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Not sure if it was already mentioned, but aside from the buildings being newer or different, less gritty vs more gritty, there's also a bit of desolation in Phoenix.
Since it is in the middle of the desert, there are a lot of empty lots with just sand, dirt, and very few plants.
Other places in the East are more green and also just occupied..
This is exactly how I was curious. In other cities, such as Philadelphia, it's difficult to avoid seeing blighted areas. Good to know Phoenix isn't like Philly, where heading closer to the city, it can't be avoided.
Yeah, not sure if those who have lived in Phoenix their entire life know what the Easterners mean by pothole.
Philly and Phoenix could not be any different. The thing is bad parts of Phoenix aren't dense, and the roads make you feel alone and isolated. I've lived here off and on for decades I've only once felt in danger, it was in Maryvale in a neighborhood, it's just you and whoever else is around.
But don't believe for a second we do t have bad parts of town it's just more spread out so its not run down looking in abundance it's run down in large pockets for miles but it's sparse looking, I don't really know how else to describe it. If you want to isolate yourself in the burbs and ignore reality you can pull it off as IMO the only bad looking freeway is I17 and it's not that bad.
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984 posts, read 1,191,283 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by svendrell
This is exactly how I was curious. In other cities, such as Philadelphia, it's difficult to avoid seeing blighted areas. Good to know Phoenix isn't like Philly, where heading closer to the city, it can't be avoided.
Most of these responses seem to be from people who live in manicured, newer neighborhoods. Often I take the freeway to get to work and get the same kind of "optical illusion" in that I can't really see what neighborhoods are like between my apartment and office, which I suspect many of these people do. However, on days my normal route is clogged I opt for city streets, and that's a side of Phoenix I think a lot of people who live here ignore, or possibly they don't even know it exists. When I take streets, between East Phoenix and downtown, I pass through some crumbling, dilapidated, impoverished, run-down, gritty areas. If you just hop on and off the freeway, you won't even know they're there, but I can often cut my commute by half if I go that route. If lower classes and poverty offend you, then you should probably narrow your scope to live and work in the same bland, cookie-cutter, well-off neighborhood. You'll need to stay on top of things too, because neighborhoods tend to shift over time, as mid-century Maryvale was a great neighborhood for the middle class and American dream, a great place to own a home and raise a family, and exemplary of the future of Phoenix. However... at some point between the 60s and now, things changed pretty dramatically.
Most of these responses seem to be from people who live in manicured, newer neighborhoods. Often I take the freeway to get to work and get the same kind of "optical illusion" in that I can't really see what neighborhoods are like between my apartment and office, which I suspect many of these people do. However, on days my normal route is clogged I opt for city streets, and that's a side of Phoenix I think a lot of people who live here ignore, or possibly they don't even know it exists. When I take streets, between East Phoenix and downtown, I pass through some crumbling, dilapidated, impoverished, run-down, gritty areas. If you just hop on and off the freeway, you won't even know they're there, but I can often cut my commute by half if I go that route. If lower classes and poverty offend you, then you should probably narrow your scope to live and work in the same bland, cookie-cutter, well-off neighborhood. You'll need to stay on top of things too, because neighborhoods tend to shift over time, as mid-century Maryvale was a great neighborhood for the middle class and American dream, a great place to own a home and raise a family, and exemplary of the future of Phoenix. However... at some point between the 60s and now, things changed pretty dramatically.
Maryvale is a great case study, my very elderly grandparents still live there and watching the progression just in my lifetime has been astounding. I remember the big green lots, suburban paradise and now it's like someone's forgotten memory of a town. In some areas the level of isolation makes it feel more dangerous as well. On the streets you have normal people around, Maryvale it's just you and whoevers watching.
Location: The edge of the world and all of Western civilization
984 posts, read 1,191,283 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JGMotorsport64
Maryvale is a great case study, my very elderly grandparents still live there and watching the progression just in my lifetime has been astounding. I remember the big green lots, suburban paradise and now it's like someone's forgotten memory of a town. In some areas the level of isolation makes it feel more dangerous as well. On the streets you have normal people around, Maryvale it's just you and whoevers watching.
I think Maryvale is one example in Phoenix that shows how fluid cities really are, and areas between Downtown and Midtown do as well. Outside of Phoenix, you'll see the same issues either as a city as a whole, or at the neighborhood level. Phoenix is the 6th largest US city now, but in 1950 Baltimore held that title, though it's now 26th. Likewise, Detroit proper was the 5th largest city and had more people then than Phoenix proper does now. Today it gets a lot of bad press and its rampant blight and abandoned buildings are well-known. On a localized level, Whitechapel in London was notoriously poor and dangerous (but it has since become much better), Five Points in New York was a crime- and disease-ridden slum full of gangs and horrible living conditions (but now it's an area unaffordable to most people), and the Castro in San Francisco was a working class, conservative neighborhood (though it has since become an LGBT stronghold, more liberal and very expensive). The point of this is that any neighborhood in Phoenix can shift based on general trends. It's entirely possible that poor neighborhoods flanking Downtown will become much more expensive and built-up, while places like Ahwatukee and North Scottsdale could shift toward disrepair and neglect. I personally think it would be interesting to be able to flash forward and look at neighborhoods 5, 10, 25 and 50 years into the future to see what happens, and even see if the trends change and Phoenix continues to grow fast, at a much slower pace, or shrink. I think that's why it's so important today that the city focuses on the future, because history has shown in other cities that Phoenix will almost inevitably hit a nasty rough patch in the future.
