August and most of September came and went, leaving the Cubs in first place for the homestretch. But following the games from my Phoenix base had become utterly unfulfilling, due partly to my self-disgust for being a mere cable Cub fan and due also to the fact that the radio…
Some people never abandon hope that Phoenix could truly be a wonderful city. Like us. We hang on, even faced with a Phoenix City Council election where a few pathetic candidates contemplate nothing more significant than their hangnails. Come on! You guys allergic to fun? We’re not. Even as we…
Look like cancer x-rays, don’t they? Look closer. They’re really pictures of how Phoenix has grown since 1940. But as Ed Abbey used to say, “Growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” Phoenix now spreads out over 420 square miles–the seventh-largest land mass of any city in the nation–and…
YES on Prop 2, to authorize $15 million in bonds for historic preservation, including $5 million to buy the Tovrea Castle. Also, YES on the companion Prop 103 to give the city the authority to acquire and maintain historic and culturally significant properties. We’ve got so little to preserve, we…
Look no further than these photos for evidence of why the next city council should apply thumbscrews to anybody who opposes more protection for neighborhoods in the path of street-widening projects. Hardest hit are the central Phoenix neighborhoods, where city street engineers are cutting ever-wider swaths to accommodate people commuting…
Among the first things the new city council should do–right away–is decree the blue palo verde as Phoenix’s offical tree. And then, the council should require the big blue in all official city landscaping and should encourage citizens to plant the trees in their yards. The council should do these…
It’s cool here in Phoenix in the spring of 1999, and one of the coolest things of all is the city’s Maglev transit system. Unlike the old noisy, cumbersome, ValTrans proposal that savvy voters rejected with a laugh way back in the Eighties, the new Phoenix Area Maglev system has…
Bad schools are a sure way to drive families out of the city. And every available statistic says the city’s social problems–economic instability, drugs, unaffordable housing–are on a collision course with its educational system. Student turnover rates of 50 percent or more are no longer uncommon among Phoenix’s 28 elementary…
MDBOMAKE THE CANALS SOMETHING SPECIAL AGAIN Ask native Phoenicians over the age of thirty, and they’ll tell you the canals were really something once. The more gritty oldsters insist they used to water-ski the canals. My friend Steve recalls that he and another twelve-year-old once floated from east central Phoenix…
Imagine this classified ad: “Six hundred thousand bicycles desire mostly flat city. Year-round sunshine preferable. Safe and numerous bicycle routes required.” Face it, Phoenix. You can’t apply. You’ve made it unsafe to ride bicycles. State transportation officials estimate there are 600,000 bicycles in Maricopa County homes. We estimate that only…
There’s a standing joke among my friends that I know absolutely nothing about sports. And I’m proud of it. Our staff usually begins any discussion of baseball with “Jana, that’s the little ball.” I don’t know that I would ever go watch the little ball in a new downtown baseball…
Okay, City Council, listen up. I’ve got this idea that’s sure to keep you in office next election and the election after that. Just take a few little steps to cool down Phoenix, and you’ll win over a gigantic block of registered voters who’ve been too damn hot to make…
Conventional wisdom says it can’t be done. We say it can’t not be. The downtown baseball stadium, once it’s approved by voters next week, should become a world showcase of solar power technology. The Valley’s power companies–Salt River Project and Arizona Public Service–should pool their resources and make the ballpark…
It’s too late to save the fragile Sonoran Desert in Phoenix. But it’s not too late to preserve what’s left of it. Spend a few hours at the Desert Botanical Garden, and you’ll know the desert is worth protecting. First step? The city must figure out the exact boundaries of…
We know how to build streets. Oh, brother, we’ve got the experience there. Wish we paid as much attention to building parks. You’ve got to wonder about a city’s priorities when it has a specific five-year street-building plan, but parks are built catch-as-catch-can. The new council needs to put our…
“What a dump!” How many times has the phrase crossed your mind as you passed vacant lots, a ratty back yard, derelict strips of commercial buildings? Virtually no neighborhood between South Mountain and Squaw Peak is without a share of blight, as the Phoenix City Council finally acknowledged last year…
Nine Easy Steps to Filling in the Empty Spots Where Our City Is Supposed to Be. With nearly half the land within the city still vacant–much of it in single lots or small hunks skipped over by developers–the council needs to get serious about encouraging infill. 1) Require developers to…
Yikes. It’s 6:30. I’ve got to call my wife. I won’t be able to meet her for dinner after all. Dial, dial, ring, ring. “Hewwo?” “Hi, son. It’s Daddy.” “Hi, Dad.” “So you’re answering the phone all by yourself now, huh? You’re really getting to be a big boy, aren’t…
Fifty-one weeks out of the year we beat Mayor Terry Goddard about the head and shoulders with a long staff as if he were our own personal pinata; he is, after all, an elected official. The flailing is good sound employment and one indication of how seriously we take our…
Dawn. With the crashing thunder of Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyrie” playing in their headsets, F-16 fighter pilots lift off the tarmac at Williams and Luke. As early-morning commuters look on, the jets swoop low over the Phoenix Civic Plaza and bomb the acres of concrete courtyard into rubble…
I was driving to Evan Mecham’s Supreme Court hearing. A newscaster’s voice on the radio said: “The scene at St. Croix after Hurricane Hugo is described as near anarchy. Troops sent there to restore order have been told to shoot if necessary to defend themselves.” The Arizona State Legislature was…
“We don’t want any niggers and Mexicans out here.” Duane Pell didn’t think he shocked easily. But then, he didn’t think that being a politician meant he had to listen to crap like that. He remembers thinking, so that’s why I’m getting so much grief from this neighborhood. I’m just…
