Big Town was a brand of melons and vegetables shipped by MBM Farms and Zeitman Produce from the Salt River Valley in its days as American Eden. One of scores of colorful labels on wooden crates, it had a stylized version of the Phoenix skyline in the background.
But I can't help wondering if it also caught a bit of the moment in 1950, when Phoenix entered the ranks of America's 100 largest cities. It was No. 99, with 106,818 people in 17 square miles. Phoenix landed 62 people ahead of No. 100 Allentown, Pa. But it was behind Scranton, Wichita, Tulsa, Dayton — not to mention its Southwest rival El Paso, No. 76.
In 1950, the nation's fifth most populous city was Detroit. According to new Census data, Phoenix has once again surpassed Philadelphia to claim the No. 5 spot it had by estimates in 2006 but lost in the 2010 count. I'll have more to write about this later.
For now, I want to linger on that moment when the Census Bureau made it official: Phoenix had crossed 100,000. The big town was definitely a city now, if not a big one (Even now, Phoenix has many characteristics of a small town, especially in power and power relationships).
As you can tell from the geographic size of the city, this Phoenix was convenient and walkable, with a true urban fabric. At 6,714 people per square mile, it was much more dense than today's 2,798. Surrounding it were citrus groves, farms, and small towns mostly dependent on agriculture (Tempe 7,684, Mesa, 16,790, Glendale 8,179, Gilbert 1,114, Scottsdale 2,032, and Buckeye 1,932). Arizona's total population was 756,000. Phoenix boasted an abundant shade canopy from the narrow streets to the enchanting canal banks. Downtown was the busiest central business district between El Paso and Los Angeles. As many as 10 passenger trains served Union Station in the golden age of streamliners.
It had been only 38 years since statehood, so many Phoenicians remembered territorial days.
The 1950s are remembered as one of America's best decades, certainly in Phoenix. But that was mostly in the future. In Washington, Arizona's claim to the Colorado River and the Central Arizona Project were a tough fight, despite the efforts of Sens. Carl Hayden and Ernest McFarland. Wisconsin's Sen. Joe McCarthy was riding high with claims of communists in the government. Politicians debated who had "lost" China. The nation's paranoia increased in June when North Korea's communist forces invaded South Korea, a war that quickly became a bloody stalemate. President Harry Truman was deeply unpopular.
In Phoenix, the new Charter Government Committee had taken control of the City Council with Nick Udall as mayor, promising to root out corruption and vice. Its reforms led to Phoenix winning its first All-America City award that year. Among the new council members was the handsome department-store owner Barry Goldwater (who joked to merchant prince and political fixer Harry Rosenzweig that the Charter platform was against "all the things we like"). Beneath the surface, the Phoenix underworld continued to thrive.
Goldwater and Rosenzweig were Republicans, a decided minority in this Democratic city and state. Unions were powerful, too. Among the achievements of this council was planning the new Phoenix Civic Center, which would open in coming years with the public library, little theater, and art museum (today the site is mostly the Phoenix Art Museum).
In 1950, Phoenix continued to practice segregation — not as harsh as the Jim Crow South, but there nonetheless. One high school was dedicated to "colored" students, while the city's other three secondary schools, Phoenix Union, North, and West high schools, were white. This was around the time when former Tuskegee airman Lincoln Ragsdale broke the color barrier and moved into Encanto-Palmcroft. But deed covenants and redlining mostly prevented African-Americans and Mexican-Americans from buying north of Van Buren Street (oddly, it didn't apply to Chinese-Americans).
The economy was still recovering from the abrupt recession that hit after World War II ended and war industries that had located here closed. Motorola had opened a small office on north Central the year before, and the bounty of Cold War defense industries — funded by federal money and recruited by civic leaders such as Frank Snell — were yet to blossom. Phoenix's big manufacturing sector was air conditioning, although many located just outside the city limits to avoid city taxes. Agriculture remained the backbone of Phoenix's economy.
