Rogue Columnist

The plot against light rail

This is the reality of Phoenix's light-rail system: nearly 16 million passengers carried in the most recent fiscal year; expansion of the original 20-mile starter line to 26 miles; an essential link between ASU's Tempe and downtown campuses; 30 percent of riders use the train for work; large numbers use it to reach sporting events; $11 billion in private and public investment has occurred along the line since 2008.

Light rail has also proved essential in giving Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa a fighting chance in an era where talented young people and high-quality companies want to be in city cores served by rail transit.

None — not one — of the hysterical predictions of opponents to light rail came true.

No wonder that voters backed light rail in three elections, in 2000, 2004, and 2015. We built it.

But destructive forces never sleep, never stop. Backed by dark money — including the Koch brothers and their nationwide war on transit — here comes Proposition 105 in the Aug. 27th special election. As is often the case, it's presented as an affirmative to deliberately confuse voters. "Vote yes!" hoping some will think they are supporting rail transit by marking that line. Signs say, "Yes on 105. Fix our roads" — but this has nothing to do with fixing roads; that's a different budget and roads are being fixed.

Don't fall for it. Vote no on Prop. 105 and its devilish companion, Prop. 106.

Big preservation alert

The most precious treasure of old downtown Phoenix is in flux. This could provide the city a long-overdue opportunity. Or it could go sideways in a hurry. I'm writing, of course, about Union Station.

According to CBRE, the big real-estate services firm "has been retained as exclusive representative to offer qualified investors the opportunity to purchase fee interest in the iconic...Union Station site in downtown Phoenix at 401 W. Harrison Street." It goes on, "Depending on the vision of a new owner, the Property may be eligible for a myriad of monetary and tax advantaged programs..."

Sprint, which has used the station to house switching equipment since the late 1980s, intends to move out before the end of next year. The Union Pacific Railroad's ground lease ends in March 2023, a century after the building was completed. Now what?

One of the most popular columns on this site is my history of Union Station (with photos) — you can read it here. The Spanish revival building brought together the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railroads in one full-service station. Three years after its completion, the SP finished its northern main line and routed most of its passenger trains through Phoenix. The city was served by multiple intercity trains a day through the 1960s.

The last Amtrak train called here in 1996. The state refused to partner with the SP (merged with Union Pacific the same year) to maintain the west line between Phoenix and Wellton to passenger-train standards. Phoenix became the largest American city by far with no intercity rail service. Sprint — which was started by the SP — using the depot for switching equipment helped protect and save it. Being on the National Register of Historic Places wouldn't have stopped Joe Arpaio's jail-building mania and other losses in the Warehouse District. Mesa lost its lovely SP depot to arson...no one cared.

Who will care now?

The Post Office

A conversation on one of the Phoenix history pages of Facebook got me thinking about the thousands of cuts that bled downtown nearly to death. It was about the old Main Post Office at Central and Fillmore, now mostly used by ASU but contained some incomplete or wrong information. Still, a useful jumping off point.

Back in 2013, I wrote a three-part series entitled "What Killed Downtown" (see here, here, and here). It's still the gold standard on the subject. But the tale of the Post Office illuminates it in microcosm.

This lovely Spanish-revival building was completed in 1936, designed by Lescher & Mahoney, the architects responsible for many of Phoenix's finest buildings. Among them are the Orpheum Theater, Brophy College Chapel, El Zariba Shrine Auditorium (former home to the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum), Phoenix Title and Trust Building (today's Orpheum Lofts), Hanny's, and the Palms Theater.

It was planned in the 1920s to replace the Post Office segment of the old Federal Building in the government block at Van Buren and First Avenue. With Sen. Carl Hayden's backing, it was originally intended to be six stories tall and closer to the central business district. But because of expensive land, the site was move north across from the new Westward Ho and the height was lowered. Building it was among the myriad federal projects that lifted Phoenix out of the Great Depression.

The oasis, in photos I

My mother told me I was "a city kid" and a "desert rat." She was right about the first, but not the second. I was a child of the oasis, growing up in what are now the historic districts north of downtown and in the old city.

It's almost all gone now. Every time I'm back in Phoenix, I am struck my how ugly it is, especially with the proliferation of skeleton trees and heat-radiating gravel in places they should not be. If this is the price paid to accommodate ever-expanding sprawl, it's a devil's bargain, a short hustle. With the enormous numbers of newcomers and population churn, people don't even know what has been lost.

One of the most heartbreaking losses was the Japanese flower gardens along Baseline Road.(above). An agricultural trust could have prevented it. But the feral greed to replace it with faux Spanish-Tuscan crapola was too much to overcome.

A reminder: Phoenix is at or near the convergence of five rivers in the world's wettest desert. Scores of shade trees are native. With the alluvial soil of the Salt River Valley, anything will grow here.

But as on the national level (only 26,000 history majors now), the loss of memory is a dangerous thing. Milan Kundera, the Czech novelist, wrote that the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. Thanks especially to the priceless McCulloch Bros. Collection at the ASU archives, we can struggle. I only wish more of these images were in color.

Here are a few views of authentic Phoenix. Click on an image for a larger view:

More destruction...

They've been cutting down the historic shade trees that lined Cotton Lane in the far west valley, probably in anticipation of widening the road. More of authentic Phoenix...gone. Thanks to Joe Velasquez‎ for the photo.

 

 

Downtown living

Most of the historical photos on this site show the rise of a handsome small city, with commercial buildings, stores, churches, and warehouses.

But single-family houses and apartments proliferated in and near the original townsite even as monuments such as the Heard Building and Luhrs Tower rose. People were living downtown before it became desirable again in recent years. Above are the Dennis and Jacobs Mansions on Monroe between Second and Third Streets along "Millionaires Row," built in the 1890s. They were demolished in the 1950s for surface parking lots.

Rosson House, restored in Heritage Square, was designed by architect George Franklin Barber — he sold his designs by mail order. It was completed in 1895 at 139 N. Sixth Street. The Stevens-Haustgen Bungalow is nearby, also restored.

Most of the residences downtown were more modest. For example, the 1935 City Directory shows homes for Mrs. Della Jeanette at 129 S. Third Avenue, Mr. Samuel Lopez at 133 S., and Mr. Nestor Chavez at 333 S. Third Ave. Some were businesses where the owners lived on an upper floor. But others were simple, single-story houses gradually giving way to the expanding Warehouse District. The same is true along south Second Street, including parts of Chinatown, connected by Madison and Jackson streets, Gold and Paris alleys.

Phoenix and skyscrapers

Valley Center, now the Chase Tower, under construction in 1972. At 483 feet, it remains the city's tallest building.

The Republic recently ran a story to answer the question of why Phoenix lacks the skyscrapers that are one defining characteristic of other big cities. One of the problems of a place with so many newcomers is the loss of historical knowledge. So the story was, at best, incomplete.

The two big reasons given were automobile-based sprawl and a "polycentric" city with many cores. But both apply to other cities with much higher and more distinctive downtown skylines. Los Angeles comes to mind. It has "downtowns" in Century City, West LA, and Hollywood. It is a city built around the car, although it has rebuilt an extensive rail transit system.

But downtown LA, which is staging an astonishing comeback, is home to an impressive skyline. The Wilshire Grand, finished in 2017 and standing 1,100 feet with its spire is more than twice as tall as Phoenix's Chase Tower. The same is true of the U.S. Bank Tower, completed in 1989. About 28 skyscrapers there are taller than Chase.

Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and Charlotte have cheaper outlying land and sprawl, but each has a much more impressive skyline than Phoenix.

One big reason downtown Phoenix lacks taller buildings is its proximity to Sky Harbor International Airport. Valley National Bank wanted its new headquarters to be even taller, but the plan was quashed by the FAA. Sky Harbor is not much closer to downtown than Logan airport to downtown Boston, but Logan's runways primarily run southwest to northeast. In Phoenix, the runways are east-to-west and airplanes usually fly directly south of downtown. Gaining altitude means expending more jet fuel, especially in summer. And Sky Harbor has enormous influence at city hall. This has prevented doable towers at a higher number of floors at Third Avenue and Van Buren and further west.

Phoenix's historic theaters

Today's Valdemar A. Cordova Municipal Court Building occupies the site of young Phoenix's first major theater, the Patton Grand, which opened in 1898. The new motion-picture industry was just getting started, so the theater hosted a variety of events such as plays and concerts.

