boxes. It's still a "gritty" city, but the downtown is no longer the ghost town (after dark) that it was in 1991.
Keep the articles coming....
Bear
Posted by: bearsense | March 25, 2013 at 03:44 PM
I think it was Tim Barrow who rode the bus, not John Driggs. I vaguely remember a photo in one of the local newspapers of Barrow on the bus.
Posted by: Steve Chernek | March 25, 2013 at 04:09 PM
Amazingly, Doug MacEachern seems to agree with you in certain vital respects:
http://www.azcentral.com/opinions/articles/20130305babying-downtown-phoenixs-growth.html
The second half of his column may be where the divergence occurs. Is there anything to his suggestion that the City of Phoenix, as owner of so many undeveloped downtown lots, is being stingy in holding them back for use in high profile Big Projects that provide higher returns and (though he didn't mention it) put feathers in the caps of city officials and politicos?
Put aside his remarks about letting the market decide. The market isn't the seller, or the grantor, the city is, and, like it or not, buyers will need city approval.
But why doesn't the city do more with the land? Why sell it at all? Why not provide it free, coupled with suspended development taxes/fees, to selected projects (e.g., affordable housing) for which the buyers are willing to cooperate with city goals and put that cooperation in writing into well-defined, enforceable contracts? That way, apartment developers would have a sound reason to charge below market rents to attract residents.
Land that has been just sitting there for decades and is owned by the city already ISN'T generating revenue. Giving it away (or leasing it with payments in initial years suspended) wouldn't, therefore, lose money, except relative to pie in the sky fantasies. It also isn't attracting residents whose local purchases would support area merchants, increase area jobs and hiring, attract area investment by other businesses, and provide sales tax and other district revenue (including an expanded property tax base, eventually).
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 25, 2013 at 04:54 PM
There's a lot of information here, all of it quite good, perceptive, and encyclopedic. I want to quibble about a few things only because I think it's good to remember enough about the old downtown that we can actually argue about it. For our purposes, it's useful to trip over a few rocks here in explaining why central Phoenix looks the way it does. We do this partly to help people understand why it's Scottsdale and Tempe that seem to be the real news in place-making. Sadly, it also helps explain why downtown Phoenix faces such long odds in returning as the relevant center of this metroplex.
First this: there is no comparison between Larimer Square in Denver and the old building stock in Phoenix. The Fleming Building (at 2nd Ave & Washington) came closest in terms of quality, but most of the buildings that were torn down occupied crucial blocks and unlikely to survive in a downtown footprint as small as ours. My father bought the salvage rights to three exquisite Beaux-Arts style tear-downs (Water Users, YMCA, Federal Buildings) which would not have survived in Denver let alone Phoenix.
The heroine of Denver was Dana Crawford who swooped in just as urban renewal had cleared over 20 blocks of priceless Victoriana in order to save the best block on west Larimer St. Denver in the 19th Century was extraordinary. Mining, not farming, was its source of wealth and it showed up in well-constructed buildings, beautifully ornamented and dignified. I lived in Denver in the early '70s and was deeply impressed by what I saw. Only after seeing pictures of the old city that existed mostly prior to WWII did I realize how Denver had sacrificed so much in the name of "progress". If Phoenix seems foolish in hindsight, Denver was absolutely profligate. But it had an immense treasure and so there were enough survivors to still grace their downtown.
This points out the primary Phoenix problem. We had been a small but coherent city prior to WWII but by 1960, prosperity in the form of the car had devastated the old civic matrix. Moreover, this happened virtually everywhere else in this country. Americans were moving to suburbs, shopping in malls, and abandoning downtowns across the country (in small and big cities alike) to the homeless and poor. The best cities preserved enough to remind people why real cities matter (Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, and maybe Denver). These cities were hardly virtuous. They were fortunate in having such large old building stock and urban footprints that they couldn't tear down everything for horrors like parking garages and convention centers.
Phoenix made terrible choices but the worst thing was not really a choice. As noted, Phoenix was a small city that exploded in size just after WWII when the car became the default mode of transportation. The car changed us as people. It made us crass and boorish. It altered the way we related to each other and buildings in particular. Old buildings were designed to be looked at by pedestrians. Modern buildings, by contrast, were meant to be looked through a car windshield at 35 mph. Architecture changed to accommodate this. Along with Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, and Tucson, Phoenix celebrated this fact. America did as well. We were winners! And for nearly 50 years that delusion hypnotized us.
Today, the aftermath of this destructive spending spree is not pretty to look at. I regard the Viad Building as hideous beyond words. Tapestry on Central: ditto. Will Bruder's Central Library destroyed a block of well-constructed older apartments that were organically urban in a way that all the glitzy new stuff will never be. And this is our curse even if we don't recognize it as such. There is no recovery for a city this mediocre. There are times when I visit Lux Coffee that I can almost think there's a real city here. But the moment I step outside and see the vast, unfillable spaces on Central, I know the problem is irremediable. Phoenix is too poor. The money went east to Scottsdale and Tempe and it's not coming back. We won the lottery in the '60s and '70s and blew it on drive-by crapola. We landed on skid row because that's where the bums end up. That shouldn't have been our destiny. Rich kids should always be rich even if they go and out and get drunk every night. Now we know better. And it's too late.
