Cities, past and future

Downtown Cincinnati at night, seen from across the Ohio River.

A reader asked me to write about what Phoenix might learn from cities in the Midwest. It’s a challenging assignment, also one freighted with paradox considering so many Phoenicians come from the same region. Nevertheless, I'll put my shoulder to the wheel.

I lived in Cincinnati when I worked for the Cincinnati Enquirer in the 1990s. Churchill called it America's most beautiful inland city decades before and I found it the same when I was there. So, this puts me in a position to examine advantages, challenges, and lessons. Like all Midwestern cities, Cincinnati is much older than Phoenix. It was founded in 1788, named after the Society of the Cincinnati, Revolutionary War veterans honoring the Roman general offered the dictatorship of Rome, but went back to his farm. He was an apt comparison to George Washington. Cincinnati was the Queen City of the West, although the West moved on.

It has numerous advantages. Cincinnati is built on hills rolling down to the Ohio River, distinctive neighborhoods, a dense downtown, architecture jewels such as Union Terminal (above right) — now mostly a museum center but also served by Amtrak — Over the Rhine which is a National Urban Historic Landmark, and major corporate headquarters, including Procter and Gamble whose offices are downtown.

Cincinnati's numerous cultural institutions are crowned by music: The Cincinnati Symphony, Cincinnati Pops, Chamber Orchestra, May Festival, and the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music. In addition to UC, Cincinnati offers other universities in and near the city, including Miami, my graduate alma mater and one of the original "Public Ivies."

Phoenix, incorporated a century later, enjoys almost none of these advantages. It is home to only one real university. Although its Historic Districts are distinctive and lovely, most of the city lacks real neighborhoods. Mostly, it consists of tract houses in massive "master planned communities" or linear slums aging badly. Ahwatukee today is Maryvale of a half-century ago, it just doesn't know it. Most of what made Phoenix magical, such as the Japanese flower gardens, has been demolished for sprawl. Phoenix's supersize suburbs often constitute a "veto elite" against the city and move many of its assets to the suburban fringes.

But Phoenix also lacks many of Cincinnati’s challenges. The Queen City of the West suffered white flight for decades. As of 2020, 40% of the city’s population is African-American, largely poor and uneducated, confined to ghettos such as Over the Rhine. OTR was the center of the 2001 riot, although attempts to bring back the neighborhood continue. The poverty rate is nearly 25%, which includes the Appalachian "briers" who came for factory jobs that no longer exist. (You can get a good grasp of all this in my novel, Powers of Arrest).

Phoenix has light rail (WBIYB), while Hamilton County voted down a proposal in Cincinnati, leaving it to build only one modern streetcar line. (Cincinnati attempted to build a subway but it was stillborn because of World War I, lack of political will, and bad timing).

And while Cincinnati has made a remarkable comeback in recent years, it offers Phoenix a cautionary lesson. At the turn of the 20th century, Cincinnati was America's 10th most populous city. Phoenix didn't make the Census Bureau’s list of 100 most populous cities until 1950. Having large numbers of people is no guarantee of success, no matter how many other attributes a city boasts.

Still, Cincinnati is one of my adopted home towns and perhaps the one I love most.

Looking southeast toward downtown. The Art Deco Carew Tower is tallest, part of a complex that includes the Netherland Plaza Hotel.

Downtown's Fountain Square at night with the Tyler-Davidson Fountain. Even many natives don’t know it's called The Genius of Water.

Another locale that offers lessons is situated between the traditional Midwest and where the Great Plains begin: Oklahoma City.

Downtown OKC seen circa 1960.

Oklahoma City was incorporated in 1890, nine years after Phoenix, after the famous land run opened up Oklahoma and Indian territories to white settlers. Oklahoma became a state in 1907, five years before Arizona was admitted to the union. OKC became the state capital soon after, having surpassed Guthrie, the territorial capital, in population.

Unlike Phoenix, Oklahoma City grew fast. It's more than 64,000 people in 1910 compared with Phoenix's 11,314. And OKC was rich, thanks to being in the oil patch. It was served by four major railroads when Phoenix only had a branch to Maricopa on the Southern Pacific. It was famously a stop on Route 66, immortalized in song. OKC was also a major distribution hub for the region.

