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Where do people get the idea that the east coast is dying? Last time I checked New York was the largest city and media capital in the country. Washington is the nations capital and perhaps the most powerful city in the free world. Boston is nowhere near a decaying city. Philly and Baltimore may have some decaying parts and high crime rates in their inner cities but their metro areas are large and have pretty decent job bases. Just look up the wealthiest states in the country 4 of the 5 are east coast states(Md,Jersey,Conn,Mass). Yeah alot of people from the east are moving to the west and the south but it's not like back east is shrinking or anything. Phoenix is a pretty decent place to live but the thread starter is right...it's nothing more than a suburb on steroids just like every other city in the west(except for San Fran)
That is why they are disappearing. Because the true middle class is. What we call middle class now was, a generation ago, the affluent class. Cities have become havens for the 6 figure income earners or slums for the providers of services to them.
I think I excluded NY and Boston but I've lived (NY native)in all the ones I mentioned plus DC and they were pretty neat 40 years ago. Not everyone wants a bedroom in the burbs from which to commute to their cube farm job in the burbs. And not everyone wants to be a govt. worker ant in DC.
Those wealthiest states also have some of the worst poverty. Right across from Philly, on the NJ side is Camden they're not ever trying to gentrify it anymore. It is a third world country (not making an ethnic connection here just an expression). Have you been to B'more's inner city"? There are streets you just do not go in the day time (look for a book called "The Street" in your library) but they are mixed into decent neighborhoods, hard to avoid unlike the South Bronx. Princeton is in Mercer County. Wanna know what else is there? Trenton. State Capital and arm pit. No attempt to fix it either except to run a light rail from there to Camden. LOL but it's no joke. Even the governor lives in Princeton not the Capital. I could go on and on but I'm boring myself. It's fine to be nostalgic for city life as it is in NY but NY has always been unique. When you are willing to give up your cars and get mass transit and live in apartment buildings not houses with stupid little resource gobbling lawns, so you can play lord of the manor, then you can talk about living in a REAL city. Oh yeah, you also need to provide decent paying jobs and build truly affordable housing for anyone who is still middle class. I have seen "affordable" housing being built for 250K but advertised as for the "working class." give me a break. That's still urban renewal yuppiedom.
The whole East Coast vs. West Coast dispute going on in this thread sounds sort of like the East-West rivalry in hip-hop music back in the late '90s. As I remember, a few popular recording artists got killed over it. Let's not go there again. When looked at in their entirety (core city, in-town neighborhoods, inner suburbs, and outer suburbs), the various metro areas in different parts of the country have far more similarities than differences. A thoughtful discussion on how to improve quality of life in all metros is much more productive than silly "my city is better than yours" arguments.
Personally, we like the West Coast and the different lifestyles the west offers.
As for living in the Valley, we choose to live "out of town" somewhat - as crow flies, we are some 60 miles east of Downtown Phoenix - a round trip to the office is some 80 miles - but, at home there is no noise - no car, no airplanes, no neigbors - quiet. Well, except for the coyotes that are nearby, and the occassional rattle of a snake - and the birds - we think we have the best of both worlds
That is why they are disappearing. Because the true middle class is. What we call middle class now was, a generation ago, the affluent class. Cities have become havens for the 6 figure income earners or slums for the providers of services to them.
I think I excluded NY and Boston but I've lived (NY native)in all the ones I mentioned plus DC and they were pretty neat 40 years ago. Not everyone wants a bedroom in the burbs from which to commute to their cube farm job in the burbs. And not everyone wants to be a govt. worker ant in DC.
Those wealthiest states also have some of the worst poverty. Right across from Philly, on the NJ side is Camden they're not ever trying to gentrify it anymore. It is a third world country (not making an ethnic connection here just an expression). Have you been to B'more's inner city"? There are streets you just do not go in the day time (look for a book called "The Street" in your library) but they are mixed into decent neighborhoods, hard to avoid unlike the South Bronx. Princeton is in Mercer County. Wanna know what else is there? Trenton. State Capital and arm pit. No attempt to fix it either except to run a light rail from there to Camden. LOL but it's no joke. Even the governor lives in Princeton not the Capital. I could go on and on but I'm boring myself. It's fine to be nostalgic for city life as it is in NY but NY has always been unique. When you are willing to give up your cars and get mass transit and live in apartment buildings not houses with stupid little resource gobbling lawns, so you can play lord of the manor, then you can talk about living in a REAL city. Oh yeah, you also need to provide decent paying jobs and build truly affordable housing for anyone who is still middle class. I have seen "affordable" housing being built for 250K but advertised as for the "working class." give me a break. That's still urban renewal yuppiedom.