Posted by: soleri | March 25, 2013 at 05:05 PM
And the newly elected mayor has abandoned downtown for classier up north diggs
Posted by: cal Lash | March 25, 2013 at 09:18 PM
I remember in the mid seventies that one of the Driggs kids swam for one of the city pools' team. I was working at Coronado Pool at the time.
Phoenix did (and maybe still does)have a great city pool system that was a very positive force in the lives of young Phoenicians. One of the positive aspects was that the area supervisors had a policy of matching youthful workers (lifeguards, recreation aides, etc.) with work assignments that were out of their comfort zone -- economically speaking.
I remember one summer spent working at Roosevelt Pool on south seventh opened my eyes to the alternate universe of the tough south side.
It was the first and only time that I heard people discussing the potentiality of creating a new 'Aztlan' in the Southwest.
Posted by: headless lucy | March 26, 2013 at 08:50 AM
Great series, Mr. Talton. I'll just note that in 1900, Denver already had well over a million people, while Phoenix had just over five thousand. Phoenix grew hard and fast, while Denver grew at a much more reasonable rate. I often wonder how Phoenix would have evolved without modern air-conditioning. In the early fifties, most cooling was evaporative, and I can still remember seeing cars with electric fans on the drivers window, and most cars had wind wings even into the seventies (Hey, man, crack that wing!) The longer commutes in the summer must have been pretty unpleasant. It seems like people mostly lived fairly close to their jobs, but maybe I'm just mis-remembering.
Posted by: Pat | March 26, 2013 at 11:49 AM
Pat, do you mean Colorado had over a million people? In 1900 Denver had 133,859, according to the Census. Denver didn't even have 700,000 in 2010.
But I agree, great series! It is good to have multiple views on downtown Phoenix rather than boosterism. This ensures that issues advance in regards to development and keeps the focus on what is missing in downtown. We have to constantly be reminded of what elements are needed to make downtown thrive. It is true that CityScape is an eyesore on the retail block, but I like the hotel/apartment/office component. It has been said before, but CityScape could finally be the piece that leads to more residential development in the central core. With 224 apartment units at CityScape (or between 403-448 residents, assuming 1.8 to 2 people/unit) and over 200 hotel rooms in the same half block, businesses could start sustaining themselves. What was missing at Arizona Center and the Mercado is exactly what CityScape brings: residents and on-site/nearby hotels. It is much too late to save or bring back Arizona Center as a vast retail hub, but it is now benefiting from the Sheraton. You can no longer enjoy a movie, especially a new release, without a crowd at the center's AMC.
Posted by: phxSUNSfan | March 26, 2013 at 12:25 PM
I have had more than my say, and I promise that these long-read essays will be rare. My primary goal was to tell a story rather than to advance a thesis.
A couple of things. I knew Dana Crawford. Dana Crawford was a friend of mine. (I lived in Denver and worked at the Rocky Mountain News). She was the kind of urban entrepreneur with both skills and the ability to assemble capital that Phoenix lacked, and still lacks. Most people don't realize how close Lower Downtown came to being clearcut. All those great buildings, including Union Station, would have been gone. Another pivotal player was Mayor Federico Pena, and his successor, Wellington Webb. And businesspeople with means, such as John Hickenlooper, now Colorado governor and former Denver mayor, who set up Wynkoop Brewing in LoDo. To quote the Duke of Wellington after Waterloo, it was a damn close-run thing.
As for Scottsdale and Tempe, they will never be real downtowns, much less regional, big-city downtowns. The lack of one is a critical disadvantage to attracting talent and capital.
I think the new downtown Phoenix is "ok" for now. The public and private sunk costs are now too great to just walk away, which was not the case in the years throughout this telling. Now the big problem is most of Central, however many cute restaurants open (and close). And, of course, the ongoing linear slumification of Phoenix. And the loss of consensus on City Council.
As for the land banked by the city, I haven't done enough sniff work to know how much really exists. It was assembled first for the football stadium and then the biosciences campus. With "affordable housing," one must define his terms. The last thing Phoenix needs is more poor people living in and near the core. What it desperately needs is more private employment centers with good pay in the core. Then, the housing would follow -- and I realize this runs counter to the city planners' long-held belief. Even when I lived in Willo, many residents lacked the money to patronize the restaurants popping up.
Finally, is Phoenix doomed? In the medium term, it will face a crisis that will be on a Katrina scale. In the long run, climate change will make it impossible to sustain such a large population center there. Not just climate change's direct effects there, but their consequences and costs worldwide, which will make chimeras such as desalination plants and cool sidewalks impossible -- the capital and efforts will be deployed elsewhere. And all the Grady Gammage op-eds can't wish this away. A Phoenix could have a future, one I have discussed many times, a dense oasis, much smaller, in the SRP footprint. But not a single-family-house vomitus from Yavapai County to south of Tucson.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | March 26, 2013 at 01:51 PM
Yeah, you're right, Phx Suns fan: just over 133,000. Still, it was a well established city when Phoenix was a speck on the map, which gave it an advantage as far as historic buildings and a firmly established downtown goes: I think. (I've read weird stories of KKK dominated city government in Denver in the twenties). Phoenix never really had time to develop that kind of core before the automobile and suburban culture took root. Not saying they didn't blow opportunities, but it was a different evolution, possibly unique in the U.S. Even in L.A., people were reluctant to move inland, away from the ocean breeze, until the car culture made it more palatable. Nobody wanted to commute to Temecula or Antelope Valley until the last part of the twentieth century. My Aunt and Uncle had a "remote" getaway cabin way out in Pear Valley in the forties and fifties, and now people commute from there to L.A. daily.