As a result, Oklahoma City's downtown boasted far more skyscrapers of varying styles than Phoenix in the golden age of Art Deco and the City Beautiful Movement:

Many of these were demolished in the 1970s under the I.M. Pei plan of urban renewal, something meant to spark new developments but destruction of so many priceless buildings so grievous that even the famous architect came to regret it. Fortunately, many were saved.

This is a Republican city in a deep-red state. However, OKC embarked on an ambitious plan beginning in the late 1990s to revive its downtown called the Metropolitan Area Projects (MAPS). Voters agreed to tax themselves to restore the city's central core.

MAPS included renovating historic buildings such as the Skirvin Plaza Hotel, adding a baseball park and new library, arena for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the NBA, channeling the North Canadian River (renamed the Oklahoma River) for recreation, and turning the overhead downtown freeway into a boulevard. MAPS has more than paid for itself and brought in large amounts of private investment, including the 844-foot-tall Devon Energy Center, headquarters of the oil company.

The crown jewel is Bricktown. This had become blocks of derelict warehouses no longer served by the railroads. Now, it's an entertainment and residential district that draws people from across the state:

Phoenix has demolished most of its historic patrimony and lost almost all corporate headquarters in the central core. So make of this what you will in the lessons category. Oh, and this red city and state provides support for a daily Amtrak train connecting Oklahoma City with Fort Worth and the wider Amtrak network. Phoenix remains the most populous city in North America with no intercity passenger trains.

Meanwhile, news comes that investors have spent nearly a billion dollars assembling land northeast of San Francisco, near Travis Air Force Base. Why? One possibility was reported by the Los Angeles Times:

But a possible clue into the limited liability company’s plans did emerge last week, in the form of a then-anonymous survey residents in Solano County started receiving via text messages. Screenshots of the poll were shared with The Times.

It sought to gauge respondents’ support for a potential 2024 ballot initiative that would “allow a major new project to be built in the eastern part of Solano County,” including: “a new city with tens of thousands of new homes, a large solar energy farm, orchards with over a million new trees, and over ten thousand acres of new parks and open space.”

This reminds me of the hoopla surrounding Bill Gates' purchase of land near Phoenix a few years ago. Would it become a new high-tech city? Alas, no. The northern California project might be more likely.

But that takes me back to cities in the Midwest. We don't need new cities with magical thinking of electric cars, high-speed internet, and open space. Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and, yes, Cincinnati show what makes for beautiful, walkable, enchanting cities.

The "new" that's lacking is more intercity passenger trains, local light rail, subways, and commuter trains, modern streetcars, and especially high-speed rail.

It's not hard. We simply lack the political will to do great things today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Cal Lash]

Yes!

[Cal Lash]

Water and Bill Gates.
When Gates invested in property near Tonopah and Wickenburg he bought into the rights of one of the five (5) best Arizona Aquifers. Generally called the Toyota Aquifer.
Cincinnati was established by removing natives and the Construction of Fort Washington. A product of Manifest Destiny. Prior to that it was a great Roadless Wilderness. Today it strives to erase the rusting chaos built by White Europeans. The rats are fat.

Oklahoma city grew out of the 1889 "Land Run."
More European Manifest Destiny folks shoved hard on a number of indeginous tribes to create a 90 percent Protestant Oklahoma City.

Where nature once ruled.
Ayn Rand now dominates the landscape.

God bless $

[eclecticdog]

Poor Ahwatukee. They will not realize it until it’s too late. Will the bell-weather be Citizens of Color moving into decaying rentals? Where will the current residents flee too? That California dream that requires yet more water? I met a railroad man from NYC and he was shocked by the lack of rail for commuters. AZ will spend billions to widen the 60 and 17, get the 11, but not one penny to expand light rail. No learning occurs in our corporate political class.

[AzRebel]

"Having large numbers of people is no guarantee of success, no matter how many attributes a city boasts."

Bingo!