It was also a point of pride in a town with a population of 5,544, which had made it through the national financial panics and local droughts and floods that characterized that decade. The theater sat 1,200 people. It also boasted hefty backstage spaces, based on the photo above, with room for curtains, lighting, and scenery.

E.M. Dorris, of the prominent merchant family, bought the theater at the end of 1899. It became the Dorris Opera House, the name by which most old Phoenicians and history buffs know it. Until the completion of the Phoenix Union High School Auditorium, the Dorris was the heartbeat of civic events, from traveling musicians, plays, and speakers, to political and union gatherings. It then settled in as a movie theater.

But, at Third Avenue and Washington, it was only one of many movie houses within walking distance of the city center or the streetcars. Let's take a stroll to some of them.

Mayor Gallego

Kate Gallego is the first mayor of Phoenix in 20 years who I don't know personally. That has disadvantages and advantages. The downside: I haven't spent hours over coffee or in city hall getting tips, sharing gossip, and taking the individual's measure. On the other hand, she's pretty much a blank slate to me, which allows me to see her totally from the perspective of an outsider.

All I know is what I read in the newspapers, and from Phoenix insiders, to paraphrase Will Rogers. She's not the first woman mayor of Phoenix — that distinction goes to Margaret Hance (and Thelda Williams was interim mayor). She's young — 37. She's smart, because she went to Harvard and everyone who's been touched by crimson is smart, or so we're told. On the Council, she supported transit but, wrongly to my mind, opposed upgrades to keep the Phoenix Suns downtown. Gallago is a relative newcomer. Otherwise, she's an unknown commodity.

The last time Phoenix had such a young mayor was the four years of Paul Johnson, who was in his early thirties when he took office in 1990. It was an unhappy tenure. Phoenix was hit with its worst recession since the 1930s and most projects from a big bond issue, which had been passed in the Goddard years, had to be postponed or downsized (one being a new City Hall). How much of this had to do with Johnson's youth is debatable — he was dealt a bad hand and to many did the best he could — but his relative lack of experience hurt him. To be extra fair, Terry Goddard was an impossible act to follow.

Tucson, Microsoft, etc.

The Tucson Festival of Books has come a long way over the past decade. In a state where cultural institutions struggle, literature-loving is low, and in a city that punches way below its weight, one of the nation's premier book events has blossomed. I was honored to be there again earlier this month, on author panels and signing my books.

This is a bad look for Phoenix, as the hep cats say now. The state's population, economic, and governmental center of gravity cedes such a prize to a city it otherwise rarely even thinks about? Sadly for Phoenix, yes. Several years of festivals at the Carnegie Library never took off. Efforts to go big went nowhere.

In the Old Pueblo, the Arizona Daily Star, then led by my friend John Humenik, developer Bill Viner, and Frank Farias of the University of Arizona went big right from the start. The festival is held on the central mall of the UA, whose support has been essential. But so has that of the newspaper — something never forthcoming in Phoenix — and a growing array of corporate and individual donors, hotels and small businesses. The Tucson Medical Center is a major sponsor.

Admission is free. Helped by an army of volunteers, everything runs smoothly. The Festival treats its many authors very well. The CSPAN bus, always the sign of a prestigious book event, was there both days. What a gem for Tucson. And a treat for Phoenicians, if one can stand the Ugliest Drive in America (and mourn the passenger trains we once enjoyed between the two cities and beyond).

ASU Empire

Arizona State University President Michael Crow recently wrote an op-ed pushing back against the Republic's libertarian/"Goldwater" Institute columnist on funding for higher education. Crow wrote in part:

The Arizona Constitution is clear — public schools will be free and universities will be as close to free as possible. It is also clear in the Constitution that the state will use tax revenue to support the universities and to maintain them. But that’s not where we are today. In 2019, we have evolved to the point where nearly 90 percent of the financial support and maintenance of the university comes from sources other than the state.

And:

ASU is one of the most efficient universities in the country. Yet, with our mission of making tuition affordable and the limited state investment we still have a shortfall of $225 million per year to educate resident students. We subsidize the cost of their education through other means, including out-of-state and international student tuition.

If anything, Crow pulled his punches. Arizona's low funding for universities is a scandal decades in the making, as the Legislature paid for tax cuts in part by continually reducing general fund money for higher ed and slashing funding that was never replaced. This has had a profound effect on hurting the state's competitiveness, as well as its constitutionally mandated promise to in-state students. I'd love to see a lawsuit over this.

But under Crow's leadership, ASU has worked around the Kooks to build an empire.

Block 23, a history

The first downtown Phoenix grocery in decades is scheduled to open in October, part of a mixed-used project that will also include 330 apartments. This will be a major test for the revived central core. I've been skeptical as to whether demand exists — Bashas' passed on the store during the Great Recession — but maybe ASU, more downtown residents, and proximity to light rail (WBIYB) will make the difference. Fry's is owned by Kroger, which wouldn't undertake such an enterprise without a good chance of success.

This is located on Block 23 of the original half-mile Phoenix townsite, laid out by William Hancock, one of the town's most influential citizens and friend of Jack Swilling, in 1870. Two parcels were set aside for public uses. One was Block 76, located between Washington and Jefferson and Cortes and Mohave streets, and Block 23 between Washington and Jefferson and Montezuma and Maricopa streets.

The former was designated for the county courthouse square. Block 23 was labeled "plaza," for municipal uses. In a turn of the 20th century renaming of streets, Cortes and Mohave became First and Second avenues. Montezuma and Maricopa became First and Second streets. In 1879, some 400 Phoenicians gathered on Block 23 to witness the hanging of two murderers.

Mean streets

I lost a good friend this week. John Bouma, the longtime managing partner of Snell and Wilmer and a towering figure among Phoenix lawyers, was struck and killed by two vehicles in the 7500 block of north Seventh Street. It was night. Maybe he strayed into the street to retrieve a lost item. The investigation is ongoing. He was first hit by a 2017 Toyota Tacoma, which apparently then threw him into the path of a 2017 Jeep Patriot.

Bouma and I had very different politics. But, brought together by the late Jack August, we enjoyed numerous lunches at Durant's talking about Phoenix history. He knew my mother, who worked closely with Mark Wilmer on Arizona v. California, the landmark suit that won Colorado River water. He could also name all the old bars, mob-ridden and otherwise, that once enlivened old Phoenix. As with Jack, I will miss him terribly.

When I posted this on Facebook, including a mention of Phoenix's deadly streets, I was surprised by the people who rushed to blame Bouma and say, essentially, "Nothing to see here, move along." Really? Your hair-trigger, defensive boosterism can't even acknowledge this reality? I shouldn't have been surprised. Social media is no less a cancer than the local-yokel sunny-championship golf denial.

In fact, Phoenix has a major problem with pedestrian injuries and fatalities. According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, Arizona has the highest rate of pedestrian deaths in the nation.

Ten questions about light rail, answered

It's the tenth anniversary of the completion of metro Phoenix light rail (WBIYB). I'll have a history of the project in a special insert of the Arizona Capitol Times. In the meantime, some common questions and answers.

1. What decided the route of the starter line? It was a combination of demand, available right-of-way, and cost. The line follows the route of the old Red Line bus, which was at 125 percent of capacity by 2000. This ensured high ridership and a favorable outcome in federal funding (with an invaluable assist from the late Rep. Ed Pastor).

2. Why was it built at grade rather than as a subway or monorail? Cost. While both those modes — especially a subway — would have been preferable to street running, the funding was not available. The federal government once spent heavily for such subways as the D.C. Metro and Atlanta's MARTA (originally meant for Seattle), but that aid largely ended by the 1980s. Monorails also have the problem of controversy about being unsightly to some, although the Skytrain in Vancouver, B.C., part overhead and part subway, is highly successful.

3. Did Mesa almost miss out on light rail? Yes. The most conservative big city in America was especially wary of the project, and the starter line might have ended at McClintock Drive in Tempe. If so, it would have been very expensive to eventually build into Mesa. Mayor Keno Hawker played a leading role in securing city council approval of the line to Sycamore. This set the table for extending light rail deep into downtown Mesa under Mayor Scott Smith (now Valley Metro CEO). With Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa on board, this helped the metro area rise in the national competition for federal assistance.

Alleys and buses

KJZZ had a story about a pilot program unveiled at 15th Avenue and Butler Drive, making it "the first neighborhood to install gates to close their (sic) alleys to outsiders...designed to prevent criminal activity and illegal dumping."

It was spun as a "celebration," but it made me sad.