The religion of population growth had yet to take hold. Many Phoenicians didn't care for the wartime growth, with traffic and housing shortages that persisted through the late 1940s. The recruitment efforts of stewards such as Snell was to diversify the economy and attract "clean industries" for the people already there.
As the decade went on, however, prosperity and mobility brought transformative increases in population and the economy tilted more to housing construction, subsidized by federal mortgage guarantees and low interest rates. Still, city leaders hotly debated the pros and cons of annexation before it became an imperative by the middle of the decade. By 1960, Phoenix had grown 311 percent thanks to in-migration and annexation. In that Census, it was the 29th largest city in the country, with 187 square miles.
For many more years, the magic of the old city would linger. But Phoenix had set its course. It wanted to get big — in numbers of people, at least. Everything else would follow. Or at least that's what they told us.
———————————————————————————
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.
Wow - THAT is a great image. Thanks for running it, Jon.
Posted by: terry dudas | June 01, 2017 at 05:19 PM
I wonder what exactly caused Phoenix to become an architectural desert?
Was it an almost universal disinterest in the art? Was it something like an extreme profit motive that shunned it as an extraneous cost? Was it the belief that the climate sold the place so buildings didn't need to have beauty and grace? A combination of all of the above? Or something else?
I think it's obvious that rogue has a sense of something forever lost, and I'm sure he agrees that Phoenix was a blank slate that could have been an esthetic masterpiece.
What happened?
Posted by: Bradley Dranka | June 01, 2017 at 08:05 PM
Brad,
I'm not sure I understand your question. I've written columns about Phoenix's architectural distinctiveness, as well as the urban fabric of old downtown. It was not an architectural desert.
To be sure, old Phoenix was not wealthy and populous during what to my mind were the greatest flowerings of architecture and urban design, from the late 19th century until the Great Depression. So it wasn't going to have the bones of a Cincinnati.
The city also came of age during the height of mid-century architecture and the auto age, as well as mass-production sprawl tract housing. The results are some delightful mid-cen modern structures, but spread out amid much dreariness. And once that architectural era passed, the fringes were mostly off-the-shelf stick built and tilt-up structures.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | June 01, 2017 at 08:49 PM
I recall something Will Bruder said some years back how Phoenix actually had some great buildings but that they were all several miles apart from one another.
Downtown Phoenix was memorialized best - and quite fittingly - in Hitchcock's Psycho. At the start, Janet Leigh is having a tryst with John Gavin in the semi-fleabag Hotel Jefferson. She decides to abscond with $40,000 from her job in the real estate-industrial complex. There in a nutshell is everything you need to know about Phoenix.
I saw this movie when I was 12 years old in downtown Phoenix and I haven't seen it whole since then. Why spoil a legend? I made that mistake with Vertigo and and the second time was like a trip to Eloy. I did reprise Orson Welles' Touch of Evil recently, and the eerie similarities to Psycho really jumped out: Janet Leigh, a disreputable motel in the middle of nowhere, and a screwball innkeeper, this one played by Dennis Weaver.
When I think about the good 'ol days and lost youth, I inevitably inventory the great things we once had. That's human nature, of course. Phoenix has a nice vibe back in the 1950s, but it was, if anything, sleazier than it is today. There's a reason to regret the homogenizing effects of a tightly-connected global economy for this reason. Local color will be the first casualty. This isn't just Phoenix's story. It's everywhere. Our hometowns once had unique character but it's all disappearing faster than we care to know. Phoenix will stake its claim to greatness in population stats and new housing starts. It's better than nothing but it's not enough to make the city interesting.
Posted by: soleri | June 02, 2017 at 07:58 AM
rogue, my questions relate to why all the dreariness exists. I'm just guessing artful and visual esthetics weren't high up on any builder's list(if they existed at all). In this sense, I'm probably am posing my questions about the larger structures, to which you've mentioned no real planning existed. This resulted in the divided skyline.
