Posted inDowntown & central Phoenix Phoenix

Downtown, again II

The smart folks in the comments section of Rogue Columnist did not disappoint. So in the spirit of Abe Lincoln ("It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt"), I should probably just send you to their thoughts and end the post right here.

Still, a few observations.

Let me join Soleri and others on my own SimCity dreams. Oh, to have the Westward Ho restored to its glory, as has happened in other cities around the country (such as the Netherland Plaza in Cincinnati, the Skirvin in Oklahoma City or the Book Cadillac in Detroit)! To have the old Valley Bank building bustling again, with its magnificent lobby as I recall it. I'll see that and up you: A restored Union Station as an intercity and commuter train station, with intercity and city buses and a trolley to light rail. A real Symphony Hall worthy of a world-class city at Van Buren and Third, or any of the many vacant lots. Rebuilding some of the lost treasures, such as the red sandstone building that was located, as I recall, where the awful Wells Fargo (First National Bank of Arizona) tower now squats, on other empty land. Rebuild the Fox Theater, too. Somewhere architects must exist who would do something so subversive as to design pleasing, classical buildings.

For those wishing something to feel good about: Light rail, ASU Downtown, CityScape, the Phoenix Convention Center, Herberger Theater Center, Sheraton, Phoenix Biosciences Campus, Dodge Theater, Children's Museum, park of the Floating Diaphragm, USAirways Arena, Chase Field and the shady, grassy oasis of Arizona Center. These are all real accomplishments, major assets upon which other civic goods can grow.

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Posted inDowntown & central Phoenix Phoenix

Downtown, again

Susan Copeland, chair of the Downtown Voices Coalition, recently wrote an op-ed in the Arizona Republic, entitled, "A realistic downtown assessment." It was mostly a clear-eyed look at the reality of downtown Phoenix's challenges: Expecting too much from sports teams, failure to integrate ASU into the city fabric, too many surface parking lots and chimerical hopes from an "entertainment district." Copeland rightly adds that CityScape is "suburban mall stylistically dating to the 20th century," although I have a hard time mourning the brutalist "park" of Patriot's Square. She adds:

With all the damage done, there are still hopeful signs, if only our city officials and civic leaders follow their own community vetted and charetted ideals. The Urban Form Project; Arts, Culture, and Small Business District Overlay; and Adaptive Reuse Program are smarter moves for aspiring urban infill than another stab at a faux urban Entertainment District. When the city actually listens to its citizens rather than check-marking the input box, great things happen, like the improved ASU Nursing School exterior or the forthcoming Washington Street Centennial Project.

Well, fine (Her piece was written in response to this one). And good on her for searching for realism. But regular readers will have to forgive me if I cover some familiar ground as well as discuss the deep problems and real opportunities facing downtown Phoenix. I'm still not sure people fully get it.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

The governor’s speech

Somebody sent me the "State of the State speech Jan Brewer never gave," which was supplanted by her short talk to the Legislature in the wake of the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It sounded so much like a screed out of the Goldwater Institute that I wanted to make sure it was real. It is. You can download it here. She starts out:

As America enters the fifth year of the most devastating economic downturn since the Great Depression, Arizona is party to a vital national debate focusing on how state governments can most effectively enhance quality job creation and personal income growth. In pursuit of that objective, the leaders of some large states – principally in the Northeast and Midwest and on the West Coast – have chosen a perilous path that calls for dual expansion of the public sector and the regulatory supremacy of state government, while undermining and, in too many instances, scorning the principles of free enterprise that for more than two centuries have made America the envy of the world. This reckless strategy mirrors the model of irresponsibility that Congress and the White House have exhibited with uncommon zeal during the last two years.

In contrast, other states are pursuing a more prudent approach that limits the growth of the public sector and restrains unnecessary regulatory encroachment upon areas that are outside the rightful scope of state government, with the affirmative goal of stimulating free enterprise.

As to which economic model is superior, the verdict is in: With few exceptions, states that have a strong private sector enjoy a more robust level of job growth than Big Government states that deny the central role of the free market in putting people to work.