Alleys have a colorful history in early Phoenix. Many had names, such as Melinda's Alley and the vice-ridden Paris Alley downtown. As the Phoenix grew, so-called service alleys were part of the cityscape. Trash trucks used them as burly garbagemen heaved the contents of aluminum garbage cans into the back of the vehicles to be crushed and stored (in Scottsdale, it was the Refuse Wranglers). Utility crews employed the alleys for maintenance and meter-reading.

They were a delightful playground growing up in mid-century Phoenix. Alleys were the battlefield for our childhood conflicts: Flinging oranges, dirt clods, and, the highest escalation, rocks at each other. Secondary weapons included spears cut from oleanders. (Don't believe the nonsense about innocent children; of course, today we little boys being little boys would be diagnosed on a "spectrum" and heavily medicated).

I remember one battle where we were hunkered down in a makeshift fort as our opponents hurled rocks at us. One little boy named Harry kept running up within a few feet and throwing a stone into the fort. But I had a Wrist Rocket slingshot and after several close encounters with Harry, he came again, an angelic smile on his face — until I let go a decent-sized pebble into his chest at high velocity. I still feel a little guilty. But we won the rock fight.

The Suns arena dilemma

The rump City Council, with a caretaker mayor, seems in no hurry to address Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver's demands for a new or significantly remodeled downtown arena. Members are divided. Kate Gallego, facing Daniel Valenzuela in a March mayoral runoff, said, “it is not in Phoenix’s best interest to invest in an arena.” Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts wrote, "taxpayers are about to get hosed if this deal goes through."

Here's the real deal: If Phoenix doesn't invest in the arena, Sarver — who has none of Jerry Colangelo's civic spirit — will move the team to the Rez, renaming it the Arizona Suns, no doubt, or even to Seattle, which is hungry to replace its lost Supersonics. The damage to downtown and light-rail (WBIYB) would be catastrophic. Talk about hosed.

Scholars are united in saying that professional sports arenas are bad public investments. But they are neither fans nor do they live in troubled cities. In an Atlantic magazine article, Rick Paulas writes, "Pro sports teams are bad business deals for cities, and yet, cities continue to fall for them. But municipalities can support local sports without selling out their citizens in the process." Indeed, it's outrageous that taxpayers are shelling out millions for super-rich team owners. They should say no. And this is especially true for robust, normal cities.

But Phoenix is neither.

November impressions

As I write, Kyrsten Sinema has pulled ahead of Martha McSally in the Senate race. Republicans are suing to stop counting of ballots that have already been cast. Similar shameful gambits are underway in Georgia and Florida. The Party of Lincoln Trump will do anything to hold power. This is authoritarianism, dear readers.

If Sinema holds on, and the rule of law survives the Ducey appointed state Supreme Court, it would be an astonishing accomplishment. Sinema would have an insurmountable lead of not for the wasted votes of the Greens. As long as the Nader-Jill Stein-Bernie Bro faction insists on its purity, the Republicans will keep winning. No revolution will come from the left. It's already come from the right and is succeeding quite nicely.

Before Democrats take control of the U.S. House in January, Trump and the Republicans are capable of anything. Make sure your seats are in their full upright position and your seatbelts fastened. The survival of the republic is at stake.

Other notes:

• November feels like late September and early October in old Phoenix. This is on track to be the hottest year in recorded Arizona history, yet the booster magical thinking continues about what climate change means for Arizona.

• As much as I'm happy about the infill of the Central Corridor, I'm sad to lose the special view from Third Street looking south to the mountains. This was especially enchanting passing through Alvarado, where much of the lush old oasis still prevails.

• I am baffled by "shade structures," which are little more than ribs of steel or other designs that provide little shade at all. Not smart in the skin-cancer capital of America. Old Phoenix was covered with shade trees, as well as businesses that had awnings and overhangs to protect from the sun.

• We are at the centennial of the Armistice than ended the Great War. Our world was made by that conflict and its aftermath. Phoenix, too: Demand for cotton caused farmers to switch wholesale to the crop, reducing the diversity of agriculture in the Salt River Valley. After the war, cotton prices crashed, with hard times here.

Now I'll leave the comments section as an election open thread.

 

 

 

 

 

The next Phoenix mayor

I know that I should have a firm conviction about the mayoral election, but I don't. We can ignore the Republican and Libertarian candidates — their dogmas are totally unsuited to the needs of the nation's fifth-largest city. That leaves Kate Gallego and Daniel Valenzuela.

Both are supported by people I respect. According to the Arizona Republic, Gallego's backers include former U.S. representatives Harry Mitchell, Sam Coppersmith, Ron Barber and Anne Kirkpatrick, as well as former state Attorney General and Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard. Valenzuela's big names include retired U.S. Rep. Ed Pastor, former Phoenix mayors Paul Johnson, Skip Rimsza and Phil Gordon, councilwomen Laura Pastor and Debra Stark, and business leaders Jerry Colangelo and Sharon Harper.

That makes a choice tough. Gallego may get a tilt in her favor because she represented central Phoenix on City Council. But I'd be interested in what commenters say.

Neither Gallego nor Valenzuela were on the transformative City Council of the 2000s that helped land T-Gen and supported light rail (WBIYB), the downtown ASU campus, Phoenix Convention Center, Sheraton and other civic goods that led to today's downtown revival. 

Brains, trains, and automobiles

The biggest local story of the week is the unanimous (!) decision by the Rump City Council to raid funding intended for light-rail extension to Paradise Valley Mall and use it for street maintenance. As disheartening is that, as far as I know, neither major candidate for mayor has spoken out against it.

This comes soon after the Council (6-2) bucked an aggressive astroturf campaign by the Koch interests to kill that south Phoenix light-rail line (yes, the Wichita billionaires are deeply involved in destroying local transit). One step up and one step back. What's going on? A few observations:

The Council has changed from the consensus of the 2000s that brought some of the most constructive measures in decades. These include light rail (WBIYB), the downtown ASU campus, T-Gen and the downtown biomedical campus, and the new convention center. In recent years, the Council is less visionary and more divided — a situation made more difficult by the departure of Mayor Greg Stanton, and mayoral candidates Kate Gallego and Daniel Valenzuela.

Phoenix's size and means are wildly unbalanced. The Arizona Republic reported that city staff estimated that "4,085 of the city's 4,863 miles of streets will fall below a ‘good’ quality level in the next five years and require maintenance. Currently, 3,227 miles are already in fair, poor, or very poor condition. Bringing all of the streets up to a 'good' level in five years would cost $1.6 billion that the city does not have." 

Kooks and Kochs try to derail south Phoenix light rail

It appears that the six mile light-rail line to south Phoenix is on life support. I say "appears" because much of the reporting on the issue has been inaccurate. The Arizona Republic's Jessica Boehm reported the immediate news correctly, but plenty still needs to be filled in.

If I understand correctly, the City Council — with transit-backers Mayor Greg Stanton gone and Councilmembers Kate Gallego and Daniel Valenzuela set to resign in August to run for the seat — voted to "redesign" the south line along Central Avenue. This is to address a "grassroots" opposition complaining that Central would lose two of four lanes for automobile traffic.

Redesign may well mean death and loss of federal funding, especially with the rump Council after August. Skillful/shameful maneuvering by Councilman Sal DiCiccio, an ardent light-rail opponent, even took hostage City Manager Ed Zuercher, threatening his job and the city budget. This is the shorthand to a very complex moving drama.

It's no secret that the Koch brothers and other dark money groups are working to kill transit projects around the country. The anti-rail fetish on the right has always puzzled me. The "You Bastards" part of WBIYB is intended for them and their thuggish opposition to the starter line. And it's always possible to find a few discontents for a "grassroots" front group. But south Phoenix voters approved this line by 70 percent. If the likes of Better Call Sal prevail, this would be a blunder of historic proportions. For the facts and context, please read on. 

Filling in

In the 2000s boom, central Phoenix saw many proposals and promises — including 60-story towers in Midtown — but hardly any private development happened. It took years of heavy lifting to get WilloWalk/Tapestry and One Lexington. Finally, even though the local economy has yet to fully recover from the Great Recession, the central core is seeing major infill. One prime example is Lennar's Muse apartments, built on the long dormant empty lot at the northwest corner of Central and McDowell, once home to AT&T's offices.

Just south, and also near the light-rail (WBIYB) station is a massive apartment complex under way near the Burton Barr Central Library. The north side of Portland Park has a tall condo building. More apartments are complete around Roosevelt and Third Street, while a crane hovers over the former site of Circles Records, erecting Empire Group's 19-story apartments. South of One Lexington, the long construction of the Edison condos is nearing completion.

