The Antiplanner

Is Phoenix a “Real City”?

9th January 2008

Is Phoenix a “Real City”?

posted in City planning, News commentary |

The notion that real cities have big downtowns is firmly ingrained in the minds of many urban planners and city officials. As Joel Garreau points out in Edge City, this ignores the fact that such downtowns were only built for about a century, from roughly 1820 to 1920.

Modern cities, which planners deride by calling them “sprawl,” have job centers spread out all over the place. San Jose, Phoenix, and Los Angeles are all typical examples. Planners and officials try to re-create obsolete downtowns by building pork-barrel projects such as convention centers and giving developers huge subsidies for hotels and office buildings. This enriches developers and contractors, but it never really creates a “real” downtown.

Downtown Los Angeles, for example, has less than 4 percent of the jobs in the region and does not even have as many jobs as Long Beach. Downtown San Jose is pathetic as a downtown: it has a few restaurants and a heavily subsidized hotel or two, but most of the real jobs are scattered around other parts of Santa Clara County. If you want a real “lively streets” experience, go to Santana Row.

Now Phoenix has succumbed to the downtown mania. As the Arizona Republic reports, this year the city will open a $1.4 billion light-rail line, an expanded convention center (because the existing one wasn’t losing enough money) costing $600 million, at least $350 million in subsidies to a new Sheraton Hotel, and hundreds of millions in subsidies for a downtown campus of Arizona State University.

Just what this country needs: another failed convention center. And why does ASU need a downtown Phoenix campus anyway? Isn’t Tempe a prestigious enough address for it?

Of course, Phoenix doesn’t limit its subsidies to downtown. The city is providing $100 milion in subsidies to a new, mixed-use development (another utopian planning scheme) on the edge of the city. This is part of a “border war between adjacent cities over who could give away the most to attract the best retailers.” The Goldwater Institute is suing the city to stop this subsidy.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. These giveaways are nothing more than a way to satisfy political egos, transfer tax dollars to favored developers, and give urban planners a chance to try their insane theories.

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  1. 1 On January 9th, 2008, Unowho said:

    “These giveaways are nothing more than a way to satisfy political egos [and] transfer tax dollars to favored developers…”

    aka public/private partnerships

    posted on January 9th, 2008 at 1:00 pm

  2. 2 On January 9th, 2008, MJ said:

    $100 million+ giveaways to real estate developers? Yeah, Phoenix is now a ‘real’ city.

    Still, it boggles the mind as to why anyone in a city as large and fast-growing as Phoenix would feel it is necessary to ‘induce’ new development.

    posted on January 9th, 2008 at 1:16 pm

  3. 3 On January 9th, 2008, JimKarlock said:

    >I> Still, it boggles the mind as to why anyone in a city as large and fast-growing as Phoenix would feel it is necessary to ‘induce’ new development.

    JK: It not about development, its about tax money giveaways to friends of politicians.

    Thanks
    JK

    posted on January 9th, 2008 at 2:39 pm

  4. 4 On January 9th, 2008, StevePlunk said:

    The previous comments are all correct. This is the powerful gaining more power (money) through the corruption of government. This is also aided by planners who wax with nostalgia at outdated ideas from bygone eras.

    Centralized cities, rail over the automobile, walking and cycling instead of motorized transport. Luddites rejoice! Why look to the future when the past is so quaint?

    And why do we call them planners? They are reactors.

    posted on January 9th, 2008 at 4:51 pm

  5. 5 On January 9th, 2008, Dan said:

    The notion that real cities have big downtowns is firmly ingrained in the minds of many urban planners and city officials.

    Evidence please.

    While we wait to see if any evidence is forthcoming, downtowns may be obsolete, but an awful lot of people want to move to these obsolete places**. Houston’s obsolete downtown population increased the third most of any city in the 1990s, BTW, and most obsolete downtowns in the FNM report had increases in population.

    Maybe some folks don’t like it because these people moving to downtowns reject the mantra of ‘every’body wants large-lot single-family houses’.