Posted by: Pat | March 26, 2013 at 07:04 PM
Ahhh... Pear Blossom, not Pear Valley.
Posted by: Pat | March 26, 2013 at 07:08 PM
R pear trees native to the Americas
Posted by: cal Lash | March 26, 2013 at 07:13 PM
Great comments, including the much-missed Soleri, Phoenix Suns Fan, and Rogue himself.
Among many interesting remarks, the latter scribed:
"With 'affordable housing,' one must define his terms. The last thing Phoenix needs is more poor people living in and near the core. What it desperately needs is more private employment centers with good pay in the core. Then, the housing would follow -- and I realize this runs counter to the city planners' long-held belief."
I'll take a cliff dive and define affordable housing, in this context, as apartments whose rent, for comparable amenities and square-footage elsewhere in the city, is at least 1/3 less than the median cost.
The thing that tends to be overlooked here is that poverty is defined as the lack of disposable income, whereas reducing housing costs by 1/3 or more adds 1/3 or more to disposable income, all else being equal. "Poverty" is not only a function of wages but also of how much of household income has to be spent on basic expenditures, of which housing costs are a major item.
You also have to factor in the fact that not only "poor people" will be attracted to affordable housing: they will certainly be included in the mix but also so will upwardly mobile, young working-class and lower-middle class individuals and couples (with or without children) looking to make their wages buy more.
If we could get Medicaid expansion so that health care (another big cost) was covered, and follow my prescription (or an expanded version thereof) for resettlement of the downtown area, I think you would find that the population attracted to such housing had, by and large, enough disposable income to attract a great deal of additional retail development seeking those dollars. Those retailers have to hire workers and that in turn means more area income, so that the process becomes self-sustaining as more residents attract more businesses and more workers mean more residents.
This is exactly the model that Phoenix has used in its expansion. Developers build HOUSING to attract residents, together with basic business infrastructure to attract retailers. Nobody builds new retail establishments where residents don't exist and are unlikely to exist in the near future.
When you talk about more private employment centers with good pay, you're right. But you're wrong when you say that this runs counter to city planners when it comes to downtown: on the contrary, for some reason, unlike anywhere else in the city, they support big projects rather than settlement first; and, in my humble opinion, you're placing the cart before the horse when you say that employment precedes residency. Employers go where the disposable income is, not the other way around, particularly in the retail sector, which is most of what we can expect downtown employment to be, as indeed it is elsewhere. Take a drive through any typical section of the city and you will find that retailers make up the majority of physical locations.
Finally, I think you have to address the needs of the working poor. The idea that the downtown can be revitalized by a few yuppie lofts is neither credible nor conducive to social justice. We want affordable housing for working class persons and families, and we want it now. The city has ample land holdings (whatever the exact amounts) which it could use to further this goal, but instead it chooses to hold on to them, like Midas, in the grip of speculations about future windfalls. Even if those speculations were realistic, the city should instead be using its bargains in land-banking to help those lagging behind, not (primarily, though there is a place for this also) to indulge the glossy-magazine fantasies of young urban professionals.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 26, 2013 at 08:41 PM
P.S. Desalination plants are not a chimera. They are CURRENTLY a chimera simply because it takes so much energy to separate salt from ocean water (which exists in abundance), and the market costs of energy make that uncompetitive.
However, the federal government could built large solar photovoltaic plants, run them as non-profits, and charge only what it costs to operate and maintain the plants; as opposed to private developers, who would first need the capital to build such plants, then would need to price the electricity produced to recover the investment costs, with a profit sufficiently attractive to investors, in a time-frame sufficiently attractive to investors (else they invest their money elsewhere). This means they need to pass these recovery costs on to consumers (including desalination plants using such electricity as input) and that makes them uncompetitive with conventional energy sources.
If the government built and ran the solar photovoltaic plants and charged only what was necessary to operate and maintain them, it could sell really CHEAP electricity. Preferably to government run non-profit projects contributing to basic national needs, such as desalination plants converting abundant ocean water into fresh drinking water.