This is transit-oriented development and it's finally happening.

An aside: Why does the announcement on trains say, "McDowell and Central, cultural district" instead of "Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix Central Library," and "Roosevelt and Central, arts district" instead of "Roosevelt Row arts district"? 

Where to go in my Phoenix

Readers frequently tell me where to go, so it's my time to return the favor. Seriously, I get so many requests for restaurant and sights to visit from out-of-towners, especially Seattleites visiting for Mariners Spring Training. It will be easier to put it in a column and direct them here.

My suggestions don't focus on north Scottsdale or the asteroid belt of supersuburbs. Instead, I send them to my Phoenix, a vanishing place to be sure.

Restaurants:

Durant's: The legendary steakhouse, on the light-rail line in Midtown. If you drive, you can enter through the kitchen like a made man, as Jack Durant intended. The interior (above) is a 1950s throwback, the food is excellent, and the service is classy. Durant's features prominently in my David Mapstone Mysteries. Be sure to try a martini.

Also on light rail (WBIYB) and not to be missed: Fez, Forno 301, Switch, Lenny's Burgers, Wild Thaiger, Honey Bear's BBQ, and Macayo's.

Chef-driven Mexican food is big now, a trend started with Barrio Cafe. But I still love throw-down authentic Sonoran cuisine. My new fave, especially since Macayo changed its menu, is La Piñata on north Seventh Avenue, where Mary Coyle's used to be. Also be sure to check out the taco trucks you'll find all over. My enduring love is Los Olivos in Old Scottsdale, which has been there since before I was born.

Other favorites: The Persian Garden across from Phoenix College. Downtown, don't miss the historic Sing High Cafe on Madison Street, which once operated in the Deuce. The best pizza is Cibo at Fifth Avenue and Fillmore.

For fancy old Phoenix resort dining, I suggest Lon's at the Hermosa, T-Cook's at the Royal Palms, and any of the restaurants at the Arizona Biltmore.

You can breakfast like David, Lindsey, and Peralta at the First Watch at Park Central. The Farm at South Mountain offers a fine breakfast (as well as lunch and dinner). You can get a taste of the Eden that was once my hometown. 

When a light goes out

“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” — John Steinbeck

I was baptized in Central Methodist Church, so many decades ago. I remember Sunday school, attending services with my mother and grandmother. My mother had a glorious contralto and, a child prodigy trained as a concert pianist, sometimes played the immense pipe organ, with its 4 divisions, 28 stops, and 41 registers. In the 1960s, it was common for each service to see a thousand people or more, filling the sanctuary and its three balconies. Central was a prime posting for veteran ministers — only doctors of divinity reached the senior rank — and the choir was superb. I was confirmed there, age 13.

When I returned to Phoenix in 2000, I started attending Central again, this time with Susan. Getting a hundred people in the pews was a victory by that time. The quality of preaching was uneven, as individual ministers came and went (long gone from the days of a senior minister and others). But the music program was very strong under Don Morse. The core, including the corps of ushers, was committed. Important for us, Central still offered a traditional service, with the wonderful Methodist hymns. Christmas Eve could see five services in the soaring sanctuary, with luminarias in the courtyard. We continue to attend. When I lived in Charlotte, people would ask me if I had found "a church home." No — in that hotbed of religion, the question irritated the secular me. "I have a bar home," I would respond. But the truth was different. My church was here. It always was. Always will be.

But this year brought heartbreaking news. First, the music program was downgraded, with Morse and seemingly most of the choir gone. Finances were an issue; the church and Morse, who had already taken a pay freeze/cut, couldn't come to terms. But respect also seemed an issue, the lay leaders wanting to downgrade his position to "choirmaster." A botched remodel of the sanctuary was probably another cause, including the loss of the pipe organ and removal of two of the balconies. I don't claim special insight. I spent many years in United Methodist choirs, but tried to avoid church politics whenever possible. Next came word that the sanctuary would only be used for special occasions. A traditional service would be held in the small Pioneer Chapel and a contemporary one in Kendall Hall.

'Another Los Angeles'

It surprised me to still hear Phoenicians say, "We're becoming another Los Angeles" or "We don't want to become another LA." This vox local yokel reminds me that people in Phoenix don't get out much. To be fair, I used to think the same thing. That was until I was 10 years old, when my mother took me to the City of Angels on Southern Pacific's Sunset Limited, and we arrived at LA Union Passenger Terminal (above). I had never seen a building so grand — and the rest of the city was just as stunning. This was the first big city I'd been in, and it was nothing like little Phoenix.

I judge a city by its trains. Union Station has been restored to its grandeur and actually hosts more arrivals and departures than when it opened in 1939. In addition to Amtrak intercity trains to Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, and Seattle, it is the hub for LA Metrolink's six commuter rail lines, plus three subway and light-rail lines. All around it, downtown LA is undergoing a stunning renaissance — not only with new buildings such as the 1,099-foot Wilshire Grand but rehabbing its stock of majestic architecture from the early 20th century. It was never true that Los Angeles "didn't have a downtown." It had several, including Century City, Westwood, Hollywood, and downtown proper. All of them leave Phoenix looking like Hooterville by comparison. LA made a terrible mistake in tearing out the extensive Pacific Electric Railway, but it's making amends fast.

Phoenix becoming another Los Angeles? It should be so lucky. LA is one of America's three world cities, as defined by sociologist Janet Abu-Lughod's famous book of the same name. The influential Globalization and World Cities Network ranks it as an Alpha city, the third highest level of global power (only New York is Alpha ++ among North American cities). Phoenix is gamma, the ninth category. Phoenix peers Denver, Seattle, and San Diego rank Beta-minus. The LA metropolitan area's gross domestic product totaled more than $931 billion in 2017, second only to New York City in inflation-adjusted dollars. Phoenix, although the nation's fifth-largest city and 13th most populous metro ranked 17th, at $220 billion (again, behind peer metros). If LA were a nation, its output would rival Australia.

 

Phoenix 101: the nineties

The new decade came upon a Phoenix beset with crisis. Charlie Keating, the most lionized Arizona businessman of the previous dozen years, was facing federal fraud and racketeering charges. His palatial Phoenician Resort was seized by a platoon of U.S. Marshals, lawyers, regulators, and locksmiths in November 1989. American Continental Corp., flagship of Keating's complex web of businesses, was forced into Chapter 11 reorganization. Among the casualties was his ambitious Estrella Ranch project south of tiny Goodyear.

Behind much of the trouble was the savings and loan scandal and collapse, a financial crisis that cost taxpayers about $132 billion. It also took down some of the Sun Belt's biggest institutions, including Phoenix's venerable Western Savings, controlled by the Driggs family, and Merabank, a subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corp. meant to make big bucks for the holding company of Arizona Public Service. It would take the federal Resolution Trust Corp. years to sort out and dispose of all the properties and hustles. The worst of the S&L wrongdoing was the Keating Five scandal. Its U.S. Senator members, who leaned on regulators on behalf of Keating, included Arizona's Dennis DeConcini and John McCain (Disclosure: John Dougherty and I were the first to break this story at the Dayton Daily News).

The local trouble had been predicted in a December 1988, Barron's article about Phoenix's overheated real-estate market, fueled by S&L money. The headline: "Phoenix Descending: Is Boomtown USA Going Bust?" The boosters had been outraged. Barron's had been right. In an ominous foreshadowing of the future, the city hit a record 122 degrees on June 26, 1990.

For individuals, the worst was yet to come. Unemployment in Arizona rose from 5.3 percent in May 1990 to a peak of 7.8 percent in March 1992. This seems modest compared with the Great Recession (11.2 percent for the state); it was painful enough. State and city leaders committed to establishing a more diverse economy, weaning Arizona off its dependency on population growth and real estate. Economic development organizations were set up across the state for this purpose, including the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, led by the brilliant Ioanna Morfessis. It established goals to build strategic clusters around high-technology sectors with high-paying jobs.

Tragically, the effort failed. The 1990s, when the U.S. economy enjoyed its longest, strongest, most innovative economic expansion in history, saw Phoenix and Arizona double down on "growth." The state's population grew by a staggering 40 percent, 45 percent for metropolitan Phoenix. The cluster strategy lacked sustained focus. Yet none of this was obvious or inevitable as the decade began. 

Phoenix's lost gems

We spend much time on this site discussing urbanism, including the architectural losses and disasters of Phoenix. More than history or sentimentality is at stake. Much of the economic power in cities such as Seattle, Denver and even Los Angeles has come from the "back to the city" movement and restored historic masterpieces.