    DS

    **

    From 1970 to 2000, the number of downtown households increased 8 percent— 13 percent in the 1990s alone—and their composition shifted. Households grew faster than population in downtowns, reflecting the proliferation of smaller households of singles, unrelated individuals living together, and childless married couples.

    posted on January 9th, 2008 at 5:39 pm

  6. 6 On January 9th, 2008, Lorianne said:

    Planners and officials try to re-create obsolete downtowns by building pork-barrel projects such as convention centers and giving developers huge subsidies for hotels and office buildings.

    Huh? That was the OLD way of doing things (convention centers w/ their attendant hotels, office buildings, etc).

    It’s true, it never worked and didn’t create “real” downtowns and they were all for the most part boondoogles. That’s why cities today are more interested in mixed use development, live/work infill, etc. It’s an entirely different model. Convention centers (like indoor shopping malls) are uncool to the max.

    The jury is still out over whether these new ideas will work better than the OLD convention center/hotel/ office building model.

    Whether downtowns SHOULD be revitalized is a separate issue.

    But, the model you claim ‘planners’ support today … most of those planners and city officials, and downtown businessmen are now collecting their pensions. They had their day.

    There may be a few old dinosaur hold-outs on mid-size city councils and chambers of commerce dreaming about convention centers … but they’re almost extinct.

    posted on January 9th, 2008 at 7:21 pm

  7. 7 On January 9th, 2008, JimKarlock said:

    Dan said: From 1970 to 2000, the number of downtown households increased 8 percent— 13 percent in the 1990s alone
    JK: And what was the increase in non-downtown households? Maybe 10-20 TIMES that number? Sounds like a big time, relative, loss to me.

    Dan said: —and their composition shifted. Households grew faster than population in downtowns, reflecting the proliferation of smaller households of singles, unrelated individuals living together, and childless married couples.
    JK: IE: singles are living in newly built, probably taxpayer subsidized, mixed use ratholes. And families are probably moving out.

    Thanks
    JK

    posted on January 9th, 2008 at 11:59 pm

  8. 8 On January 10th, 2008, sustainibertarian said:

    Dan,
    while downtowns may have increased in population in the last decade and a half, that is not evidence that downtowns are “coming back” in the sense of becoming dense population centres. the evidence of houston’s downtown resurgence furthermore, may actually be a good piece of evidence showing that planners are not the cause of any of the successful resurgence. from what you have written it would be safe to assume that a demographics changes a fueling the so called “reusrgene.” Nevertheless, the small household sizes and relatively non crowded living of the current downtowns result in much lower densities in the downtown core. They are not the downtown’s many planners still envision. Most retail is now boutique goods in most downtowns. Furthermore, the decentralization process is fairly strong in many european cities (e.g. Paris), which had strong regulatory restirctions preventing the decentralization.

    Lorianne,

    convention centres are still a current “holy grail’ of numerous planners and especially city councillors.

    Take Vancouver, B.C. as an example. It is spending 800+ million on a convention centre upgrade, and this has essentially been the pet project of Larry Bealsey, the head planner of Vancouver. Victoria is investing in a conference centre, and even rinky dink cities like nanaimo are investing substaintial sums in conference centres.

    PS: See Heywood Sanders of the Brookings Institution for more info on conference centres in Canada and the US.

    posted on January 10th, 2008 at 10:27 am

  9. 9 On January 10th, 2008, Dan said:

    that is not evidence that downtowns are “coming back” in the sense of becoming dense population centres

    I did not posit that they were coming back. Nor did I argue they were becoming “dense”

    Randal’s argument was Planners and officials try to re-create obsolete downtowns . I argued that they were not “obsolete”, thus my use of the word “obsolete”.

    I did not argue that they were “coming back” or “densifying” or “growing faster than surrounding areas”.

    This is evidenced by the lack of the phrase “coming back”, “resurgence”, “rebounding”, “growing faster than surrounding areas” etc. by me or the passage I included.

    I merely argued they weren’t “obsolete”. I did not argue that they were “coming back” or “densifying” or “growing faster than surrounding areas”.

    HTH.