Brewer then lays out her Four Cornerstones of Reform. Among them: "remove unnecessary barriers that impede economic growth, and provide a stable, predictable, business-friendly environment in which private employers can grow." It's hard to know where to begin with this delusional, ideological mindset of the newly elected governor. But I suppose we must make a start.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

Between the lines

At the risk of causing apoplexy among some readers, let me make a confession: I'm ambivalent about so-called birthright citizenship. This is a cause celebre among many conservatives. As the New York Times reports, "Arguing for an end to the policy, which is rooted in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, immigration hard-liners describe a wave of migrants…stepping across the border in the advanced stages of pregnancy to have what are dismissively called 'anchor babies.' ”

They have a point. As Jack Rakove writes in his indispensable The Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, the writers of the 1868 14th Amendment were entirely focused on the end of slavery and Reconstruction. First, they wanted to reverse Dred Scott, which held that even free African-Americans were not citizens; second, they wanted to give constitutional authority for the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and its efforts to prevent the old Southern ruling class from keeping the freedmen in serfdom (Jim Crow killed that ideal for a century). Yet I'm not thinking so much as an originalist as someone who believes the framers intended the Constitution to be malleable enough to change with the times. Neither they nor the writers of the 14th Amendment envisioned an overpopulated Third World country on our border, or our unthinking and venal appetite for its cheap labor.

We owe something to the immigrants we have exploited, particularly in Arizona and the Southwest (the anti-illegal immigration forces would deny even that). I'm just not sure citizenship for their children should be part of it. It's one of many areas that I come down between the battle lines that are neatly drawn by talk-radio ideology.

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Posted inDowntown & central Phoenix Phoenix

The sweet season

I am back from several days in Arizona for book signings. I'd be a liar if I didn't admit that certain things still pull on me: A spectacular sunset over the Estrellas, a scent of blooms in the air, riding light rail (we built it, you bastards), friends who remained so even after I was kicked out of my columnist gig, and the comforting embrace of the old neighborhood. It's high season for the resorts and I suppose Scottsdale is full of golfers, but that's not the side of the street where I work. Phoenix will always be a home of my heart, but so much of that exists in what's gone. Most of the 4 million people living there have no inkling of this irretrievable loss. Yes, every city changes. But Phoenix threw away so much of what made it unique in all the world, gaining nothing but more people and a questionable future.

Economic depression hangs on the place even during the diminishing number of pleasant months. I read that Don Cardon, head of the governor's new "commerce authority," wants to put together a fund amounting to $500 million to $1 billion to provide loans to companies that will grow in Arizona. This, according to the new story, "at no risk to the state." Good luck with that. The state fumbled its best opportunity to leapfrog by failing to implement the "meds-and-eds" strategy during the 2000s. Now the Legislature plans to further gut funding to universities, the engines of an advanced economy — this has been going on for decades. The state's inward-looking, hostile-to-the-world intolerance and political extremism are kryptonite to attracting talented people. Plainly, Arizona doesn't intend to compete in a knowledge-driven global economy. If there's a strategy, it seems to be the same old routine of economic-development organizations appearing to be busy.

At one book signing, a man asked why people move to Phoenix, given all its downsides. Not in a hostile way, but out of sincere curiosity.  A longtime resident, he noted all the ways the metro area's quality of life has declined, not least the hotter and longer summers. How Phoenix has its own version of horrible weather, only in reverse from Minneapolis. My no-doubt inadequate answer: Sunshine, which for many people is enough; a huge supply of relatively cheap housing; the jobs that for decades went along with rapidly rising population, especially in construction and real estate, and massive federal subsidies. This goes well beyond the Salt River Project, CAP, flood control that made it possible to build tract houses on otherwise marginal desert land, etc. Social Security and Medicare, for example, underwrite a huge retiree population along with thousands of jobs in health care. At least somebody is wondering.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix Politics: National

Tucson rallies

The white-right has been quick to deflect any criticism after the Giffords shooting, including Sarah Palin's appalling, but somehow strategic, use of the term "blood libel." The media have been willing accomplices, as usual. Anyone who has been paying attention since the frightening crowds egged on by Gov. Palin during the closing phases of the 2008 presidential campaign, the staged August disruptions of meetings with members of Congress in 2009 and the Tea Party and all its violent rhetoric and imagery — the connection to the shooting is unavoidable. And, as Pima County Sheriff Dupnik had the guts to say, there is a peculiar accelerant of Arizona political extremism applied to this fire. In the end, however, few minds will likely be changed.

But other factors are at work, too. We can debate and weigh them, but they must be considered.