Phoenix was smaller and poorer at the zenith of Art Deco. But it did have a real cityscape before the post-World War II automobile era, subsidized sprawl, and municipal malpractice of massive teardowns created today's suburbanized mess. It had some saves, including the Orpheum Theater, Orpheum Lofts, San Carlos Hotel, Luhrs Tower and Luhrs Building, old Post Office, Kenilworth School and the County Courthouse/City Hall.

Thanks to Rob Spindler and the ASU archives, along with the collecting by the indefatigable Brad Hall, we're getting more photographs of the old city. I realize some of this is familiar  territory for regular readers, but the images tell more than words about what Phoenix lost (click for a larger image). They include:

The Fox Theater:

 

Regrets? I have a few...

In 1999-2000, I was offered the business editor jobs at the San Diego and San Francisco papers. I also had feelers about coming to work at the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. After nearly five years at Knight-Ridder's Pulitzer-winning Charlotte Observer, I was more than ready to leave a city where they ask if you've found a "church home," wanted to get back to the West. That was when John D'Anna at the Arizona Republic called and offered me a columnist job at my hometown newspaper.

Warning signs abounded: Downtown Phoenix was dead, corporate Arizona had moved out to north Scottsdale, and the Republic had recently been purchased by Gannett, known for its small newspaper mentality, suspicion of serious journalism, and obsession with fads (I had worked for the company as assistant managing editor for business news at the Cincinnati Enquirer and saw its bad and OK sides). On the other hand, downtowns were making impressive comebacks elsewhere — I had seen them first-hand in Denver and even Charlotte. Brahm Resnik, the business editor at the Republic, assured me the changes had been minimal. After years as a turnaround specialist editor, I longed to be out of management. And every journalist's dream is to write a column in his hometown.

So I took the job, following in the footsteps of the fine business columnist Naaman Nickell.

Susan and I bought one of the most beautiful historic houses in Phoenix, in Willo a block from where I grew up. And for the next nearly seven years I wrote one of the most popular columns in the paper. "Never thought I would read this in the Arizona Republic," was a common reader accolade. I enjoyed a position of prominence, leadership, and celebrity totally out of proportion with the job — at least in other cities. The parties we hosted at the 1914 bungalow on Holly Street attracted a who's who of Arizona. And then, in 2007, it was gone. We had to sell that beloved house as no other local jobs materialized and make our primary base in Seattle (we still have a Midtown condo and some lifelong friends).

Could I have found a way to stay?

Assessing Greg Stanton

Now that he's announced he will resign as Phoenix mayor to run for Congress, it's not too early to at least make a preliminary evaluation of Greg Stanton's tenure.

Whether they like it not, all Phoenix mayors since the mid-1980s have been judged on what we could call the Goddard Scale. Terry Goddard was a transformational Phoenix leader who swept away the last of the Charter-Margaret Hance status quo, led the change to a district system of council representation, saved the historic districts, and began to salvage downtown. He was bold! He was visionary! He got cities and had a clear-eyed view of Phoenix's situation!

And this is actually true. But even Terry Goddard wasn't Terry Goddard at first, or how he would mature as a leader and urban thinker after he left office (it was a terrible loss for Arizona that he didn't become governor). So on the Goddard scale, even Terry wasn't a 10. Let's say 9.1. Give Paul Johnson a 6.5 — Goddard was a hard act to follow, and Johnson faced the worst recession in decades here, up to that point. Skip Rimsza, who served from 1994 to 2004, gets a solid 8 in my book, although some would disagree. The same for Phil Gordon, especially his more productive first term.

And Stanton, who assumed office in 2012? I'd also give him an 8. Phoenix has been fortunate in its mayors.

The light-rail divide

Glendale's city council killed an extension of light rail into the suburb, even though a majority of voters want it. Even though We Built It, You Bastards (WBIYB) — the epithet referring to the hysterical, thuggish opposition to the starter line, metropolitan Phoenix remains divided over mobility. The city, Tempe, and Mesa have embraced light rail. The other suburbs remain against it, crazy-so in the case of Scottsdale.

Phoenix did not benefit from the "Dallas effect." There the suburbs wanted nothing to do with light rail — until they saw the first line in action. Then they were clamoring to be included. Today, Dallas has the largest light-rail system in the United States.  Similar success stories are found in Denver, San Diego, Portland, and Los Angeles. The closest we came was Mesa. There, then-Mayor Keno Hawker convinced a skeptical council to pay for the starter line to go to Sycamore Street. Otherwise, Mesa would have been cut off — Tempe was only going to build to McClintock — and facing a costly future connection. Instead, Mesa saw the benefit and has extended the line to Mesa Drive with plans to go beyond.

Otherwise, the divide remains solid. It is driven in no small measure by racism and classism. The suburbs don't want "those people" coming on trains. And it's true that the poor and minorities heavily use transit in Phoenix. The criminal element of "those people" drive cars, but the white-right apartheid that defines metro Phoenix decisively defines the light-rail resistance. Another problem is the Republican fetish against rail of all kinds. It keeps us stuck with a 1971 transportation system when other advanced urbanized nations have high-speed rail and subways abuilding. Considering that the Republican Party began as the advocate of transcontinental railroads, this is an astounding but not surprising turnabout. It goes along with denying settled science on climate change. Anything, anything, to keep happy motoring going. Anything to keep the tax-cut scam going.

Light rail succeeded in Phoenix differently than in most cities. For example, in Seattle, where a majority of people use transit, light rail connects people to the major employment, retail and entertainment center of downtown, as well as the airport, sports venues, and the University of Washington. It's packed all the time and more lines are under construction despite efforts by Republicans in the Legislature and the suburbs to kill it. Most jobs in Phoenix are out on the freeways, especially in the East Valley. Instead, Phoenix's light rail found the sweet spot connecting the downtown and Tempe ASU campuses, as well as hauling people to Suns and (for now) Diamondbacks games. It helped reestablish downtown as a center of activity.

Phoenix and Amazon HQ2

More than 100 cities are contending to win the economic prize of the decade, Amazon's second, "equal in every way" to its Seattle home, headquarters. Some $5 billion in investment and 50,000 high-paid jobs are possible. Both Phoenix and Tucson are among them. Above is a photo of the Day One tower, part of Amazon's massive downtown Seattle footprint.

I've written about this highly unusual development in my Seattle Times columns here and here. In "Dear Amazon, we picked your new headquarters for you," the Upshot team narrows down cities based on the company's request for proposals (RFP) and comes up with Denver. That jibes with my top three candidates, the others being Toronto and Dallas-Fort Worth.

In the Upshot piece, Phoenix (and Tucson) is quickly eliminated: job growth isn't strong, plus lack of a highly skilled tech workforce, high quality of life (that attracts young, educated workers), strong mass transit, and willingness to "pay to play."

But let's not give up just yet. At the least, this could be an educational experience.

Big Town

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.

Great expectations

The local media have paid much attention to a nascent technology cluster in downtown Phoenix. Most recently came an Arizona Republic story headlined, "What's Driving a Downtown Phoenix Tech Boom." It reads in part:

A San Francisco tech company that announced an expansion from Silicon Valley to downtown Phoenix last week cited a lively business climate and a light-rail stop as primary factors in choosing the city.

Representatives of a semiconductor packaging company moving its corporate headquarters in May from California to south of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport said the city is cost-effective and has the workforce they need. These recent examples are part of what Phoenix leaders say is a flood of tech industry leaders and startups looking to open in the city. Mayor Greg Stanton highlighted the growth in his State of the City speech on April 25.

Stanton said the number of tech companies downtown has nearly quadrupled in the past five years. He credited adaptive reuse projects in the Warehouse District and new tech hubs as a source of the success.

Good for Phoenix. I hate to be the one who suns on the parade, but a reality check is necessary. For one thing, the top of the story lacks that basic of journalism, "How big is big"? As in, a quadrupling of companies from a baseline of one leaves us with not too many firms. Also, what is "tech"? When metropolitan Phoenix gets credit for technology jobs, they usually turn out to be call centers or back-office operations. Most pay poorly. By contrast, Seattle's tech jobs are actually undercounted because the tens of thousands of well-paid Amazon headquarters positions are classified under retail by statisticians.

Phoenix 101: streetcars

Moses Hazeltine Sherman was a teacher from Vermont who made his way to Arizona Territory in 1874. While teaching, he also made money in land and mining. Later, he would move to Los Angeles and become a millionaire. But before that, he and M.E. Collins founded the Phoenix Street Railway in 1887.