    DS

    posted on January 10th, 2008 at 11:08 am

  10. 10 On January 10th, 2008, prk166 said:

    DS —> Downtowns may not be dead but they are obsolete in concept. The lion share of growth in most any US metro area these days doesn’t involve the central city let alone downtown. I would argue the changes we’ve seen in downtowns over the last 2 decades seem a big deal because of how long they’ve languished for so many decades. For example, there is a group of people that get all excited over downtown St. Paul. There was nothing in downtown St. Paul 20 years ago. Now there is something. Other than the publicly subsidized event centers, the things to do and number of residents don’t compare well to many of the other neighborhoods in the city let alone what is happening in the suburbs. Heck, if the airport grows anything like DFW has over the last 3 decades, it will be the single biggest hub of activity, jobs, and residences in metro Denver.

    The concept of downtown as being a hub of activity for an entire metropolitan area is obsolete. As for downtown’s themselves, just think of them as a niche neighborhood. For example, in Denver there are more jobs in the metro. Heck, there are even certain areas of the metro that have more jobs than downtown. And if growth occurs the way some project it will, there will be a few more non-downtown areas with more jobs than downtown over the next couple of decades. Downtown’s have really just become a niche neighborhood. They may be the center of the lives for some people like old school media. But for most of us they long ago became no more important than many other areas.

    posted on January 10th, 2008 at 11:50 am

  11. 11 On January 10th, 2008, Dan said:

    Yes.

    The concept of downtown as being a hub of activity for an entire metropolitan area is obsolete

    I don’t think anyone here, or anyone in Phoenix, in Seattle, anywhere in the West and certainly not planners (except maybe a handful of the old school still around) argue such. Certainly the developers in downtown Denver are driving lots of building there (count the cranes), but I doubt anyone from the ‘burbs traveling to the DAM, Capitol, Pepsi, Investco (me maybe for the Mammoth this weekend), history museum, Convention Center, 16th St, etc go there as their “hub”. The Aspenites and Ken Carylers and others buying condos for the amenities aren’t either.

    So I’m not sure whether to call strawman or not. Developers can build in downtown Phoenix, and they are. They can in Atlanta, and they are. They can in Denver, and they are. They can…yada.

    Why we must misdirection and mischaracterize is, honestly, beyond me. A demographic or two is rejecting large-lot SFD. What are the adherents of a small-minority ideology so afraid of is, simply, a mystery.

    DS

    posted on January 10th, 2008 at 12:04 pm

  12. 12 On January 10th, 2008, Lorianne said:

    Well, as I said there are still some dinosaurs in city planning jobs and on city councils. The planners I know consider convention centers ‘old school’.

    The new breed of planners are onto different schemes … and we don’t know if their ideas will be any more effective at bringing life back into downtowns than convention centers were. And many don’t care about centralized downtowns anyway, they promote urban ‘villages’ each with it’s own ‘center’.

    Convention centers make sense in a destination city that people actually want to go to for a convention (San Fran, San Diego, San Antonio, etc.). They don’t make sense in cities that don’t have other things already going on that attract tourism in general … and they make zero sense in Podunk USA where a lot of these old school planners, mayors and city councilors operate.

    Basically, you have about a 10-15 year lag time in medium size towns where the pooh-bahs don’t investigate or pay a whit of attention to market changes and what’s going on outside their area. Provincialism.

    Same with dated and decrepit zoning and land use laws. The inertia is massive. You basically have to wait these dinosaurs out until they retire or die to have a hope of doing things differently. This is what is happening now.

    posted on January 10th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

  13. 13 On January 10th, 2008, sustainibertarian said:

    ooops dan, i didnt mean to imply i was quoting you…i should have used apostraphes, not quotation marks…that was stupid of me i guess. mainly though downtowns do have a role, which are as cultural centres, art hubs, or other related centres such as tourism, with boutiques etc. so i would have to agree with you that downtowns are not obsolete, but of course some of the resurgence of some downtowns has been top down governmentally imposed ‘revitalization,’ which is probably less successful to boot and may also distort the reality of whether a downtown is or isnt obsolete. the reality is some cities downtowns may become osbolete, others may not. most if not all downtowns (at least in NA) are unlikely to function the same as those of industrial, streetcar, cities of the past. many downtowns are in many respects comparable to regional shopping malls in some respect. some are still successful, other are reinvesting, turning into big box…downtowns are just less important centres within our ‘galactic metropolis.’

    posted on January 10th, 2008 at 2:53 pm

  14. 14 On January 11th, 2008, foxmarks said:

    Entry from the Dantionary:

    obsolete: so thoroughly proven as failure that even government planners understand they have to invent new vocabulary when pimping for subsidies.

    eg: “You basically have to wait these [planning] dinosaurs out until they retire or die to have a hope of doing things differently. This is what is happening now.”