The main thing that needs to be added to this prescription is EFFICIENCY. Also, the idea that a portion of government revenue needs to be reinvested in maintaining or expanding capacity. The government of Venezuela is, by all accounts, a poster-child for stupidity, inefficiency, and venality when it comes to its nationalization of oil resources, since it has failed to reinvest sufficient resources to maintain or expand output. There is absolutely no reason why "socialism" needs to be stupid! You need people in charge who value efficiency, not for the usual capitalist reasons, but for very soft reasons which nevertheless recognize the legitimacy of capitalist logic when it comes to resource utilization, even though the end results in terms of distribution and pricing are quite different.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 26, 2013 at 08:55 PM
Emil, I think you are spot...and you might be surprised to learn that the City has been working with select groups to develop housing for lower income groups. Primarily through the development of "special-interest" housing like the new Native Connections apartments in Roosevelt, the "retirement" housing on 3rd Ave (also in Roosevelt), and the renovated complexes, like the Marquee, aimed at students and young, more working-class individuals. There is also another site on the SW Corner of Roosevelt and Central that will be a mixed use, mid-rise development with reduced rates based on income; similar to Roosevelt Commons on 6th Ave.
I think what is missing downtown is the developments that do "indulge the glossy-magazine fantasies of young urban professionals." Those type of developments (Skyline Lofts, 44 Monroe, and Roosevelt Square) are in demand. I have mentioned this before, but I know plenty of individuals (coworkers and friends) that live in glossier digs in Scottsdale, Tempe, and other parts of Phoenix, specifically because there is nothing for them downtown. CityScape will give them more options but with only 224 units, expect that place to fill-up quickly. I do agree that the city should continue to offer incentives for developing not only income-based rentals, but also for 44 Monroe/CityScape-type dwellings.
Posted by: phxSUNSfan | March 26, 2013 at 09:12 PM
I incorrectly identified apartments in the above post. The Marquee Apartments are also aimed at retired seniors seeking an urban lifestyle:
http://www.themarqueeapartments.com/
The apartments I was thinking of are next to the Marquee but I do not know the name of the complex.
Posted by: phxSUNSfan | March 26, 2013 at 09:22 PM
No, Cal, Pears are Old World. Hey, were you one of the cops shooting up that bus in The Gauntlet? They were real PPD, weren't they? And isn't that St. Mary's in the background of the photo?
(RIP Eddie Basha)
Posted by: Pat | March 27, 2013 at 06:05 AM
Worst movie Clint ever made. I did not participate.
but later while investigating an armored car robbery i found one of the police car visa bars used in the movie in a cops garage that had worked on the movie set.
Posted by: cal Lash | March 27, 2013 at 06:33 AM
Emil: "Finally, I think you have to address the needs of the working poor. The idea that the downtown can be revitalized by a few yuppie lofts is neither credible nor conducive to social justice."
You tend to invite ridicule of your own pet social nostrums when you reduce someone else's idea to a cartoon. You said yourself at one point that you cannot build a vibrant downtown on the backs of poor people.
Employers aren't stupid. They know how little a person will work for and if you take 1/3 of usual rental fees out of the equation, employers will respond with less pay -- because they know they can.
Posted by: headless lucy | March 27, 2013 at 12:34 PM
An interesting perspective from the Twin Cities:
http://www.minnpost.com/cityscape/2012/12/9-worst-urban-planning-moves-twin-cities-history
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | March 27, 2013 at 12:50 PM
I visited Minneapolis (and St Paul) a few years back and was crushed to realize that this civic emblem of good government and urban design was mostly a huge dead zone of parking garages, skytubes, surface parking lots, a blimpy sports arena, and, of course, lots and lots of freeways. There were good things, to be sure. The old Lake of the Isles neighborhood was stunning. The uptown neighborhood was energetic. The arts were very well-housed and attended. Also, dotted here and there (and mostly devoid of coherent context) were some lovely old buildings from yesteryear. But the overall effect was so disappointing that I left not caring if I ever returned again.
In 1950, like virtually every other American city, including Phoenix, Minneapolis was extraordinarily good. Now it's a mess where city planners try to revive urban esprit with decorative park benches and lampposts. In Phoenix, this racket includes planting street trees that offer minimal shade.
Here's a forum where cities can be seen in their previous glory. I can get lost in toxic nostalgia, so I limit my visits to once a month or so. Still, I recommend it if only to see how wonderful our cities once were. http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/forumdisplay.php?f=23
I'm repeating myself but I might as well given this venue. Phoenix is crippled less because we weren't reading James Howard Kunstler or Jane Jacobs but because like every city, we wanted to drive everywhere. That's the American Dream in all its infantile glory. And few of us knew any better so it hardly matters that a city of excitable boosters and Midwestern sad sacks created something not quite worthy of sustaining love. The car and single-family house were the totems of our promised land. This was true in every city in America. Phoenix is remarkable only to the extent that its meteoric ascent has crested over a deep, deep canyon.
Posted by: soleri | March 27, 2013 at 02:07 PM
Amen
Posted by: cal Lash | March 27, 2013 at 05:04 PM
"headless lucy" wrote:
"You tend to invite ridicule of your own pet social nostrums when you reduce someone else's idea to a cartoon. You said yourself at one point that you cannot build a vibrant downtown on the backs of poor people."
You would do well to take your own advice. Nothing I have suggested is a prescription for building a vibrant downtown "on the backs of poor people".
"headless lucy" wrote:
"Employers aren't stupid. They know how little a person will work for and if you take 1/3 of usual rental fees out of the equation, employers will respond with less pay -- because they know they can."