Originally the streetcars were pulled by mules. But electric cars took over in 1893. The new Territorial capital had a little more than 3,000 people. By 1925, the system boasted nearly 34 miles of track on six lines. It had two major spines. One ran west to the Capitol and on to 22nd Avenue, and east to the State Hospital along Washington Street. The other operated north and south from downtown to the Phoenix Indian School.

A long addition ran east from the Indian School to 12th Street, then cut north and west, eventually terminating in Glendale. Other routes went to the Fairgrounds; north through the new Kenilworth district to Encanto Boulevard, and over to the east side ending at 10th Street and Sheridan. Most of the streetcar lines ran down the middle of the streets.

Through the middle of the 20th century, most American cities and large towns had extensive streetcar networks. Numerous electrified interurban railways were also build, competing with the steam railroads of the time. They carried freight in addition to passengers on larger cars. The largest system was in Los Angeles, the Pacific Electric, known for its iconic red cars. Owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad, it operated more than a thousand miles of track in the LA basin.

Innovation district

The City of Phoenix has smartly engaged Mary Jo Waits to help craft an innovation district plan for downtown. For newcomers, Waits was the driving force behind the Morrison Institute's most consequential reports in the late 1990s and 2000s, especially 2001's Five Shoes Waiting to Drop. It was prophetic. So was her warning that Arizona would become the "Appalachia of the 21st century" if it didn't change course. I collaborated with her in the "meds and eds" strategy to build off TGen, and later did some work for her when she was at the Pew Center on the States. The city could not have chosen a better, more knowledgeable and visionary person.

She asked me to write a case study on the innovation district in South Lake Union, adjacent to downtown Seattle. So this is what follows, with some parting observations for Phoenix.

When I first started coming to Seattle in the early 1990s, the South Lake Union neighborhood was a run-down collection of low-rise commercial buildings and the remnants of industrial structures from when it was laced with railroad tracks. This was once a gritty maritime district — logging, ship repair, canneries — around the south edge of the lake, which was connected to Puget Sound by the ship canal.

Aside from having the headquarters of the Seattle Times, SLU as it became known, had little to recommend it. The area had been wounded in the 1960s when Interstate 5 was rammed through, tearing it apart from Capitol Hill. And blocks of car dealerships, parking lots, and the occasional seedy bar separated it from the downtown core.

In the early 1990s, Seattle Times columnist John Hinterberger suggested turning part of SLU into a large central park, something the city's core lacked since voters had rejected a visionary 1911 civic plan. The 60-acre "civic lawn" would be framed by high-tech companies, condos, and restaurants. The Seattle Commons attracted widespread business support, including from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who was accumulating property there. But the famous "Seattle Process" intervened. Many feared it was a giveaway to Allen. Voters rejected the Commons in 1995 and 1996.

Phoenix 101: the twenties

If this photo shows a busy little city from the Roaring Twenties, that's exactly what you found in Phoenix during this transformative decade. Town to city, horses to cars, less Wild West and more sophistication — Phoenix had been moving this way for years. But in the 1920s, they became solidly entrenched — even Town Ditch was covered. The first "skyscraper," the seven-story Heard Building, right, opened in 1920. By the end of the decade, it had several taller and more impressive siblings that remain some of the city's most treasured and beautiful buildings. Central Methodist Church (ME South) on the near right would move to a handsome new structure at Central and Pierce.

The nation entered the decade with Woodrow Wilson as president. But he was incapacitated by a stroke and his wife, Edith, was protecting him from most visitors and essentially carrying out most of his executive duties. America was disillusioned by the outcome of the Great War, the Palmer Raids and the "Red Scare," what was seen as Wilson's overreaching, and two decades of the Progressive Era. Voters (including women, for the first time) eagerly embraced Ohio's Warren G. Harding as the next president. He promised a "return to normalcy," forever wrecking the correct word "normality." Harding freed the Socialist Eugene Debs, who Wilson had imprisoned for opposing American involvement in the war.

The Great War had brought changes to the Salt River Valley, especially with the booming demand for cotton. By 1920, it had turned into a bust and Phoenix was suffering through the national recession. Things would soon turn around as the economy expanded and America embarked on, as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, "the greatest, gaudiest spree in history." It was the Jazz Age, with the experiment of Prohibition sidestepped with speakeasies. Prohibition was hardly observed at all in the non-Mormon towns of the West. In Phoenix, bars, borthels, and gambling dens operated in the open, sometimes making payoffs to the city. This wide-open environment soon attracted the Mafia, including Al Capone.

The Phoenix of the 1920s was expanding out of the half-mile footprint of the original township. In the previous decade, the city had surpassed Tucson to become the most populous place in Arizona. With more than 29,000 people in 1920, Phoenix would grow nearly 66 percent over the next 10 years. Residential neighborhoods expanded a half mile north of McDowell, west of the Santa Fe tracks at 19th Avenue, and east as far as 16th Street. These were gradually incorporated into the city limits, which expanded from five square miles in 1920 to 6.5 square miles a decade later.

The mansions of "Millionaire's Row" still graced Monroe Street, but the central business district was moving north. Elegant bungalows lined the streets north of Van Buren into the fancy new Kenilworth District north of Roosevelt Street and eventually the Period Revival neighborhoods just beyond McDowell, including Palmcroft. Many of these were reachable by the streetcars.

Silicon Valley in Phoenix?

Earlier this month, the New York Times published a story, most of which could have been written by the chamber of commerce, under the headline, "Bay Area Start-Ups Find Low-Cost Outposts in Arizona."

It rubbed me the wrong way from the start, because the story is not about Show Low or Why, Kingman, or even Tucson, but metropolitan Phoenix. I will never understand why one of the most magical city names in America is banished for the amorphous and sometimes inaccurate "Arizona." Anyway, riding with that burr under my saddle, I tried to approach the article with an open mind.

Unfortunately, it had all of the weaknesses of "parachute journalism." The writer, based in the Bay Area, parachutes into a little-known burg with an angle, assembles a few anecdotes, talks to a local economic development expert, adds some data from Moody's, widens the lens a bit to make the story about a broader trend, and presto! This is not easy stuff, particularly if you're not armed with history and skepticism. The only good parachute journalist I ever personally knew was Leah Beth Ward, my colleague from the Cincinnati Enquirer and Charlotte Observer.

It's not that I don't want success for Phoenix. Far from it. I was the Arizona Republic columnist who wiped out forests and digital space writing about Michael Crow and ASU, Jeff Trent and T-Gen, and Bill Harris and Science Foundation Arizona, the efforts to elevate the economy under Gov. Janet Napolitano and Phoenix Mayors Skip Rimsza, Phil Gordon, and Greg Stanton. I rarely felt that the brightsiders had my back. It is about time to see some payoff.

The story had none of this context and lacked much more. The reporter did not even avail himself of the readily available journalism about Arizona's crippling problems. Which is too bad for those of us who want to know the real score. So Homey did some digging.

Phoenix 101: the eighties

Wrigley Mansion looking southwest over the city in the 1980s.

On the night in 1968 after President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill authorizing construction of the Central Arizona Project., my mother took me on a long drive. We went through the citrus groves, the empty farmlands between the towns, the enchanting oasis that was Phoenix. Like many who had dedicated a good part of their lives to win the CAP, she had deep misgivings. She wanted me to see the place, burn it in my brain, and remember. "It will be gone," she said. She didn't live to see her prediction come true. But the ferocious transformation of Phoenix from my beloved old city to the nearly unrecognizable concrete desert of today largely  happened during the last two decades of the twentieth century. The big changes began in the 1980s.

In 1980, Phoenix's population was nearly 790,000, up 36 percent from 1970. The city would grow slower in the 1980s — up 25 percent. But Maricopa County grew almost 41 percent. Yesterday's small communities began to become today's mega-suburbs as sprawl took off as never before. For example, Glendale, which had grown by 168 percent in the 1970s, added another 52 percent in the eighties. It would hold nearly 148,000 people by 1990. Arrowhead Ranch, the citrus groves owned by the Goldwater and Martori families, was being developed into subdivisions, one of the largest new "master planned communities" in the state. Phoenix remained the power center of the state and county through the decade, but its hold began to slip.