You have in previous columns related to the "make a quick buck" attitude that seemed prevalent during the boom. That may answer most of what I asked.
Posted by: Bradley Dranka | June 02, 2017 at 09:32 AM
Bradley-
Phoenix has also lost some great architecture to development. Without historic designations/protections minimal in Phoenix, older brick homes are stucco'd and painted as part of the current flip-this-house portfolio of Phoenix. Larger buildings, if not covered by a facade, require a tax-credit to keep developers from not opting for a cheap demo-and-build-new approach.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2016/11/02/phoenix-demolition-delay-wins-approval-circles-deal-gets-ok/93201842/
On a side note, I was researching the historic designation application for my neighborhood (it really has no teeth, unlike a Registered Historic Place, but you get the cute street signs) and it's funny to me to think about what will be historic in Phoenix in 50 years. Will I designate every other city block in Chandler because the cookie cutter McMansions still stand as a testament to "the architecture of the time"?
Posted by: blaxabbath | June 02, 2017 at 10:43 AM
Speaking of cities that start with a P.
Portland is looking pretty bad lately.
As I've said in past years, I'll take in your face racism any day over the insidious racism that lies just under the surface hiding under a false front.
Posted by: Ruben Perez | June 02, 2017 at 12:57 PM
Earth to Ruben: what kind of "insidious racism that lies just under the surface....." results in an openly racist right-winger (who had a long history of publicly demonstrating with people like him) haranguing two teenagers on a Portland train before slashing the throats of three white men for defending those teenagers? Were those men guilty of putting on a "false front"?
I eagerly await a similar display of courage from any Zonie. The degree of unconsciousness on the right is simply stunning.
Posted by: soleri | June 02, 2017 at 05:15 PM
Reality to soleri,
sorry buddy, everything is "super" in Portland, OR.
My mistake, I must have been thinking about Portland, Maine.
Enjoy your leftie delirium.
Posted by: Ruben Perez | June 02, 2017 at 05:53 PM
Bradley, another take architecture in the desert. I have over the years talked to a number of "artists" that say there is a lack of energy in Phoenix. They have told me that other cities seem to have an energy that Phoenix does not. They say there is a heaviness that seems to push downward on their creative spirit. I am not quite sure what that means as i know squat about art or architecture. But I do know that from Dubai to Seattle and back there seems to be a lot of "great (?) architecture".
Maybe the Sonoran desert was not meant to be invaded by developers and maybe the best erections are not man made. Maybe it is not architecture in the desert but the desert is architecture?
If you want to see what I think the artists might be feeling just visit the Sun Cities of the Valley of the Sun. Damn Depressing I think.
An example of how ugly a building can be in a great stand of the mighty Sajuaro. Look closely can you see the coyotee?
Kinda like the hidden rocking chair in a Baje Whitethorn painting.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=i5%2BTeHKh&id=58DA99865F53EC790A22072479D5DCBD96E3C536&thid=OIP.i5-TeHKhvdaxwjPDoHbBkQEsDI&q=tovrea+castle&simid=608033801436073175&selectedindex=1&mode=overlay&first=1
and
Some "great" monuments. (IMHO)
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=3TCKbPMr&id=B4C3266A4355C3565EE7064A4F753185FE81B03E&thid=OIP.3TCKbPMr-ayL0nMcd5L1VgEsDH&q=photos+of+south+mountain+phoenix+az&simid=607987531767154070&selectedIndex=19&ajaxhist=0
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=tgHnH3wE&id=0F963FAA91697E4DB8473B9704F5BBFAB75BDACC&thid=OIP.tgHnH3wEQDrVW65i_kc60gEsCo&q=photos+of+camelback+mountain+phoenix+az&simid=608016840605434225&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=wlw7iWgE&id=FBD2024B4ABF73DE71FE819A1212C62490680895&thid=OIP.wlw7iWgEYVlbRe7sCZmnZQEgDY&q=photos+of+superstition&simid=608039762864964787&selectedIndex=1&ajaxhist=0
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=1oIphp2T&id=330514BF50194922488AE4EFFBFA2519341BEE52&thid=OIP.1oIphp2TAUYYhjaRbAg2cQDfEs&q=White+Tank+Mountain+Regional+Park&simid=608055637054522723&selectedIndex=6&ajaxhist=0
Posted by: Cal Lash | June 02, 2017 at 05:57 PM
architecture and The pressing heat
A building boom and climate change create an even hotter, drier Phoenix
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-phoenix-climate-adapt-20170327-story.html
Climatologists have serious doubts that Phoenix will be habitable in the future: After 2050, it could easily become typical for temperatures to reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit or more
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/places-affected-by-climate-change_us_59319a7ee4b0c242ca2391d8?61z&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Posted by: Cal Lash | June 02, 2017 at 06:05 PM
Ruben, I know it's tough talking across the ideological divide, but you chose to bash a city for no better reason than smug know-nothingism. Three Portlanders behaved heroically before having their throats slit and it's proof to you that this city must be racist.