I've driven by the place where the shooting took place many times. It's one of hundreds of off-the-shelf Spanish-Tuscan-schlock shopping strips with a huge, blazing parking lot plopped down across the state by the Real Estate Industrial Complex: ugly, characterless, dehumanizing and killing of genuine community. The same is true of the endless subdivisions of lookalike tract houses, built around a garage door rather than a front porch. The built environment does influence behavior and souls. It's telling that the attack took place there and not, say, along the Fourth Avenue business district in central Tucson. Most Americans like to believe crime happens in center cities; in reality, much of it, including some of the most hideous murders, occurs in suburbia and exurbia. Also, the 8th District, like most of Arizona, is so lacking in inviting public spaces that this is where Rep. Giffords had to set up her table to meet constituents.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix Politics: National

Ideas have consequences

The attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords in suburban Tucson on Saturday brought many things to mind, some echoed on the weekend Rogue thread. One of my police buddies told me, "Is there any doubt?" that this crime is the fruit of the Kookocracy and its gun love. "The Kooks passed an insane law that says anyone but a convict can carry a concealed weapon. With no background and no training. I treat everyone, especially Kooks and gang bangers, as if they are carrying a 30-round Glock under their shirt." I thought about the death threats I regularly received when I was a columnist at the Arizona Republic from 2000 to 2007. I was pilloried with violent criticism. My house was photographed and placed on a prominent right-wing Web site (trying to make me out a hypocrite for blasting the Real Estate Industrial Complex while doing well with my own real-estate "investment"; in fact, the 97-year-old house was in the Midtown neighborhood where I grew up and we bought it intending to live there for the rest of our lives, not flip it in two years for a profit). A deranged individual could have used that photo as a springboard to something dangerous. After I appeared on a radio show, a friend in law enforcement was so troubled by hearing one caller to the program that he came to a book signing specifically to watch over me.

As Soleri pointed out, the false equivalency argument began almost immediately, even though virtually all the politically motivated violence in recent years has come from the right. More about that in a moment. By no means let us rush to judgment — but that shouldn't become an excuse to never reach it. My biggest reaction is how this event was very tied to Arizona. When I came back to Phoenix, I'd been a controversial columnist taking on the toughest issues in Denver, Dayton, Cincinnati and Charlotte, with my work carried nationally on the New York Times News Service and others. Yet I had never received a death threat. The climate in Arizona even in 2000 was different: More vicious and threatening, more abusive and thuggish, more filled with us-vs-them hate and paranoia.

The shooting also caused me to recall an exchange I had with my grandmother nearly half a century ago, in another America. In full thrall of cowboys and Indians, I asked her why now, in Phoenix, people didn't go around with six-shooters on their hips — a nice idea in my childish mind. My grandmother, born on the frontier and raised in Arizona Territory, said, "Men wore guns then so we wouldn't have to carry them today."

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

308,745,538

"Too many people spoil everything," my mother said. This when Phoenix passed the intolerable level of 600,000 residents and America 200 million. Now we're more than 100 million beyond that and it's difficult to argue we're that much better as a nation. The suburban apologist Joel Kotkin has written a book entitled, The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. His thesis, as Publisher's Weekly puts it: "a very sunny…forecast for the American economy, arguing that despite its daunting current difficulties, the U.S. will emerge by mid-century as the most affluent, culturally rich, and successful nation in human history. Nourished by mass immigration and American society's proven adaptability, the country will reign supreme over an industrialized world beset by old age, bitter ethnic conflicts, and erratically functioning economic institutions." Funny, that dystopia sounds much like America in 2010. The success like America in 1970 or even 1990.

Thank God I saw the West when it was still relatively empty, when Arizona was such an exotic locale that most Americans had only seen it in Westerns. That's gone forever, especially in my home state, replaced by unmitigated ugliness almost every place that has been touched by human hands.

Interestingly, the decade's 9.7 percent growth rate nationally is the lowest since the Great Depression. Arizona clocked in as the nation's second-fastest growing state, at 24.6 percent, to reach 6.4 million. It probably would have seen an even larger population if not for the white-right war against Hispanics. Yet it is hardly 24.6 percent better by any other measure, certainly those involving quality of life or economic competitiveness. It barely made a dent in paying for the infrastructure to accommodate the 35-percent rise in the 1980s and the 40-percent rate of the 1990s. Nevada, No. 1 in growth this decade (35.1 percent), is an economic, social and environmental disaster. The nation as a whole is poorer, deeply in debt, mired in imperial adventures and falling behind the advanced nations of the world.

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Posted inPhoenix

The Bishop and St. Joe’s

Crisis reveals character. Let me give you an example. One June night in 2003, Thomas J. O'Brien, the Roman Catholic bishop of Phoenix, was driving one of the city's incredibly broad, dark, high-speed "streets" when he struck a pedestrian. It was a telling moment. Although O'Brien claimed he didn't know he had hit a human being, he took the car home, stayed there the next day and called his secretary to arrange to have the shattered windshield replaced. He avoided the police long enough to leave questions about driving while impaired unanswerable. In the end, he was sentenced to probation and community service. Many Phoenicians noted, sympathetically, that the dead man was a "drunk Indian" who had probably wandered into traffic. And yet, and yet: The man was a person individually precious and sacred to the Lord that the bishop claimed to serve.