In 1980, Phoenix still enjoyed a robust base of major headquarters. By most measures it was never stronger and almost all were located in the Central Corridor. Among them were the three big banks, Valley National, First National, and the Arizona Bank; Greyhound; Arizona Public Service; American Fence; Central Newspapers; Western Savings, and Del Webb Co. Karl Eller's Combined Communications had been purchased by Gannett in 1978 but Eller remained active, taking control of Circle K in 1983 and making it the nation's second-largest convenience store chain.

APS formed a holding company, Pinnacle West Capital, that was not regulated like the utility by the Corporation Commission. Among its ventures was the S&L Merabank. Taking advantage of airline deregulation, America West Airlines was formed by local investors in 1983 — it would go on to merge with USAirways and take over American Airlines. And Phelps-Dodge, which for a century controlled much of Arizona's destiny as the world's leading copper company, moved its headquarters from New York City to a new tower in Midtown Phoenix.

Dog days of summer

After three weeks of commenting on national politics, it's time to return to Phoenix. This was once the time of year to stay inside with the air conditioning and wait for the oven to ease up in September. Now it's snake removal calls in north Scottsdale, idiots hiking in the middle of the day and often putting first responders at risk to rescue them, and an oven that doesn't shut off until close to Thanksgiving. But..."everything's fine!," with championship golf!

• Phoenix rejected a tax break for a developer that partially demolished the historic Circles Records building under the pretext of erecting a 19-story residential tower. The Resistance, which was sandbagged by the tear-down, reacted by a range of "Hell, no!" to quiet negotiations with crisis-management duo Jordan and Jason Rose, brought in to salvage the deal.

Unfortunately, I fear the result will be complete demolition and another surface parking lot to the flipped and reflipped until the day, decades hence, when the property ends up on the books of a REIT in Tel Aviv. It's unclear that the developer ever really had the capitalization to do the mid-rise, and lack of tax incentives makes it even more unlikely. State law gives enormous protection to property owners. So defeating the tax break doesn't mean saving what's left of the former Stewart Motors at McKinley and Central (technically just north of downtown).

It can't be said enough: Downtown Phoenix needs more than ASU, government, and a few modest headquarters. It needs a robust and diverse economy — very much at odds with the spec sprawl model at work elsewhere in "the Valley." Until then, Phoenix will be the only major city in the nation missing out on the "back to downtown" phenomenon you can read about here. It is an astonishing, heartbreaking failure, and saying that downtown Phoenix is better than 20 years ago doesn't cut it.

Light rail to Union Station

"Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads."

The South Central line is one of the most promising additions to the Phoenix light-rail system (WBIYB). City Council has approved a plan to fast-track the five-mile extension to Baseline Road by 2023. But a crucial piece of the project isn't on the table, and as far as I know nobody is discussing it.

This line needs a slight rerouting: It needs to jog over the Third Avenue on Washington, then run south to Lincoln Street before moving back to Central for the journey south. This would provide two big benefits, one immediate and the other long term.

By shifting west, it would pick up large numbers of riders at the government centers of the city and county. But the big enchilada is that the line would pass just to the east of Union Station, which was Phoenix's intercity passenger rail depot until the 1990s.

Light rail might need a tunnel under the current Union Pacific line, but it would be worth it. The payoff would be connecting light rail with a reborn Union Station as the hub for a region-wide commuter train system as well as the return of Amtrak to Tucson and Los Angeles.

If Phoenix fails to do this, it will be a blunder to be regretted for decades to come.

Jane Jacobs is dead. Long live Jane Jacobs.

May 4th marked the centennial of the birth of seminal urbanist Jane Jacobs. It has been marked by numerous articles. Some of the better ones are here, here,  here, and, for a contemporary piece of revisionist iconoclasm, here. The latter aside, Jacobs remains an important figure, perhaps the most influential voice, in explaining the value of cities, how they really worked, and the damage of the planning elite. She begins her most famous work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, bluntly: "This book is an attack on current city planning and rebuilding."

Written in 1961, the book was the first major refutation of the ideas that had brought urban renewal, dead housing projects, dull suburbia. Her great nemesis was Robert Moses, the powerful city planner and master builder of mid-century New York City. His hubris and the damage he did to New York are masterfully plumbed in Robert Caro's The Power Broker. Entire neighborhoods were bulldozed to make way for his freeways and his influence spread nationwide. She led the crusade that stopped Moses' Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have gutted Geenwich Village, SoHo, and Little Italy. At one point in the battle, she was accused of inciting a riot (talk about the Resistance).

Jacobs was not an ideologue. To her, ideology was poison, offering "pre-fabricated answers" that adherents always fall back on. Instead, she was an observer of cities, a chronicler of what worked and what didn't.

Not once is Phoenix mentioned in Jacobs' first book, even though it was a big city by 1961. Still, I suspect she would have found much to like in the old Phoenix, where there was a "ballet of the streets" downtown and much of the city was focused on use by people instead of automobiles. This was before the freeways, before the teardowns. If she were alive today (she died in 2006), Phoenix would represent every horror she could imaging befalling a city. The Papago Freeway inner loop is classic Robert Moses vandalism. Her critique would include a lack of safety, for she documented how much more crime occurred in "thinned out" Los Angeles than in dense New York.

Next on the chopping block: Macayo's Central

With Circles partially demolished and tagged and being held hostage by the developer comes news of another Central Avenue icon facing the bulldozer. 

The Macayo's restaurant that has stood for decades at Central and Indianola is facing demolition. In its place would be some 225 "residential units" in 65-foot building (this being Phoenix, of course, that is a big maybe). The developer is requesting a zoning change to "walkable urban."

One astounding thing is that "walkable urban" would require "only" 256 parking spaces (!). But the developer wants 369. "Free" parking is never free and Phoenix has way too much of it. Real urbanism would take down the number of spaces substantially. But, hey, WBIYB and the project (if it really happens) would be on light rail.

The really good news is that Macayo's intends to move to the south and stay in business.

The Circles jerks

Stewart Motor Co., the Studebaker dealership, in the 1950s.

I knew they would do it, only when and whom the "they" would be. After Circles Records closed in 2010, I worried every time I passed the empty building. The only surprise was the speed with which much of the cherished former Stewart Motor/Circles Records, built in 1947, was demolished.

Aspirant Development, a unit of Scottsdale-based Empire Group, says it wants to build apartments on the site at Central and McKinley. It bought the parcel for $2.65 million. The company had even scheduled a meeting with the Roosevelt Action Association neighborhood groups on the Monday when...ooops!...two-thirds (or less) of the streamline moderne structure was torn down.

In a way, it's a salutary development that there was enough outrage to stop the tear-down and cause Aspirant to hire the ubiquitous Jason and Jordan Rose to handle damage control. Mayor Greg Stanton had this to say on Facebook:

I am angry that in the middle of negotiating a plan to save the iconic Stewart Motor Company building, the developer began demolition. After my office participated in discussions between the developer and neighborhood leaders, I was confident that a resolution would be found. However, sadly, it appears that the developer was acting in bad faith.

BACKGROUND:

The City’s Community and Economic Development Department was in the middle of discussions with the developer, Empire Group. Some of the agreed terms of the discussion stated that the developer would not demolish or remove any portion of the existing building on the Site prior to submitting for construction permits. Empire has plans to build a 19-story apartment building on the 1.24-acre site.

If only such consciousness had been around when hundreds of irreplaceable buildings were bulldozed in the 1980s and 1990s. Yet even now, the unofficial Preservation Police can't be everywhere at once, particularly when so much of the deck is stacked against them.

The developer even apologized. But here's the rub: Aspirant appears to be holding the remains — basically the facade — hostage in order to secure a tax break from the city. Something like a 25-year moratorium on property taxes. In exchange, it would build the 19-story apartment tower with pieces of the old building incorporated into a boring new glass lookalike design. After the developer's behavior, this will be a tough sell to Council.

Stanton's dilemma

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton gave a fine State of the City speech this week (you can watch it here). One could quibble with his "Not even a decade after the Great Recession shook us to our knees, Phoenix has emerged stronger and more resilient than ever before with an economy that is breaking free from the chains of the boom-then-bust cycle." Phoenix has far under-performed its peer cities in this recovery. But Stanton is an upbeat guy and Phoenicians have a hard time with reality.

He deserves credit for the courage to call out the Kookocracy's war on cities.

Now, the hard stuff. Outside the prepared remarks, the mayor supports building a new arena to be shared by the Suns and Coyotes, with at least some taxpayer money involved. The Arizona Republic reported, "Phoenix already has a permanent tourism tax on hotel and motel stays and car rentals. It is in the process of selling the city-owned Sheraton hotel and the Translational Genomics Research Institute building downtown, projects supported by the tourism tax. By getting those buildings off its books, the city could potentially free up revenue to help pay for a new stadium."