    HTH

    posted on January 11th, 2008 at 5:57 pm

  15. 15 On January 12th, 2008, Lorianne said:

    Please note that I did not say that the upcoming planners’ ideas will necessarily be any more successful than those of the previous 2-3 generations (they may be, but only time will tell) or that the new ideas being implemented are not subsidies (they are).

    posted on January 12th, 2008 at 11:13 am

  16. 16 On January 12th, 2008, sustainibertarian said:

    In regards to Dan’s Demographic that’s supposedly rejecting large lot suburbs etc:

    Evidence from the 2000 census showed that the number of nonfamilies and married couples without children grew far more rapidly in the suburbs than in the cities. In fact, due largely to the growth of singles and aging parents, there are now more nonfamilies in the suburbs tha traditional families *

    In addition we have so many of those dern immigants makin babies an they ain’t stayin in the central city like them suppos’da. Dont they know that the burbs are supposed to be monocultures and mono-ethnic.

    (That’s what Kuntsler tells me anyway in his romanto-bourgeous prose about New Suburbanism or whatever it is that catches his drama school artsy fartsy fancy (im sorry, for those who like him, fine. Read whatever you want i guess, but that guy’s been getting on my nerves))

    *For more related info see The Planning Center’s The New Suburbanism, which has some interesting points, although many here may still not like it since it is from a planning perspective.

    posted on January 12th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

  17. 17 On January 12th, 2008, sustainibertarian said:

    Sorry, Link screwed up in last post.

    posted on January 12th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

  18. 18 On January 14th, 2008, Dan said:

    Entry from the Dantionary

    Here, let me type slowly for you: calling an area increasing in population “obsolete” is a strange way to define an area.

    HTH.

    DS

    posted on January 14th, 2008 at 10:43 am

  19. 19 On January 14th, 2008, Dan said:

    RE 16 (sustainibertarian)*

    Your point is taken and understood, largely as a function of affordability.

    In the many places finding a resurgence (not obsolescence) in downtown/central population, it is because of the plethora of amenities attracting the demographic that seeks such an environment. In the Kotkin piece (note the mouseover text in the Kotkin link in one of my comments above), it is acknowledged that continued suburban development will be in more compact, efficient development with more amenities within walking distance (viz. pp 24,31).

    DS

    * good nom d’ e- !

    posted on January 14th, 2008 at 11:31 am

  20. 20 On January 15th, 2008, foxmarks said:

    let me type slowly

    Do the best you can…I know how much your fingers are frustrated by your mind.

    But more seriously, ridership on horse-drawn buggies is up. They’re an amenity to the nostalgic (and subsidized) notion of *downtown*. Yet, the buggy remains obsolete.

    Distort prices and obsolescence can be masked, sometimes for decades. If you want respect, bet with your own money. Send us a brochure for Dantown at your earliest convenience.

    posted on January 15th, 2008 at 9:04 pm

  21. 21 On January 16th, 2008, Dan said:

    Some of the biggest cities in the world are proposing the most ambitious real-estate projects in a generation, a sign of growing confidence in urban living even as the current financial landscape grows bleaker.

    The list is long and expensive…[f]our in New York City, at least three in Dubai, two in London, Chicago and Milan, and one in Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Paris and Mumbai.

    [...]

    Most of them reflect the growing popularity of downtowns as places to live, shop and work. For example, developers say New York’s Hudson Yards project, to be built over a rail yard on Manhattan’s West Side, is needed because the city is running out of office space.

    Yup. Obsolete. Masked. Big money down the drain. So sez a few adherents of a small minority ideology. Sure.

    DS

    posted on January 16th, 2008 at 7:59 pm

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