Please. Stop. Now.
The problem with low-information right-wingers is that they think tribally. Portland is one of those places that seems to be an affront to Real Americans. Therefore, find a reason to attack it even when it responded to an attack from one of their own in a way that actual patriotic Americans can be proud of.
Unlike most of life, there's no gray area here. I doubt even vermin like Sean Hannity would stoop to your level.
In case you missed it, here's Nick Kristof's beautiful eulogy: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/30/opinion/portland-train-attack-muslim.html?src=me
Posted by: soleri | June 02, 2017 at 06:06 PM
Cal, I can empathize with you about a big city in the Sonoran Desert.
But if the desert was to be despoiled, at least some thought should have occurred toward making that development aesthetically pleasing.
Sadly, aesthetics were seldom anywhere in the majority of developments in Phoenix. The sameness of it all was visually numbing and stupefying.
However, I never found great beauty in a big bank account.
Posted by: Bradley Dranka | June 02, 2017 at 10:44 PM
Banks are ugly places and we failed to take Jeffersons advice about banks. I repeat bankers run the world. There are only 5000 people in the world, Bankers. Everyone else is a commodity. Big banks remind me of big architecturally "beautiful" Church's.
They are both built on the backs of the poor.
Posted by: Cal Lash | June 02, 2017 at 11:24 PM
Sometimes, after reading some postings, here, I realize my brain is pretty limited.
My inferior intellectual abilities make me think Margaret Sanger may have been right.
Hey Ruben wanta join me in self deporting from the planet earth? "I hear there is a hell of a planet next door".
Posted by: Cal Lash | June 03, 2017 at 08:50 AM
Regarding the piece on the front pages about Trump, Putin and the state department. Trump an zputin have a lot of the sameness. Dictorial, Narrsistic, egotistical minds. But it's hard to miss the White in Russia and the Pale face in America.
Posted by: Cal Lash | June 03, 2017 at 08:59 AM
Big Towns: they come and go.
“Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear-the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break....I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness
Posted by: Cal Lash | June 03, 2017 at 11:29 AM
Cal, but what about the "rock heads" running the country? How long will they last under the "water torture" of rising sea level?
From global warming, we already have a "baking oven" scenario for Phoenix, which I hope will not happen, but I fear I have to defer to the scientists on that.
Posted by: Bradley Dranka | June 03, 2017 at 03:46 PM
Your ref. to article from Cap X on mergers is very interesting.I have just finished a book on Teddy Roosevelt and have been interested for a long time on why we allow mergers that are trusts that Roosevelt fought against.I have yet to find a single person who is happy with airline service even though prices have come down with mergers.The same seems to apply to all sectors of the economy -banks,cars,electronics,furniture,etc.Your view would be much appreciated .
Posted by: Mike Doughty | June 05, 2017 at 12:02 PM
Cal-much appreciate post on Abbey.You and I are closer to end than the beginning and isn't it a shame that people in charge don't appreciate that only the rocks and the sun are permanent.Come to think of it even the sun is going to end at some point.