So, your idea is that employers routinely check the housing costs of workers and then make major adjustments, decreasing wages by a third because their housing costs have declined by a third? How realistic is that?
I don't mind constructive criticism, but it seems that your replies lately are a kind of contrarian reflex. If you have a problem with me that is your problem, not mine or the blog's. Try to fix that. If I'm not mistaken, your past aliases included "Dulce Nada" and "Soft Cannonball", among others.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 27, 2013 at 08:22 PM
"cal lash" wrote:
"(The Gauntlet was the) Worst movie Clint ever made"."
Oh, I don't know, how about The Eiger Sanction? Plenty to choose from, if only because his career has been long and nobody bats 1000. I'm inclined to agree with critic David Ansen (Newsweek) who wrote, about The Gauntlet: "You don't believe a minute of it, but at the end of the quest, it's hard not to chuckle and cheer".
The 1970s was a time of great (and well justified) skepticism, indeed, cynicism about major institutions, including the police. Serpico was essentially a documentary. Nor have the problems disappeared. Ever heard of Abner Louima?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima
The real problems with the film were technical. How could that bus have possibly kept rolling with tires full of shotgun slugs?
Can you believe that, according to Wikipedia, "Steve McQueen and Barbra Streisand were originally cast as the film's stars. However, fighting between the two forced them to drop out of the project; Eastwood and Locke replaced them"?!
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 27, 2013 at 08:59 PM
Since these stories are about Phoenix' past, thought this would interest some of you (especially Rogue). Maybe some of you have stories about the buildings:
1. First Baptist Church
Terry Goddard is leading a push to preserve the beautiful shell. Most of the interior structure burned down in the 80's and the cost to keep the shell standing is extraordinarily expensive. So now plans to rebuild, or sorts, is in the works.
http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2013/03/former-phoenix-mayor-leads-push-to-preserve-historic-first-baptist-church/
2. The DeSoto Building
SE Corner of Central and Roosevelt. Right now the building looks horrible, but the planned renovation looks stunning. This is its current state:
http://vanishingphx.downtowndevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/DSC08470.jpg
This is the planned renovation, with historic elements added back onto the façade:
http://desotobuilding.com/
Posted by: phxSUNSfan | March 27, 2013 at 09:32 PM
Wow me and Newsweeks David Ansen dare to disagree.
But i thought Eiger Saction was second worst probably because i was a cop.
Posted by: cal Lash | March 28, 2013 at 07:29 AM
What is a visa bar?
Posted by: eclecticdog | March 28, 2013 at 09:02 AM
Visibar, the housing for lights and siren on police cars and ambulances. Made by Federal back in the day.
"Gauntlet's" one redeeming feature was the opening, where Clint staggers out of a real Deuce bar (an Indian bar in real life, where I went on many a fight and stabbing call), gets in his car parked behind Symphony Hall, drives south over the Seventh Street overpass, west on Grant to Seventh Avenue, back north across Seventh Avenue, then east down Adams to the front of Symphony Hall, playing the role of City Hall. Such were the paltry locations.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | March 28, 2013 at 09:13 AM
Emil: "'If I'm not mistaken, your past aliases included "Dulce Nada" and "Soft Cannonball", among others.'"
You are mistaken. Imagine that!
Is there a rule on this blog that only Emil Pulsifer can make drippingly sarcastic comments and anyone else approaching that threshold is merely indulging, '...a kind of contrarian reflex'?
Your simplistic use of a reductio ad absurdum response to anyone challenging one of your little sacred cows is, of itself, a kind of contrarian reflex.
What's good for the goose, etc....
Posted by: headless lucy | March 28, 2013 at 02:41 PM
To "headless lucy":
I seldom make "drippingly sarcastic statements", and certainly not in my comments above. Again, this description seems more appropriate to your own language, e.g., "your little sacred cows". Nor will you find -- among MY remarks -- "a reduction of someone's ideas to a cartoon". Finally, you won't find any reductio ad absurdum "response" by me above, simplistic or otherwise. You seem to be parroting the statements of others, inappropriately.
A "challenge" from you would entail an objection that is at least speciously plausible. Thus far, all but one of your "challenges" have been personal and emotional. The single exception was easily rebutted and you haven't even attempted to defend it further. (Calling an argument "simplistic" isn't in itself a rebuttal.)
headless lucy wrote: "You are mistaken. Imagine that!"
Your inferiority complex and the hostility it breeds don't contribute to a discussion of downtown revitalization. Though this sort of "drama" may be what you live for, it is actually boring and a waste of valuable online time.
It appears that you aren't interested in the subject. If provocation is your goal, I'll ask you to desist. Mr. Talton very rightly reserves the privilege of comment to those making a good faith effort to discuss issues. I fully support his efforts to keep the discussion civil.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 28, 2013 at 04:00 PM
I shouldn't have to clarify every word and defend every statement, but just for the record, Mr. Talton has advocated projects like an expanded biosciences center as part of his prescription for downtown revitalization; so the comment about "yuppie lofts" was not directed at him and thus was not a cartoonization of his ideas.
