Phoenix in search of ‘big city cred’

At the risk of being cruel…

I missed the Feb 4th article in the Arizona Republic headlined "Getting some Big City cred." It starts off, "A
major golf tournament, a celebrity-studded auto auction and, most
important, the Super Bowl — these are the markings of a destination
metropolis.
Yet on the list of America’s
Greatest Big Cities, Phoenix lags in the sorts of physical, cultural
and historical amenities that distinguish the most memorable
destinations."

Then it offers suggestions, some whimsical, some apparently serious, about how Phoenix could get, er, "cred": a signature skyscraper, a signature enchilada, a San Antonio-style riverwalk, more gridlock.

At least the writer called the place by its name, a decent start. One
of the big problems is the insistence of the media, led by the dominant
newspaper, in using the anodyne term "The Valley."

But the sad fact is that my hometown is not a big city. It is a huge
assemblage of real estate ventures connected by wide highways ("streets") and
freeways, warring municipal governments, a population largely
disconnected from its history or with any sense of civic attachment and
an economy built around "growth," i.e. selling crapola tract houses to
coldies from the Midwest and the refugees ‘burbs of California. So much that made Phoenix unique in the world was sold for dross. I call the result a migropolis.

To be sure, some wonderful flowers of excellence bloom, such as the
Phoenix Art Museum. And you can have a few square miles of kinda urban in
central Phoenix. But this is not a big city. A golf tournament
thoughtlessly shorn of its historic Phoenix name and all the other
stuff mentioned above do not make a big city.

A big city is sure of itself, competes worldwide and welcomes a raucous debate and criticism. Phoenix remains startlingly inward-looking, defensive and in denial about its challenges. People told to "shut up" and "move if you don’t like it." When real and present dangers to the area are aired, we get the non-sequitur "things must be going pretty good because people keep moving here." Huh? That’s what victims in a Ponzi scheme tell themselves to feel better.

Now, Phoenix is a tourist destination in its rapidly shortening sweet
season. Unfortunately, local leaders have not come to grips with the
inherent contradiction between a resort and a populous, polluted urban
area with lots of spectacular violent crime where the natural beauty is being constantly degraded.

Phoenix does have big-city problems: crime, traffic, underfunded
schools, failing infrastructure, linear slums, lack of private
investment outside of real-estate plays. It has been way too slow to
adopt big city solutions. The private sector resists reform because it is so tied to "growth." It lacks the powerful players that would demand, and help finance, change. Likewise, the thuggish right-wing politics, especially evident in the blogosphere, perpetuate the status quo.

The writer was onto something. The future belongs to big cities. Those that attract the world’s best talent and capital are already the powerhouses, in many ways more important that states or nations. The future for a migropolis is much more uncertain, particularly one at Ground Zero of global warming’s downside.

In the end, lack of big-city cred may be the least of Phoenix’s problems. Feel me?