Posted by: Mike Doughty | June 05, 2017 at 12:07 PM
Great post Jon, thank you. I'm intrigued by this statement:
"Even now, Phoenix has many characteristics of a small town, especially in power and power relationships."
You may have covered what you are talking about in a previous column, but could you clarify this? (or point me to the past column)
One thing I've been thinking about lately is the Council-Manager for of government (which Phoenix is the largest city with this type of government in the world) and its potentially unintended consequences in shaping what the city has become.
Posted by: Ex Phx Planner | June 05, 2017 at 12:19 PM
The desert: http://www.desicomments.com/wallpapers/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Sonoran-Desert-Image.jpg
You have to get over the color green; you have to quit associating beauty with gardens and lawns; you have to get used to an inhuman scale; you have to understand geological time.
Wallace Stegner
Posted by: Cal Lash | June 05, 2017 at 01:09 PM
Always glad to see you on the comments string, Ex Phx Planner.
In my experience, the power elite of Phoenix is a small group. Everybody knows each other. There's a subgroup in the East Valley. But in a similar-sized metro, it would be unusual to see such a small bunch.
Here's one partial compare-and-contrast: When I lived full-time in Phoenix, the most important people were the governor, mayor, and president of ASU. All on the public payroll. In Seattle, you'd have to go way down the list before you reached that. Private-sector moguls, city-focused developers, philanthropists of major means, civic stewards, activists with real power.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | June 05, 2017 at 04:50 PM
I just returned to Phoenix after almost a month in northern Italy and Slovenia, including a week in Milan.
While there I discovered the Frecciarossa (Red Arrow), Italy's "bullet train" that, for some reason, has not gotten the attention of the TGV in France or the Shinkansen in Japan. On one trip, we absolutely SCREAMED across northern Italy, Bologna to Milan, at 185 miles per hour. The Frecciarossa train was spit-and-polish clean and, of course, unbelievably FAST. We made it from Bologna to Milan in one hour flat. (A similar train from Phoenix to Los Angeles could make that trip in a little over two hours. That would beat the hassle of flying, or the long drive, and perhaps the thing could be at least partially powered by the abundant solar radiation along its route.)
Milan has 1,369,000 residents in the city proper, in about 70 square miles (Phoenix, about 1,550,000 in 517 square miles). Because of its compactness, Milan can provide an efficient and fast subway system supplemented by an extensive network of bus and light-rail lines. You can get everywhere. The city is also scooter- and bike-friendly.
The Po river valley, which we saw at first hand, is a rich and productive agricultural breadbasket. Unlike Phoenix, Milan's sprawl (and there is some) has not obliterated the agricultural powerhouse surrounding it.
All of this is just to say that there are better models than American sprawl for building viable and dynamic cities. Milan is not perfect -- it can be crowded and dirty -- but it also has a dynamism I find utterly lacking in Phoenix. In the evening, the residents engage in the custom of the
passeggiata -- filling the streets, eating, drinking, and interacting. The undercurrent of interpersonal hostility that so defines Americans seems to be lacking...
There are other ways to live than cosseted, isolated, and heavily armed in a suburban stucco-and-tile job, fearing your neighbor, and having to have a stable of cars just to get to work or shop for groceries.
Posted by: Joe Schallan | June 07, 2017 at 10:50 AM
Great comment from Joe Schallan.
I was in Milan and Turin a few years ago, and they are jewel-like by comparison to most American cities. We've paid a very steep price here in our social ecology by making cars necessary. It's probably one of the major reasons there is so much despair and anger in our country. People are frustrated and lonely and look for someone or the government to blame. Sadly, it's our cities that have dehumanized us. Cars ruin everything.