While I agree with him that such projects are of vital importance, my point is that the number of jobs added is marginal; that most downtown business activity and hiring must ultimately come from business sectors which derive their income from local residents (e.g., retail), as is typical elsewhere in the city; and that a healthy business sector needs a normal resident population to support it.
Only when district residents make local purchases will their sales taxes support the district; only when local merchants pay property taxes and other taxes and fees will these do the same. There has to be money for upkeep and improvement, and that implies an active ownership presence, and local residents with disposable income spending money with local merchants.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 28, 2013 at 04:28 PM
One way to solve the problem is to reverse engineer it. Mr. Talton has already explain, clearly and with admirable detail, how the downtown fell into disuse and disrepair as it was abandoned by those with disposable income and businesses located there could no longer afford to operate.
So, I am advocating making living in the downtown area attractive again. About the only thing I can think of in today's Phoenix that will make that attractive to larger numbers of mobile residents with plenty of already existing choices, is to make it substantially cheaper to live there. Somebody has to pay for that, and but the city already owns the land and controls the tax structure, and can gift and suspend those as it likes; in return, developers would get a great deal and could afford to offer affordable housing.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 28, 2013 at 04:48 PM
Emil's idea to "reverse engineer" by making downtown a cheaper living option is interesting. But can the City really "gift" the land as suggested given the anti-gift clause in our State Constitution and especially after the City North decision from the Supreme Court?
Posted by: westbev | March 29, 2013 at 09:01 AM
A solid, practical objection, westbev, and one which deserves an in depth, expert opinion which I am not in a position to render. I'll offer what points I can.
As you probably know, the City North decision allowed the deal to stand, based on 25 years of existing case law. However, it established new criteria for future deals, including the necessity of a proportional, "direct benefit" to government, classifying such things as jobs and sales tax revenues as indirect benefits.
"Lawyers, economic-development officials and others said deals with retail developers are likely to be the most in jeopardy as a result of the court's decision last week in the CityNorth case."
http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2010/02/01/20100201citynorthimpact0201.html
I suspect that deeding land to an affordable housing developer could be structured in such a fashion as to satisfy the requirements of the ruling, since affordable housing is a public interest, especially if this was done under superceding provisions of federal law governing project-based housing subsidies. But it's a damned fine question and I really don't have a definitive answer.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 29, 2013 at 11:19 AM
As for the assertion that employers would pay the beneficiaries of affordable housing proportionally less, employers don't research the rents paid by job applicants before deciding how much to offer them in wages.
Wage scales are based on a combination of factors including experience, the skill-set required, the rarity or surplus of qualified applicants, prevailing market rates for similar positions, and sometimes the financial condition of the company. Nor do employers track the rent of existing employees and lower or raise wages proportional to the changes resulting from a move between apartments or from an apartment to a house (or vice-versa).
This isn't a "reductio ad absurdum" argument this is realism. The suggestion that employers spy on applicants' personal finances then offer widely differing wages to cashiers, clerks, stonemasons, or accountants, based on their different rents, is patently false.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 29, 2013 at 11:29 AM
Also note that the wages for many positions are specified in advance. Someone applying for a cashier's position in response to a classified ad knows the wage scale, and one cashier isn't going to be paid less than another on the basis of their personal rent in any case.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 29, 2013 at 11:34 AM
I might have to eat a little crow on the subject of The Gauntlet. I haven't had a television for nearly 15 years, and the only thing I remembered from the movie, originally, was the kick-ass (if preposterous) ending.
This morning I woke up with a vague but definite recollection of being thoroughly disgusted with the procedural absurdities involving earlier scenes. It's one thing to premise a movie on police corruption and conspiracy under color of law, and quite another to paint melodrama with such a broad brush that even Hollywood should blush.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 29, 2013 at 11:42 AM
Emil: “As for the assertion that employers would pay the beneficiaries of affordable housing proportionally less, employers don't research the rents paid by job applicants before deciding how much to offer them in wages.”
You research the things that you propound rather well, but my objection to some of your conclusions is that your two and two sometimes doesn’t add up to four, although you seem to think that it does. My contention with the inexpensive housing and the wages paid to the, at this point, ‘chimerical’ low-rent downtown locals (whom you suggested earlier would be the labor force in the new businesses created by the poor people with excess cash because of low rent) is that a lot of people, maybe even your, don’t think like a businessman.
As a ‘for instance’: Texas (at the behest of many doctors who thought that the insurance companies would lower their rates) in 2003 lobbied for a comprehensive tort reform bill that codified most statutes applicable to the broad class of “health care liability claims” and lowered potential cash awards. When the expected quid pro quo of lowering of liability rates did not come, Texas MD’s felt betrayed. The insurance companies explained that the fee caps were good for their business, which is selling insurance; but they never promised that they would lower rates. They were, after all, a for-profit business – and the doctors had just handed them more profits.
Unfair? Duplicitous? Welcome to the real world.
Noam Chomsky has explained this sort of phenomena in U.S. society through the lens of the self-censoring news media in America. Most newsmen would deny that they tilt the news to please corporate owners, but Chomsky maintains that even the slightest concession to the opinions of corporate owners can be likened to a flat 2’x2’ piece of plywood with a small rim that has an almost imperceptible tilt to one corner. If you put a handful of marbles in the middle of the board, all of the marbles will eventually end up in that corner.