Your view of cities is tainted by "your view of the past 70 years". That world no longer exists. The HUMANS have changed and not for the better.

The best example I can give you is Soleri. He moved, at the time, to what I considered one of the best cities in the country and the world in which to live. His experience after moving to Portland broke my heart. The physical attributes of Portland didn't change, the HUMANS did.

Can we have nice things in this country anymore? I don't know? Ask the nearest MAGA moron you can find.

To hell with COVID. We need to find a cure for MAGA if we are to move forward.

[Azrebel]

I should note that liberalism run amok damaged Portland, place blame where it belongs. What does MAGA and liberalism amok have in common, ignorant, uneducated HUMANS.

[Cal Lash]

Flagstaff has grown but still not to the point of erasing the landscape.
Sedona has virtually been destroyed by commercialism gone mad. Particularly Resorts and humans polluting Oak Creek but plenty of Starbucks.
Prescott Valley has been bladed to Ugly and in Prescott its nearly impossible to get septic and sewer permit. But the White escapees keep coming and the native tribes and the mob grow stronger everyday fleecing the near dead inhabitants as they pull the slot machine handles.
But its still a nice ride from Prescott Granite Dells to Jerome either way. And a nice drive to Williams. Where due to a severe lack of water they have built an amusement park?
Yep the priests and the preachers came and the Buffalo disappeared. Europeans brought us civilization and salvation and the 2024 election.

[Cal Lash]

Comon Soleri. I know your out there watching, listening and helping pickup Portlands garbage strewn streets.
And you will be able to intelligently attack my old man negative mumbling rants posted here.

[Helen]

Soylent Green is fifty years old cal , you future cracker snack.

[Cal Lash]

Helen, cooking again. The pots boiling.
Soylent Green was a poorly done film.
It needs a Malthuan remake.
And add some salt.

[Rich Weinroth]

Jon, I recently started reading various posts on Substack and I subscribe to a few Substacks and pay for one (the Bulwark). I think you should consider starting a Substack on various city and development issues. Lot's of interesting stuff there and it's a work in progress.

[Cal Lash]

I recieve six or seven substack listings everyday.
Three i pay for to get the whole story. $50 to $60 bucks for a year.

[Diane D'Angelo]

"It's not hard. We simply lack the political will to do great things today."

"Where nature once ruled.
Ayn Rand now dominates the landscape."

Two winners, Gentlemen.

[Cal Lash]

"Political Will"
I agree
But have felt for sometime now that a pestilence of ignorance prevails on the human landscape.

[Joe]

A quick search shows that a train trip between Maricopa and Chicago costs $292 with Amtrak on the Texas Eagle and it takes around 54 hours. A flight on that same day costs $159 and it takes 3.5 hours. I somehow doubt trains are the solution for linking cities in the future.

[Superchief]

Jon was borned in the wrong century, as were many of us. Ain’t no fixing that. Best form of transportation for me is on horseback. See the countryside, enjoy the weather. Ain’t got time for city slickers. They live in filth, drugs, dirty air, crowded like rats. Ain’t no way to live.

[Rogue Columnist]

Amtrak must charge high fares because Congress insists it "break even" in order to receive its subsidy. Yet every form of transportation is subsidized by the taxpayers, especially airlines and airports.

Intercity passenger trains are especially effective between city pairs or in corridors, such as the Amtrak Cascade service between Eugene, Oregon, to Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, B.C. Kansas City-St. Louis, St. Louis-Chicago, Chicago-Milwaukee, Chicago-Detroit, not to mention the busy Northeast Corridor.

Amtrak is very popular. I've ridden it across the country and back. The vacation begins the moment you take your seat. Passenger trains are also much better for the climate than flying or driving.

America is the only advanced, urbanized nation on the planet without high-speed rail. China alone has built 25,000 miles of it.

We're so backward, but Americans don't get out much.

[Cal Lash]

In defense of trains:

Joe thanks for bringing up a favorite subject: FASTER.