Posted by: soleri | June 07, 2017 at 02:14 PM
Thanks, soleri. It is interesting to look at Phoenix's urban landscape with fresh eyes and realize just how much square footage has been surrendered to the needs of the automobile. I have wondered just what percentage of a suburban square mile is taken up by heat-absorbing (and radiating) concrete and asphalt. A Google satellite view suggests that the number is high.
Posted by: Joe Schallan | June 07, 2017 at 04:12 PM
Joe, Phoenix is a disaster, figuratively speaking. And in the not-too-distant future, this disaster will be all-too literal.
I've made my peace with my hometown and wish it the best. It was never a great city but it did have certain balmy pleasures, like summer thunderstorms, citrus groves, and the stunning Sonoran desert that to my youthful eyes was the face of God. There were quirky characters, a fascinating history, and extraordinary optimism. That's almost all gone now and in its place are millions of people driving from one end of nowhere to the other.
America is a dying nation. Our sadness is not just the Rust Belt or Appalachia, however. It's everywhere. We're overfed and undernourished, angry and self-pitying, rootless and lost. We make up for our chronic unease with endless distractions but they can't disguise the emptiness in our souls. Our harbinger of decline is a reality TV star/president, utterly vacuous and consumed by cravings for sex, food, attention, and TV. That's America, too. We drove ourselves to this destiny in monster trucks until the roads dead-ended in a place somebody once loved.
Posted by: soleri | June 07, 2017 at 09:33 PM
Enjoying the discussion by Joe and Soleri.
I had an eye-opening experience similar to that of Joe - but in reverse - on a recent visit to the US from Tokyo.
It was a business trip that included a few east-coast cities. For scheduling flexibility I thought I might go "on-the- fly" by train from NY to Boston rather than book an airline ticket. That would be easy to do here in Japan. But it turned out to be impractical given the low frequency of service and that the trip would take almost 4 hours.
By comparison, the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagoya (about the same distance) takes less than 2 hours with departures every 10-15 minutes. Both stations are easily accessible by local subway and other mass transit, and you can buy tickets on the spot (including from vending machines). For short-haul trips the Shinkansen is very competitive with air travel, which is just great for travelers.
We should encourage more of our fellow Americans to travel outside the country to see what they're missing and judge for themselves.
Posted by: Steve in Tokyo | June 08, 2017 at 01:28 AM
Quite an elegy and eulogy, soleri, and one with which I have to agree, with sadness.
Posted by: Joe Schallan | June 09, 2017 at 01:39 PM
Rogue and ex-Phx Planner:
IMHO the problem is that greater Phoenix lacks aggressive private-sector champions. That leaves even charter cities at the mercy of the legislature. Given the youth of the Valley, we lack multigenerational business dynasties. We also lack Silicon Valley hipster billionaire types. Jerry Colangelo did great things for the City, but he's one guy, and a transplant at that. We're nobody's company town. Our business community is both undersized and disproportionately comprised of companies content with a high growth, low wage, bad education economy. So, there is no pressure on the GOP-dominated state government to change course. Jon Kul was the last senator to do anything for his home state, and since the CAP we've gotten hardly any pork. We've been lucky just to keep Like. The least of our problems is the absence of big-city politics on Arizona's cities and towns.
Posted by: Chris Thomas | June 10, 2017 at 08:47 PM
Bradley--
As Rogue has written about elsewhere, in addition to lack of preservation, much of the problem is that many of Phoenix's largest buildings were not built until after the Beaux Arts and Art Deco periods. A disproportionate number of noticeable buildings in Phoenix (for instance what is now Chase Tower, 1972) were not constructed until e erroneous was designing and building ugly and/or brutalist things. Phoenix has some perfectly lovely buildings, like the old Professional Building immediately south of Chase Tower (now a hotel whose name escapes me with Nook restaurant. Dallas and Los Angeles have similar problems, architecturally. Phoenix had the misfortune to grow up in the 1970s, when everyone's taste in everything sucked. Check out the Billboard Top 40 from 1878 if you really want to be depressed.
Posted by: Chris Thomas | June 11, 2017 at 07:58 AM