Phoenix Seeks an Urban Future

"[T]he Phoenix that has been disparaged by so many is undergoing a change," writes Fernanda Santos, Phoenix bureau chief for The New York Times. Santos includes not one but four references to the city's negative reputation.

The change "began when the housing bubble burst and affordable home after affordable home went into foreclosure," adds Santos. "The collapse started in new-housing areas on the fringes [in 2007] and then swept inward, hitting more established areas as the unemployment rate climbed," according to The Arizona Republic

"City officials, intent on revitalizing the place, searched for a new formula, one that focused not on the outer edges of the desert, where there remains plenty of room to expand outward, but on the long-neglected downtown," continues Santos.

These days, there is hardly an empty lot left in the city’s core, and there are as many apartments under construction, or about to be built, as all of those that were built from 1996 to 2008. But, are there enough people to fill them? That is a multibillion-dollar gamble, and Phoenix has gone all in.

Mayor Greg Stanton added transportation to the effort with a successful sales tax measure last summer for extending light rail.

A bike-sharing program survived its first summer, a time of the year when riding a bike, or doing any other outdoor activity for that matter, is borderline heroic.

The thrust of the article is on Stanton attempting to attract Silicon Valley businesses, workers, and millennials to the city, by building a vibrant, dense downtown.

“I don’t want people to move here because we have great golf courses and cheap homes,” Mr. Stanton said in an interview. “What I want is young college graduates from the East Coast moving here, and our college graduates staying here because they see their future here and we have a great urban community.”