As a youngster I recall hearing the word fast but it wasn't about speed but food. We were poor.
Later i learned fast was about horse races and dirt track stock car races.
And then in the boys locker rooms i heard talk of fast females and how one guy was so fast he fould change hands and not loose a stroke.

Then technology took over FAST.

Moores Law; You are probably old enough to know the rest

Frontier Super fast computer does 2 quintillons per second.
And uses 6000 gallons of water per mintue.

Given earths 8 billon humans flying becomes problematic for a number of reasons. Mostly resource reasons, (besides i think flying is unnatural-i dont fly but then i don't watch tv?)
So to move large numbers of people not worried about FAST and don't mind reading and taking naps and cant afford to fly. Railroads become a better solution for this RAPIDLY changing planet.

So Joe until we invent some Star Trek mojo for moving us i support more rails.
Slow down the pace
Take a break and take longer than 10 mintues to do the
NY Times Crossword.

Ps, sad but i outlived my pool hustling buddy, FAST EDDY.

[Cal Lash]

The NY Times has a good article on "Salt Lake wants to be like Austin.

[Joe]

Airline revenues continue to be one of the most thin of all industries in the US. They are also one of the most highly taxed in the US. I've ridden Amtrak in the US, trains in Europe and trains in China and Korea as well as Hong Kong. If you believe we should subsidize trains because "The vacation begins the moment you take your seat", fair enough. I think that emerging forms of transport will relegate trains to the dust bin, like horse buggies a century ago.

[Cal Lash]

Joe sadly i agree with you.
But i probably will not make it to see the "Transporter" era.

Since you have sought transportation around the planet do you have some thoughts on other rail systems including high speed trains.
Whay about Chinas High Speed train system?

[Cal Lash]

But then if Edward Abbey got it right in his novel,
the "Good News"
we may return to horseback.

[Joe]

The Maglev train in China is amazing. It is fast but the distance traveled is only about 20 miles or so. In Shanghai the trains are efficient. The thing I remember about those is that there is no "bounce back" if you try to get the doors to remain open. That was disconcerting! In China I also had to attempt to read Chinese in my attempt to navigate the transit system. It is both bewildering and a lot of fun at the same time.

[Cal Lash]

Joe, it seems Passanger trains are somewhat of a non starter in the US. Something about cars and pavement.
In China there are 20000 miles of passenger trains connecting many cities and provinces including Beijing to Moscow.
Trains that exceed a 100 miles per hour.
India has many miles of passenger trains and of course so does Europe.
I see the US continuing to throw down asphalt. The concrete minds in Arizona will continue to pave the way to hell.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

@Joe, in transportation the fact that 19th century technology continues to transport passengers safely, efficiently and effectively is an argument for its continued existence, not its obsolescence.

Transportation communities have terms for technology hype: gadgetbahn. Most emerging transportation technologies are magic beans.

Transit planner Jarrett Walker articulates that all transportation is fundamentally a geometry problem.

https://humantransit.org/2016/07/elon-musk-doesnt-understand-geometry.html

https://humantransit.org/2011/03/how-universal-is-transits-geometry.html

After geometry is the engineering problem. At the theoretical level, engineering is a balance of cost, complexity and scale. Technology, at best, can reduce costs, simplify tasks or scale up production and consumption in a network but doesn't render underlying theories obsolete.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

@Rogue, you seem to have omitted the California corridors from effective city pairs. Nationally, LOSSAN (Pacific Surfliner, particularly L.A. to San Diego), Capitol Corridor (Sacramento-Oakland-San Jose) and San Joaquin (Bakersfield-Oakland) are the No. 2, 3 and 5 busiest corridors in the U.S. The fourth is the Cascades (west central Oregon-Portland-Seattle-Canadian border).

California has a business arrangement with Amtrak. The state purchases train service from Amtrak on contract, which is why California has multiple trips per train instead of one thrice-weekly or once daily train. The trains are marketed as Amtrak services and count toward Amtrak's national ridership even though the ridership stays entirely within the state.

California also boosts its train ridership by its extensive Thruway bus network. Amtrak buys very nice motorcoaches and subleases them to private charter bus companies. This helps to solve the small-town, rural access issue, as well as the getting to San Francisco problem (San Francisco is on a peninsula and there's only one way in, and it's south, and Caltrain commuter rail service takes up all the slots).