I’m saying that the cheap rent is like the tilted board.
All I’m trying to get from you is a serious response to a real question that has been raised instead of a supercilious sniff that employers will have no way of knowing that an applicant lives in a low rent district. In my experience, employers ask for an address on an application; and, if one restaurant in the downtown area gets away with paying a lower than market wage, others will of necessity, follow. Who will travel from outside the downtown area to work a job that pays substandard wages, and where will the poor person from the downtown area get the money to travel out of it for a better paying job – and will the travel expense eat up the additional money?
The low rent is seen as money on the table to a businessman working in a cutthroat business like restaurants.
I believe it was John Stuart Mill who pointed out that people who make political decisions based upon principle rather than a well thought out plan of the possible effects of their actions are simply intellectually lazy.
>>>>>>>:D
Posted by: headless lucy | March 29, 2013 at 01:55 PM
An even better downtown location film is the really awful "No Code of Conduct" with Charlie AND Martin Sheen, where Carver Museum substitutes for the Police Station.
We lost our Central City Park to a shopping mall. We lost our vintage Del Webb hotel to a parking lot that may become a law school when we have two or three already, but Michael Crow needs to have a legacy, even with law school enrollment nationally down-turning.
When we won the World Series, we celebrated spontaneously at Patriots Square Park. There is no center of the city to do this again.
We gained a bazillion ads with 2 bazillion foot-candles of light that our City Manager describes as his best idea ever, and then call it an Entertainment District, in memory of the even more bone-headed Entertainment District championed for Jackson Street that locked up great potentials for adaptive reuse.
The funny part is I'm still at heart, a Phoenician and an optimist.
Posted by: Steve Weiss | March 29, 2013 at 01:58 PM
I have little to add to this well written article or the entertaining and thoughtful comments. Sad to think of what was lost. Makes me think I missed the best of America by being born too late.
But I would like to add that Eastwoods worst movie was the one where he plays a senile idiot talking to a chair. It also featured some pompous ass rich jerk whose name I cannot recall.
Posted by: 100 Octane | March 29, 2013 at 02:16 PM
"When we won the World Series, we celebrated spontaneously at Patriots Square Park. There is no center of the city to do this again." -Steve Weiss
Patriot Square Park still exists...it is the center of the retail block of CityScape. The street facing sides of the place isn't a nice view but the interior (the park) is set up nicely and there are bars on every corner practically. Then there is Civic Space Park and the new "solar atrium" between Chase Field and Sliders...not to mention the Paseo next to U.S. Airways Center.
Posted by: phxSUNSfan | March 29, 2013 at 05:14 PM
concerning the "pie in the sky" proposals to fix downtown and in some ways to fix many other social ills in this state:
I have always felt that humor has a way of delivering a strong message that pretty much sums up a situation like issues we face in downtown and Arizona in general.
Here is the humorous and sadly true description of our state as stated by many who have tried to make a living here.
"Arizona is a right to starve state"
Get the humor of the play on "right to work state".
Ha Ha.
This single sarcastic, humorous line trumps all your "pie in the sky" ideas.
It's good to dream, but Lord have mercy, be realistic about it people.
Posted by: Ruben A. Perez | March 29, 2013 at 06:16 PM
To "headless lucy":
If your theory was correct, we would already expect to see wide differences in wages paid to, say, cashiers in Phoenix, depending on whether they own a house (and the size of the mortgage payments, which vary), or rent a two-room apartment, or rent a studio apartment. We don't. Note that the differences between these monthly payments are already larger, at the margins, than the 1/3-off-the-median affordable apartment rent I proposed.
You simply don't find that one Circle K employee is paid 1/3 less than another, at time of hire, because of a 1/3 difference in their rent or mortgage payments; or car payments (or lack thereof). The flunky who rides his bike to work and lives with his parents gets the same, standardized entry wage as the individual who spends half his monthly income on an apartment he can't comfortably afford and owns a gas-sucking SUV.
Note also that merely checking an address on an application isn't sufficient, because rents vary at a single complex depending on how many rooms, square footage, amenities, view, etc.; so an employer would need to research the rent paid on that particular unit. Furthermore, this still wouldn't give the employer any information about the housing payments of a particular applicant, unless he also researched how many rent-paying roommates or other occupants of the residence the applicant shared the rent with.
Generic observations about predatory businessmen aren't a counterargument. Neither are straw-man arguments about tort reform in Texas (or elsewhere).
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 30, 2013 at 03:45 PM
Emil: You forgot about my great reference to a Noam Chomsky metaphor and my sly reference to the Utilitarian school of philosophy as exemplified by John Stuart Mill.
I want some credit for that.
If you can't think of any examples of businesses paying less in wages because they can, I just don't see any point in further discussion of the matter. It's common knowledge that wages have been flat or receding for decades, and when someone points out a particular mechanism whereby it might happen, you get all offended.
Answer me this: Why do employers hire illegal immigrants?