Imagine a different outcome. What if the bishop had immediately stopped, called 911 and rendered aid. What if he had administered the Sacrament for the Anointing of the Sick to the dying man? Bishop O'Brien would have been a hero, no matter what his blood alcohol level might have shown. But he didn't. Just as he dodged dealing with the local church sex scandals until he signed an agreement with the County Attorney giving up his authority over sex abuse charges in the diocese. Crisis reveals character.

O'Brien was replaced by another Thomas, last name Olmsted, who has kept a much lower profile. For example, in my columnist days there, I regularly ran into O'Brien, even was a table-mate of his twice at events. I never saw Olmsted. An Arizona Republic profile tells us a bit more about him. And he has had his O'Brien moment: Choosing to strip 115-year-old St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix of its Catholic status. Its sin: Performing an abortion on a woman to save her life.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Merry ChristmAZ

Gov. Jan Brewer has a solution to the state's Medicaid shortfall. Eliminate the program. She sent a letter to Speaker-to-be John Boehner and the state's congressional delegation "respectfully" asking that the feds eliminate the spending requirements for the program. "We cannot afford this increase without gutting every other state priority such as education and public safety," Brewer wrote. Arizona faces a fiscal shortfall of $2.25 billion over the next 18 months, with health care being one of the biggest component of the budget.

The woman who thinks she thinks, yet who crushed the worthy Terry Goddard in the election, offers this as a Christmas gift in a state now notorious, yet again — this time for letting transplant patients die. The Legislature Kookocracy tried earlier this year to kill the KidsCare program, a legacy of the St. Janet years, aimed at helping the children of the working poor. They reversed course only when they realized Arizona would consequently lose $7 billion in federal money. In fact, Arizona wouldn't even have a Medicaid program if not for a lawsuit years ago. So the solution is simple: Eliminate federal mandates so the program can be starved into oblivion. The process is well under way here. It is the legislative equivalent of the cruelty emblemized by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the private prison racket, an approach heavily supported by the mega-churchers and LDS that are a bedrock of the Kookocracy.

This is the season Christians celebrate as advent, the expectant coming of Jesus. His lessons were simple and radical: Love your neighbor, love your enemies. Jesus stood up for the last, the least and the lost. This is not exclusive to Christianity, either. All through the Old Testament, the anger of the Lord is kindled when the Israelites fail to care for the widows, orphans and poor, and the aliens, for they themselves were once sojourners in a foreign land. God speaks through the prophets on these subjects again and again. Arizona has eyes but will not see, ears but will not hear.

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Posted inPhoenix

Post-crash Phoenix snapshots

Starting Tuesday, we'll get a huge data dump from the 2010 Census. We will learn, for example, whether Phoenix remains the nation's fifth most populous city or if it has been eclipsed by San Antonio. The dear hopes of boosters, that it would surpass Houston at No. 4 (as if raw population alone was a gold standard), won't happen. But the American Community Survey, a useful in-depth report on a variety of areas, came out this week with information through 2009.

The main city of the metro area is poorer than in 2000. In Phoenix, 18.2 percent of the population is below the poverty line; for children, the number is 26.3, well above the state's shocking 20.8 percent. In 1999, the overall number was 15.8 percent. In Colorado, by comparison, the 2009 rate is 15.7 percent (26.4 percent in Denver) and Washington state's 15.3 percent (12.4 percent in Seattle).

The fall in median household income from 2000 to 2009 is widespread across the metro area. Much of Maryvale saw drops of 25 percent or more. But most of Peoria and Glendale didn't fare much better. In Scottsdale, McCormick Ranch Census tracks saw declines from 16 percent to 24 percent. Most of Ahwatukee saw incomes nosedive up to 26 percent from 2000. Rises in formerly rural areas are entirely an artifice of more people moving into new subdivisions. Interestingly, central Phoenix saw an income rise (up 17 percent in Willo/Alvarado and 9 percent in Palmcroft), going along with a national trend.

Many people remained at work despite the depressed economy. The employment-to-population ratio in Phoenix is 69.5 percent vs. a metro area of 70.7. In Seattle, the ratio is 75.6.