[Cal Lash]

Interesting. I

[DoggieCombover]

I would take a train to Europe if I could, before engaging the entire air travel fiasco. Crammed into a tube with sick, crazy, drunk people is no way to travel.

I recently took my first Waymo ride (no driver)--eerily cool. It was an electric Jaguar, clean, modern and efficient. The vehicle made perfect square turns, was perfectly centered in its lane, and accelerated to the speed limit in a second or two with no real sensation of acceleration it was so smooth. After a brief intro by the disembodied voice, music selections were available on the screen.

After the ride, I remarked I'd never use Lyft/Uber again if this service was available. No getting in a vehicle that smells like smoke, including weed smoke, no distracted driver trying to watch a navigation screen while speeding to get you out of there so they can do the next ride.

[DoggieCombover]

I would take a train to Europe if I could, before engaging the entire air travel fiasco. Crammed into a tube with sick, crazy, drunk people is no way to travel.

I recently took my first Waymo ride (no driver)--eerily cool. It was an electric Jaguar, clean, modern and efficient. The vehicle made perfect square turns, was perfectly centered in its lane, and accelerated to the speed limit in a second or two with no real sensation of acceleration it was so smooth. After a brief intro by the disembodied voice, music selections were available on the screen.

After the ride, I remarked I'd never use Lyft/Uber again if this service was available. No getting in a vehicle that smells like smoke, including weed smoke, no distracted driver trying to watch a navigation screen while speeding to get you out of there so they can do the next ride.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

New York Times ran this well-done opinion video about gadgetbahn technologies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/opinion/elon-musk-boring-loop.html

It's by Adam Kovacs, who narrates it in a Hungarian accent.

[Ruben]

Doggie, Does an electric Jaguar spend as much time in the repair garage as its gas cousin?

To the rest, exactly what "gadgets" will help 7,500,000 people (Phoenix projected population in 2050) exist in a shrinking water supply, rising heat climate? I'm a SciFi guy. Humor me. Underground city. Reroute northwest rivers to Phoenix. Drag a giant iceberg up to Rocky Point and pipe the melting water to Phoenix.

[Cal Lash]

Ruben: Dune Part 2. Film.

Google Gizmodo for "After Dune, you'll never think about water the same way again."

[Cal Lash]

In the news.
Europe and India plan for more railroad

[Helen Highwater]

PROBATE - When the little people scrimp and save to pass along a token amount of value to their heirs, PROBATE insures that the state and the lawyers end up with 99% of the proceeds and passes along the one percent to the future little people.

PROBATE: See enema.

P.S. Cal, this is why I don't want you to leave your home on wheels to me. All I'll end up with is a spark plug.

[Cal Lash]

I'll try and take
you off my will
before the 27th.

[The Sad One]

Since the literate populace of this country, for 100 years, took the warnings of “1984” to be of no concern, we now find ourselves surrounded by an illiterate majority who will march us all into an age of disinformation
, corruption and the death of democracy.

“If history is deprived of the Truth, we are left with nothing but an idle, unprofitable tale.”
-Polybius

[Cal Lash]

Sad One: YEP.
A few took Orwell seriously.

Back in the Sixties i thought Malthus made a good point or two.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

@The Sad One, one of the big problems with people who've read "1984" is that they've taken the wrong lessons of it.

The superficial moral of "1984" is that government surveillance is bad.

The deeper moral of "1984" is for citizens to think critically and retain the right to use their imaginations. Big Brother, an ecosystem of high-tech totalitarianism, is terrifying.

However, Oceania (and implicitly Eastasia and Eurasia) had a very low-technology form of effective tyranny. They used an emaciated language that rendered their civilizations incapable of thinking or communicating anything beyond basic phrases or sentiments. Those who were capable of higher-order reasoning were incorporated into the inner party and encouraged to use their imaginations to oppress the lessers.

[Cal Lash]

Thanks. I always wondered where she went.