I wouldn't say that the cities are disappearing. In fact Baltimore is making strides have you've been to Inner Harbor east or the area around the Hippodrome? Plus the city has always had great neighborhoods like Fells Point, Canton, Fed Hill, Mt Vernon, Roland Park, etc. I can same the same for Philly they have some bad parts of town but they also have some pretty decent areas too to keep some kind of balance. But their homicide rate is crazy this year.
Are we talking about just city propers or their whole metro areas? Because if we include DC it's way more than just a govt town then. There are all types of jobs in the area from Biotech to Internet. You gotta remember the District is small in area and you can't fit too much in there after all the govt buildings. But the burbs are major job centers Tysons Corner(in nearby Virginia) has more office space than downtown Phoenix for starters.
But back to my point cities in general you always take a higher risk living in them because of their density. So some areas are gonna be more dangerous than others. Cities are close in meaning using as much space as possible. They were never meant for middle class families anyway so it seems at least. That's what the suburbs were for. Middle class families moved to the burbs because they wanted lawns and bigger homes and they had the money to do so. So yeah cities are for the rich and poor and don't really cater to the middle class. So NYC, Philly, B-more, DC and Boston aren't really doing that bad after all and are not dying. You have to remember these cities with the exception of NYC are pretty small in land area and can't annex everything with a breathing pulse like Phoenix and other cities in the west and south do. So of course these east coast cities are gonna have higher crimes rates and seem blighted. Phoenix has bad areas too like Maryvale and south phoenix but they have areas like Ahwatukee, Paradise Valley and north Phoenix to dilute everything and if you've been to those areas you know they would be considered suburbs back in those east coast cities that i mentioned.
Last thing(lol..i know this is kinda long) the reason why those cities in Jersey are like the way they are is because the New Jersey state government is corrupt as hell and only cares about it's suburban areas and could give a damn about the urban areas.
The problem for Phoenix is that building high rise buildings anywhere-- even if the market demands it, is like pulling teeth. People will raise a stink about the "historic preservation" of every little 400 sq ft decaying shack, about mountain views being blocked, sunlight being blocked, every conceivable objection you can think of. Half of these projects end up going nowhere. A good example: in Tempe, they were about to build a major hotel on University Dr, where the "Arches" shopping center used to be. They bulldozed all the buildings, except one-- a hot dog stand, and for over an entire year, the whole thing has been a vacant lot, all because of one old troublemaker leasing the building for "The Dog House" refused to get out. Now look, I would have preferred for the old Arches shopping center to be there in the first place. But if they're going to build a high rise hotel, and they've already closed all the businesses and bulldozed the property, just building the thing already! This one hot dog guy, a NIMBY-- or rather, one of those Fanatically Against Relatively Tall Structures that Valley Native always talks about-- has created urban blight in Tempe for over a year now. Who knows if the hotel will ever get built now. Valley Native is absolutely spot on about the challenges that Phoenix faces when it comes to urban development.
I think the term "NIMBY" is getting a bit overused on this board lately. Not every high-rise project proposed is a good one, and historic preservation, mountain views, and other intangible quality of life issues need to be weighed in decision making. While I want to see Phoenix become denser and more vertical, I also don't want it to wantonly obliterate its past. In most cases, slow downs in high-rise projects in Downtown Phoenix and Downtown Tempe have been attributable more to the slowdown in the housing market and FAA concerns than to outright opposition to vertical development. The Camelback Corridor is of course an exception. Opposition to high-rises and mid-rises in that part of town is selfishly motivated, but I wouldn't generalize about rampant NIMBY-ism in every part of town.
I should add that I don't consider any of this negative. Plenty of cities have secondary high-rise districts outside the traditional boundaries of their downtowns. Phoenix is just in the unique position of needing to grow its true Downtown to catch up with its expanded population. Of course, these finer points of terminology really only matter to a small population that really cares about these issues. Many Phoenicians refer to anything south of Camelback Road as part of "Downtown Phoenix" when in reality they're thinking of Midtown or some other near-Downtown area.