Not surprisingly, this produced its share of criticism. For example, E.J. Montini columnized about rich team owners asking for welfare:

So, politely as possible, I would suggest that all of us collectively send a little note to these guys:

"Dear Suns, Coyotes (and Diamondbacks),

"Build your own damn sports complex.

"Respectfully,

"Phoenix."

Snakebit

As with the Suns arena, the Diamondbacks stadium never would have been built downtown if it weren't for the unfairly reviled Jerry Colangelo. He was the last remaining civic steward who could knock heads and write checks in the tradition of the Phoenix 40.

Other sites were proposed, including on the Glendale fringe and at 40th Street and the Red Mountain Freeway. But Colangelo saw both venues as essential to the revival of the heart of the city. It was telling that with all the old headquarters gone or going, a sports executive was the last man standing. But it was enough and both facilities played pivotal roles in saving downtown.

BOB/Chase Field is not a handsome stadium, looking more like an airplane hanger than Camden Yards, Safeco Field, or Coors Field. It led to the demolition of numerous historic structures in the Warehouse District and Chinatown, including the Arizona Citrus Growers Coop building. On the other hand, a successful archeological dig was undertaken there. And the finished product is convenient to the entire region and located on light rail (WBIYB). Significantly, its air conditioning proved that Major League baseball could succeed in Phoenix.

Now, under Managing General Partner Ken Kendrick, the Diamondbacks are demanding that the county provide $187 million in upgrades — "current and future maintenance obligations" — or the team will seek a way out of its lease and leave.

I have long suspected that Kendrick, and his Suns counterpart Robert Sarver, have longed to depart downtown for the suburbs. Neither has a deep affinity to Phoenix or commitment to the health of downtown. Kendrick was already behind the lavish Spring Training facilities on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community close to north Scottsdale. His wife, Randy, is a major right-wing money figure and both give to Koch causes and the "Goldwater" Institute — stances guaranteed to be anti-city.

Phoenix 101: Before superblocks

"Superblocks," with one project, be it an office, apartment, or parking garage, taking up an entire block, are one of the biggest enemies of a vibrant downtown. Think of old Civic Plaza (right) or the Chase Tower and its parking hulk. Even CityScape, which has many shops, offices, and restaurants (unfortunately facing inward), consists of superblocks that once held dozens of individual buildings, each with distinctive architecture and attitude to the street.

This is not a problem confined to central Phoenix — superblocks are profitable for developers. But this is a Phoenix-centric blog and no other major city lost more of its good urban bones to teardowns and, in many cases after decades, rebuilding into massive projects that are nearly dead at street level.

It's important to recall what Phoenix had. Not for nostalgia, but for lessons in how good cities really work (which is usually the opposite of what urban planners want) and because so few Phoenicians even know what once existed.

So thanks to the new digital archive of the McCulloch Brothers collection at ASU and other shots archived by Brad Hall, let's examine the energetic, walkable, full-of-life-and-commerce Phoenix:

Punked again?

I was going to write about [the real-estate developer], but that can wait until next week.

Here on the ground in Phoenix, there are new apartments but mostly rumors of new apartments.

For example, the property on the southwest corner of First Avenue and Roosevelt across from Trinity Cathedral is a dark hulk. Two five-story stairway shafts and one floor have been built. But it looks much the same as it did three months ago. No work seems to be happening.

The Edison, just south of One Lexington on Central, has a fence up, some grading done, and that's it. Lennar's apartments at Central and McDowell are moving very sloooowww.

Maybe I'm spoiled by Seattle. About 200 buildings, many of them skyscrapers, have been completed, permitted, or are under construction just downtown over the past couple of years. Things come out of the ground fast.

The Warehouse District

Railroad tracks running to Crystal Ice at Fourth Avenue and Jackson in the heart of the district. The plant not only provided ice deliveries to businesses and homes, but produced blocks to fill the bunkers of railroad refrigerator cars. The blocks were dragged and placed through roof doors in the railcars by workers on catwalks using hooks.  McCulloch Bros./ASU Archives.

Phoenix's Warehouse District is finally seeing a payoff after years of destruction and false starts. How big a renaissance remains to be seen; coverage I've seen such as this doesn't quantify the new businesses. But something is happening. Most important, it involves creative firms and tech startups, not only restaurants.

The area saw an effervescence before, when artists discovered the historic buildings in the 1980s. But they were driven out by the arena, ballpark, Joe Arpaio's relentless jail expansions, Phoenix's ethos of tear-downs, and the city's lack of an effective preservation policy. The Jobs Corp moved into several buildings.

Some of the best buildings were lost. This helped fuel the successful fight in the mid-2000s to save the Sun Mercantile building, part of the city's old Chinatown. A few developers with stamina and perseverance, notably Michael Levine, refurbished some buildings. Another comeback attempt came with the opening of the unfortunately named Bentley Projects (the old Bell Laundry) in the 2000s, which included a restaurant, galleries, and a Poisoned Pen Bookstore. Too far from the core, that didn't take, either.

Phoenix never boasted a warehouse district with the size and great bones of, say, Denver, which has become a tremendous asset for an area anchored by the restored and expanded Denver Union Station. Phoenix was too small and limited in its economic heft. Still, what remains of the area is one of the city's treasures. It's one of the few places in Phoenix where you can find that coveted urban authenticity, with a variety of old buildings, narrow streets and density, that talented creatives seek.

The best of Rogue 2015

Photo by Eugene Scott

• Phoenix should leave the Greater Phoenix Economic Council: "GPEC can't serve the special needs of Phoenix and the appetite of the sprawl boyz. Maybe a few projects to far north Phoenix. But what has GPEC done for downtown, the Central Corridor or to fill abundant empty land along the light-rail line in the city? Not much if anything."

• The evolution of the press, radio, and television in Phoenix: "It is an open question of how much power "the Pulliam press" actually had in post-war Phoenix. The city was attracting large numbers of middle-class Anglos from the Midwest that already shared his larger political philosophy. Pulliam was a civic leader, but hardly the only one, and most shared a common vision of a "business friendly" low-rise city with minimal restrictions on individuals. At least on white people."

• Still got Dick Nixon to kick around: "For decades, Richard Nixon has been the devil to the left. But the left isn't politically relevant anymore (Jerry Ford Republicanism is what passes for "the left" in today's broken political spectrum). What's more consequential is that Nixon is now the devil to the right, which is more powerful than ever. So in the public square today, we are relitigating not Watergate but the domestic achievements of Tricky Dick."

Happy holidays

The saddest Christmas story I've encountered this year is the lack of holiday lights on Central Avenue.

From the time that I was a child until I left Phoenix in the late 1970s, decorations spanned Central downtown. You would also find the at Park Central, when it was still a mall.

Later, more compact displays were attached to the light poles along the main boulevard of the city. This continued in various reincarnations into the 2000s. But not this year.

So while Phoenix is full of places to see great Christmas lights, there's nothing on Central. This shows that despite the progress made in the core, something essential is lacking.

The cost of choices

We had a lively discussion on the previous column about people wanting choices in where they live. One of Phoenix's biggest competitive disadvantages is that is largely lacks the choice of a vibrant downtown and real urban neighborhoods. Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Denver, Portland and Seattle, among others have them. They also have suburbs, malls, championship golf, big boxes and chain restaurants. Phoenix mostly only offers the latter.

I have an urban sensibility; growing up close to a then lively downtown Phoenix I always have. So while I don't "get" the appeal of suburbia, much less the exurbia exemplified by the mess outside Prescott and in the Verde Valley, I don't want to harshly judge those who want that.

I only want them to pay for it. And they don't.

Suburbia and exurbia, for all their GOP "I got mine" individualist attitude, are heavily subsidized by taxpayers. Let me count the ways.

• FHA, other federally backed mortgages, and the mortgage tax deduction enabled especially Anglos to buy houses in the Maryvales of America and their successors. Urban neighborhoods were often redlined and assistance was not available. Smart Growth America reported that these federal subsidies cost $450 billion a year.

• Freeways sucked the life out of cities and made suburbs more convenient. Freeways did nothing positive for cities and entailed the destruction of entire urban neighborhoods. In the case of Phoenix, freeways made otherwise worthless desert or land only valuable for agriculture into gold mines for sprawl developers. This, along with the massive subsidies detailed elsewhere, has proved highly distorting to market forces.