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Phoenix 101: The Phoenix 40
Posted inPhoenix Phoenix 101: History

Phoenix 101: The Phoenix 40

Once upon a time, the Phoenix 40 ran this town, got things done, showed real leadership. The Phoenix 40 was an exclusionary bunch of powerful white men trying to hold onto their power in changing times. The Phoenix 40 was only the tip of an iceberg of evil and corruption that sits deep in the DNA of the city and state. So go the tales, myths and realities long after the legendary group morphed into the benign and toothless Greater Phoenix Leadership.

PulliamThe real Phoenix 40 was formed in 1974 by Arizona Republic publisher Eugene Pulliam (left), lawyer-civic leader Frank Snell and KOOL owner Tom Chauncey. They sent a letter to prospective members and 40 leaders, including Gov. Raul Castro, showed up at the Biltmore for the first meeting in early 1975. The group hoped to focus on transportation, crime and education — crime getting top billing after the murder of a key witness in the land-fraud trial of Ned Warren Sr. The original membership is no secret, not quite 40, and reads like a Who's Who of mid-1970s Phoenix: Clarke Bean, Hayes Caldwell, Chauncey, Msgr. Robert Donohoe, Junius Driggs, Karl Eller, George Getz, Sherman Hazeltine, Robert Johnson, George Leonard, Stephen Levy, James Maher, Richard Mallery, Samuel Mardian, Jr., James Mayer, Rod McMullin, Loyal Meek, Dennis Mitchem, Pat Murphy, Rev. Culver Nelson, William Orr, Jesse Owens, Pulliam, William Reilly Sr., Newton Rosenzweig, Raymond Shaffer, Bill Shover, James Simmons, Paul Singer, Lawson Smith, Snell, Franz Talley, Thomas Tang, Maurice Tanner, Keith Turley, Mason Walsh, Robert Williams and Russell Williams.

And, yes, it's telling that the list didn't include, say, Lincoln Ragsdale or Rosendo Gutierrez. Yet the Phoenix 40 was never as dangerous as its critics feared nor as benign as it claimed to be, but it's an important touchstone in the city's evolution to the current unpleasantness.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

Book ’em

A column recommending books for the holidays might seem like a lazy columnist's trick (and I know 'em all). But as we collapse into a society of limited attention spans, where even smart people rarely venture outside their bunkers of expertise, where fewer and fewer American men are reading(!), let us brace ourselves to read and give books. Here are some that touch on issues we regularly address on Rogue:

The shelves groan under the number of books written about the financial crisis, its aftermath, causes and needed fixes. My favorites are Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy, by nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz; 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown, by Simon Johnson and James Kwak; Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance, by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm, and Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, by Robert Reich. It's a soup-to-nuts telling of the bought-off politics, bad policy, deregulation and greed that brought on the crash, to the steps we must take in order to save ourselves. Not that we will.

The latest cooked-up "conservative" distraction is about American "exceptionalism." If you want to see us at out best, and worse, and exceptional, read Taylor Branch's magisterial trilogy on America in the King years: Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire and At Canaan's Edge. Every literate citizen should know these books and this history.

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Posted inPhoenix

The rule of holes

It's the sweet season in Phoenix, with the usual nice weather, resort amenities and economic forecasts. The panel at the annual lunch sponsored by JPMorgan Chase and ASU was its usual sunny self. According to the Arizona Republic, Philadelphia economist Joel Naroff said, "Better times are ahead. I truly believe this is a recovery, that this is an economic change that you can count on." ASU economist Lee McPheters told attendees, "2011 is going to be the best year for Arizona's economic growth in the past three years. So, I think there are bright skies ahead."

Another sense of the luncheon comes from the tweets by Channel 12 anchor, and former Republic business editor, Brahm Resnik: "Show of hands at Chase econ forecast luncheon indicates (fewer than) 6 people in room of 1200 believe recession is over." "1 year ago #PHX job losses were worst in US. Now, PHX No. 2 in US (sure doesn't feel that way)." " 'At threshold of recovery,' McPheters keeps saying." "Home prices have not hit bottom, Pollack says." "Apartment market only (commercial) market that looks good. The rest of you might consider suicide," Pollack tells crowd. "Pollack says 4-5 more years till commercial construction returns to normal (same as his forecast year ago)." Pollack being Elliott, the developer/economist who was once one of the biggest cheerleaders of the Real Estate Industrial Complex.

It's one sign of the trauma wrought by the Phoenix depression that Elliott Pollack is the realist in the room. Unfortunately, the overall tone sounds much like every year's brightside delusion, while the facts confronting Phoenix, Arizona and America keep sliding in the opposite direction.

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