Ok, I see your point now. You're right, most people could care less about urban geography. I happen to love talking about this stuff! I agree that downtown needs to become expanded in size. I agree that calling Van Buren the northern boundary is outdated. Only difference is I would say, as of right now, Fillmore St is the northern boundary. That way you include the Arizona Center, the new UA/ASU biomedical campus going up, ASU downtown campus, the tower at Central/VB that hopefully will get built, the new light rail station across the street, the new park between 1st ave & Central, and a couple of historic buildings along Central up until the Westward Ho. I understand that there's a lot of stuff happening between Fillmore and I-10/ Margaret T. Hance Park, however, as of right now, there is neither enough tall buildings nor population density for that area to be considered an extension of downtown. Rather, I look at it as a separate city center neighborhood in the making, adjacent to the northern end of downtown. Some day it COULD become part of what's considered downtown-- and there are a handful of lots that have "Coming soon...." signs posted on them, but as of right now I haven't seen any of those projects come to fruition. Someone should come up with a name for that neighborhood-- Uptown? Artists Row? East Roosevelt? NorDo?
Likewise, the neighborhood along Roosevelt/Portland west of 1st Ave (which btw, is my favorite neighborhood in central Phoenix) is a city-center neighborhood, but to call that downtown is a stretch. And I have a question-- why are the city blocks between 7th Ave and Central Ave, Roosevelt and VB so long? Some of them, going north-south, are the size of 3 normal city blocks! It breaks up any continuous sense of space between downtown and the Roosevelt historic district to the north.
Last edited by vegaspilgrim; 12-20-2007 at 05:53 PM..
Reason: Meant Westward Ho, not Valley Ho
And I have a question-- why are the city blocks between 7th Ave and Central Ave, Roosevelt and VB so long? Some of them, going north-south, are the size of 3 normal city blocks! It breaks up any continuous sense of space between downtown and the Roosevelt historic district to the north.
Good questions. Wish I knew the answer. I wonder if it has something to do with the types of developments that once stood in that area.
Phoenix has bad areas too like Maryvale and south phoenix but they have areas like Ahwatukee, Paradise Valley and north Phoenix to dilute everything and if you've been to those areas you know they would be considered suburbs back in those east coast cities that i mentioned.
True, but that's there and PHX is here.
Last thing(lol..i know this is kinda long) the reason why those cities in Jersey are like the way they are is because the New Jersey state government is corrupt as hell and only cares about it's suburban areas and could give a damn about the urban areas.
You're telling me? I sorta fudged it (I was closer to Times Sq. than all of Bklyn and not in a suburb at all) when I said native NY, Technically I come from the 6th boro across the Hudson river. LOL
You're telling me? I sorta fudged it (I was closer to Times Sq. than all of Bklyn and not in a suburb at all) when I said native NY, Technically I come from the 6th boro across the Hudson river. LOL
Could you possibly change your font color?? An old guy like me has some real trouble reading it.
You're telling me? I sorta fudged it (I was closer to Times Sq. than all of Bklyn and not in a suburb at all) when I said native NY, Technically I come from the 6th boro across the Hudson river. LOL
if Jersey is the 6th borough does that make Miami the 7th? lol I actually like Jersey the only thing that sucks about it is that you can't pump your own gas
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I agree that downtown needs to become expanded in size. I agree that calling Van Buren the northern boundary is outdated. Only difference is I would say, as of right now, Fillmore St is the northern boundary. That way you include the Arizona Center, the new UA/ASU biomedical campus going up, ASU downtown campus, the tower at Central/VB that hopefully will get built, the new light rail station across the street, the new park between 1st ave & Central, and a couple of historic buildings along Central up until the Westward Ho. I understand that there's a lot of stuff happening between Fillmore and I-10/ Margaret T. Hance Park, however, as of right now, there is neither enough tall buildings nor population density for that area to be considered an extension of downtown. Rather, I look at it as a separate city center neighborhood in the making, adjacent to the northern end of downtown. Some day it COULD become part of what's considered downtown-- and there are a handful of lots that have "Coming soon...." signs posted on them, but as of right now I haven't seen any of those projects come to fruition. Someone should come up with a name for that neighborhood-- Uptown? Artists Row? East Roosevelt? NorDo?