Posted by: headless lucy | April 02, 2013 at 05:10 PM
A couple of additional points:
The target market for revitalization via resettlement is someone willing to move downtown, not the poor per se. Theoretically, there is nothing to prevent someone earning the median personal income of $35,000 (in 2011 Arizona) from moving downtown to save thousands of dollars annually on rent while getting the same square-footage and amenities as well as direct access to light rail. Obviously the working poor stand to save more as a percentage of their income, but this savings increases their disposable income by a like amount, thus making them more effective consumers.
(2) Employers don't adjust the starting wages of individual applicants on the basis of differing rent burdens, for the simple reason that they ALREADY structure wages to minimize their costs to the extent practicable (consistent with the variable factors I described above). It is up to individual applicants to decide if their cost of living can be supported by the wage offered.
While it is true that wage structures reflect the local cost of living, "local" refers to the city or metropolitan area, not a particular neighborhood or apartment complex, because they are in competition with other employers and even the working poor commute. (Most of those who regularly use the city bus to get to work are working-poor. It costs about $64 per month, full-fare.)
Initially, most of the resettlement migrants would have to commute to work anyway, since downtown employment opportunities are quite limited at present because of the absence of a healthy residential consumer base. Downtown jobs would follow residential migration as local concentrations of disposable income increased. There is a natural preference to shop, eat out, and enjoy other services close to one's residence rather than undertake a time-consuming journey that may also deplete their gas-tank. Retailers with the money to invest locally have a natural advantage and will act to secure this by opening local stores or branches.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | April 02, 2013 at 05:22 PM
Emil: "While it is true that wage structures reflect the local cost of living...."
This is as close as you'll ever get to admitting that I had a point to make about wages and locality. OK.
Is this allowing middle class residents to the Emil Pulsifer downtown cheap rent renewal plan a new wrinkle ? Do you think it could sqeeze out the poor people?
Posted by: headless lucy | April 03, 2013 at 12:56 PM
The Downtown that we currently have in Phoenix, AZ does not get an "okay" from me. The Downtown has been set up for people coming here for meetings or for ballgames, which are both totally boring! I have heard people visiting Phoenix say that there is nothing downtown, and we all say we know! The City of Phoenix needs to get on fixing downtown shopping in a huge, huge way.
We need something for the "People of Phoenix, AZ" such as at least three (3) Department Stores, along with many other stores THAT DON'T HAVE ARIZONA DIMESTORE PRODUCTS in them. I am not talking about stores for the top 1% to 10%, but for the middle class.
What about some movie theaters in Downtown Phoenix, AZ like we used to have. We had a nice little downtown, not like a big city, or even a small city, but it was okay for Phoenix, AZ.
We need to have Park Central back. We need at least three (3) Department Stores there also, along with many others.
We don't want just restaurants, and tacky little self-serve spots. We want coffee shops, etc. We don't need to have any more sports arenas, or sports bars, etc. (this is where Phoenix gets into trouble with some people--the players make waaaaaaay too much money and when the morals are not very high, you can't really call it Sports--just something the Phoenix society does not need or want). If any citizen wants to cause trouble, stay out of Downtown.
We used to have the Palms Theater on Central Avenue, now there is nothing like that there.
I heard at the time when Park Central was gone that all of the people moved away from that area. We are ALL STILL HERE, except for the ones that have passed away. That was just poppycock on the part of the poops that didn't want Park Central as a Shopping Mall. They also said that the people with children moved out of the middle of the city, and weren't buying--how much money do people with kids have, compared to single people and older people?--not much, and I don't want to hear this lame reason from anybody! Then we had to go all over in the Valley to shop! Not fair to Midtown Phoenix, AZ. Think of the customers that work in the highrises along Central Avenue that could shop at Park Central Mall.
St. Joseph's Hospital bought all or some of the property in the area. And then after that was done, the man who had been the Administrator at St. Joseph's killed himself in his backyard.
We all in the Park Central area lost our shopping center because of a man that eventually killed himself, because he knew he had done wrong. Not any help to the people in this area.
We want Park Central Shopping Mall back and we want the Phoenix, AZ Downtown back--we are not talking about just restaurants and little tacky food courts.
What about this huge park that the City of Phoenix wants to build below McDowell Road and east of Central Avenue?
WHAT A STUPID IDEA. WHAT STUPID PEOPLE THAT WORK FOR THE CITY, AND THEN YOU HIRE MORE STUPYSTUPES TO HELP, WHO THINK THEY ARE CREATIVE, BUT BARELY KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON IN THEIR OWN LIVES, LET ALONE BEING ABLE TO DO SOMETHING FOR PHOENIX, AZ. A certain type of people with their little kids will slop and trash this park, plus it will be useless to almost everyone else, plus there will be a lot of security problems with something like this, with people being harmed and losing their lives, PLUS IT WILL COST WAY TOO MUCH AND SERVE VERY FEW PEOPLE IN THE VALLY OF THE SUN!
Put this money (the Billions that you plan to spend on this so-called park) on bringing back Park Central Mall. We need Park Central Mall in the worst way, and bring back Downtown Phoenix--not for people passing through the city, but for the Citizens of Phoenix, AZ.
Posted by: B. Hope | October 20, 2015 at 11:45 PM