Maryvale may at one time used to be a relatively nice neighborhood, but today it looks like a toxic waste dump. It's an obvious victim of "white flight" as the majority of residents there are now Hispanic and lower middle class to poverty level. If you don't speak Spanish, you may feel like an outsider from say, Camelback to McDowell roads and 35th to 75th avenues. Count how many "Tio Rico Te Ayuda" shops and billboards you see in that area.
Most of these responses seem to be from people who live in manicured, newer neighborhoods. Often I take the freeway to get to work and get the same kind of "optical illusion" in that I can't really see what neighborhoods are like between my apartment and office, which I suspect many of these people do. However, on days my normal route is clogged I opt for city streets, and that's a side of Phoenix I think a lot of people who live here ignore, or possibly they don't even know it exists. When I take streets, between East Phoenix and downtown, I pass through some crumbling, dilapidated, impoverished, run-down, gritty areas. If you just hop on and off the freeway, you won't even know they're there, but I can often cut my commute by half if I go that route. If lower classes and poverty offend you, then you should probably narrow your scope to live and work in the same bland, cookie-cutter, well-off neighborhood. You'll need to stay on top of things too, because neighborhoods tend to shift over time, as mid-century Maryvale was a great neighborhood for the middle class and American dream, a great place to own a home and raise a family, and exemplary of the future of Phoenix. However... at some point between the 60s and now, things changed pretty dramatically.
I agree with this. If you live in a newer neighborhood that is perfectly landscaped and clean and take the freeway to your office building that is also landscaped and clean, and do your shopping at the closest grocery to your house in that new neighborhood...well, you aren't seeing the "down and dirty" parts of this city complete with trash and potholes! It exists!
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Phoenix is the 6th largest US city now, but in 1950 Baltimore held that title, though it's now 26th. Likewise, Detroit proper was the 5th largest city and had more people then than Phoenix proper does now. Today it gets a lot of bad press and its rampant blight and abandoned buildings are well-known. On a localized level, Whitechapel in London was notoriously poor and dangerous (but it has since become much better), Five Points in New York was a crime- and disease-ridden slum full of gangs and horrible living conditions (but now it's an area unaffordable to most people), and the Castro in San Francisco was a working class, conservative neighborhood (though it has since become an LGBT stronghold, more liberal and very expensive). The point of this is that any neighborhood in Phoenix can shift based on general trends. I think that's why it's so important today that the city focuses on the future, because history has shown in other cities that Phoenix will almost inevitably hit a nasty rough patch in the future.
In all fairness Phoenix is 6 times larger in land mass than Baltimore with just a little over two times as much population. It is 3 times as big as Detroit. Also consider that in the 1950 census Baltimore was the 6th largest city with almost 1 million people in the same 80sq miles of land today it had then compared to the 516sq miles that Phoenix has annexed. I don't think we really know what are the country's most populated cities unless all cities had an equal sq mileage of land surveyed. I think Phoenix will be ok until its economic engine right now dry out. The largest cities of the 50s census were all industrial giants. Deindustrialization and inevitably globalization forced these cites (some of which are still recovering today) to adapt and grow a new diverse economy. It took about 60 years for Baltimore's population to stabilize after the 1950 census back in 2012 when the city got its first population gain in 60 years. Detroit will probably be the largest major city in US history to lose 91.3% of its population since 1950 while Baltimore has lost 40.5% respectably. Another fun fact is that just about all the largest cities in the 1950 census lost population in the 1960 census for the first time in each city's history including NYC. NYC would recover the quickest gaining the population it lost again by the 1970 census.
Last edited by Northernest Southernest C; 01-15-2016 at 07:05 PM..
I think Maryvale is one example in Phoenix that shows how fluid cities really are, and areas between Downtown and Midtown do as well. Outside of Phoenix, you'll see the same issues either as a city as a whole, or at the neighborhood level. Phoenix is the 6th largest US city now, but in 1950 Baltimore held that title, though it's now 26th. Likewise, Detroit proper was the 5th largest city and had more people then than Phoenix proper does now. Today it gets a lot of bad press and its rampant blight and abandoned buildings are well-known. On a localized level, Whitechapel in London was notoriously poor and dangerous (but it has since become much better), Five Points in New York was a crime- and disease-ridden slum full of gangs and horrible living conditions (but now it's an area unaffordable to most people), and the Castro in San Francisco was a working class, conservative neighborhood (though it has since become an LGBT stronghold, more liberal and very expensive). The point of this is that any neighborhood in Phoenix can shift based on general trends. It's entirely possible that poor neighborhoods flanking Downtown will become much more expensive and built-up, while places like Ahwatukee and North Scottsdale could shift toward disrepair and neglect. I personally think it would be interesting to be able to flash forward and look at neighborhoods 5, 10, 25 and 50 years into the future to see what happens, and even see if the trends change and Phoenix continues to grow fast, at a much slower pace, or shrink. I think that's why it's so important today that the city focuses on the future, because history has shown in other cities that Phoenix will almost inevitably hit a nasty rough patch in the future.
We had that nasty rough patch during the last recession. I remember Surprise vividly in the run up and the crash, I owned some property out there at the time. Entire rows of houses built to no owners, owners stripping copper from their houses then abandoning them, entire empty strip malls, Dysart was building Valley Vista High School right in the middle of it, their tax engine being property taxes meant delays in construction and up to 45 member classes. Teachers got pink slipped during classes. My neighborhoods property values fell over 50% in a matter of months, and STILL haven't returned to what a lot of people bought them at. Of course the foreclosures!
Point being that that could easily happen again and we can only hope we don't have local RE dominate the economy. It's downright stupid.
I think Maryvale is one example in Phoenix that shows how fluid cities really are, and areas between Downtown and Midtown do as well.
Where specifically are you referring to? By my reckoning downtown and midtown are right next to each other and neither are anything like Maryvale.
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