Looks like fun... and we do have pastry shops in the U.S. Maybe not in suburban wasteland where you live, but there's three near my house, and one of them is a Mexican pastry shop.

and humans have yet to harness the technology for planting desert plants.

The MIMs location is hardly in the middle of a desert preserve, the one side is a big arterial street, the South side is a MAN MADE xeriscape, the North side is a collector street and the West side is a surface parking lot.

Actually, it is in a desert preserve, it's called Reach11.

Actually, its not.

Enjoy this map:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=reach+...m&z=15&vpsrc=6

Directly North of Reach 11 is that retirement community, then the MIM.

I have not been there and I am not criticizing whether it is a nice institution or not. I have driven by and I don't get the impression that it's in a nice desert location. It's right off the 101, a major highway, north is the Desert Ridge Mall and a few office parks and parking garages, south is a major suburban arterial, west is the 51, another major highway.

The campus itself may be very attractive and have many desert plants and cactuses planted around the building. That, however, does not make a nice desert location.

I've been to MIM and I commented on the AZ Central article. The building and campus are nice, but they're LEED-certified sprawl. Sure, there are solar panels on the roof, but the building's placement in far northeast Phoenix is an inducement for just about everyone to drive there. The transit-dependent who will actually take the hour-long ride on the 44 bus to get up there probably can't afford the $15 admission fee. Even worse, the isolated location reduces the opportunity for synergies with other institutions with related missions. The Phoenix Symphony, Arizona Opera, and most other musically oriented organizations are Downtown.

While the MIM campus is nicely xeriscaped, the surrounding area may not remain desert. If the economy rebounds enough, expect the nearby land to be developed. Reach 11 is in the general area, but not adjacent to the museum. I don't know the exact reason for MIM's remote location. It could have been a desire for cheap land, all the foolish hype about CityNorth becoming a "second downtown," or just another case of an executive wanting to build near his home rather than in a central location. Regardless, I supsect MIM's unfortunate site will be a drag on the institution, and I hope it will consider a satellite location as Hoover has suggested.

Speaking of he MIM/public transportation, it seems like the neighborhood circulator that used to serve the Desert Ridge area no longer exists, is that right? I don't see any reference to it on Valley Metro's site:

http://routes.valleymetro.org/timetables/6/route_list

It would've been nice if it had a stop at the MIM.

Though if future funding is ever available for more Neighborhood circulators, I'd rather see them link into the LRT and serve areas like Garfield, Willo, Calle 16, the 7's, Christown, etc.

Yes, that was one of the circulators killed off due to revenue shortfalls & low ridership. I agree that circulators should be concentrated in areas near LRT & major bus routes. The most successful circulators seem to be in Sunnyslope & Tempe.

The circulator in Maryvale gets a ton of usage as well. Mostly Hispanic housewives going to Ranch Market.

Speaking of Circulators that connect poorer areas to LRT, I drew this idea up for a Garfield/Eastlake Circulator a while back (I probably posted this before as well):

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=...20266,0.038495

Unfortunately the shape looks like a handgun, which is sort of unintentionally funny...but I do think it connects all the major points in that area: (clockwise from LRT station)

-Eastlake LRT
-Apartments/condos
-Verde Park
- PHX Prep Academy
- BioMed District/Downtown Core
- Arts District/First Fridays/Roosevelt Row
- the East part of Roosevelt row; Welcome Diner, Alwun House, etc
- Garfield School
- South edge of Calle 16
- Ranch Market & surrounding shopping/dining
- Edison School and Medical Clinic
- Edison Park
- St Luke's
- Businesses along VB

It seems something like that, along with a concerted effort by the City to rebuild the Urban Forest in the planter strips in Garfield and Eastlake would be huge first steps towards moving the neighborhoods forward. It would make living in Garfield a lot more viable for those who work at St Luke's or the expanding BioMedical district and would provide an easy means of reaching shopping and businesses for neighborhood residents.

European style pastry shop? Where people go and hang out for a while either inside or outdoors?

The pastry shops I know out here are more of a to-go type of place.

I don't know, there wasn't a detailed explination in your picture thread (or I missed it, lol.)

And here are the pics of one week in Germany... :)

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=196751

Um, does your buddy have a gay twin? :D He is so handsome and I love Eastern European men, and Germans, and Spaniards, well I love men (handsome men)...anyway

Great pictures. Some of the architecture (new and old) reminds me of some cities in Mexico/Latin America. Not a bad thing it just looks more "Latin" than Eastern European for some reason (minus the communist sections)...that is compared to Moscow or say, Prague.

Well, Romanian is a latin language sooo... :D

In Defense of Phoenix
 

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/nei...e-phoenix/811/

Here is a great article on Phoenix on a great blog that I read daily.

Put your dick back in your pants

LOL! Come on man, we've read comments here about the ladies; besides his friend is hot. :tup:

We really don't have cool pastry cafes like European cities. In downtown I can only think of Tammy Coe Cakes but that place is small. We need a place like Sprinkles in downtown that offers more than just cupcakes. I'm not big on sugary treats but every now and then doesn't hurt.

Yeah, that is true...

Also about the pork skin, it is eaten throughout the Americas and in the U.S. It is prepared different from what you are pictured eating, but fried pork rinds and chicharones aren't uncommon.

Random thought:

I was looking at pictures of the Fiesta Bowl parade b/c I was feeling a bit home sick and boy oh boy is our main parade route lame! I understand why they use it, it has large staging areas on either end, but it just doesn't seem grand enough for parades.

I wish they'd start at Central & Camelback (they could stage at 3rd Ave/Camelback in the old Target parking lot) and march down Central to wherever; at least to Hance Park and really big parades (i.e. if the Suns ever win a title) could go all the way to Central/Jefferson.

Of course it would be a bigger road to shut down, but I imagine they could keep the parades on one half of the street and use the other half of Central as 2 lanes, one in each direction. You could likely even keep LRT going too. The Historic Parade route was always from the State Capitol to City Hall and once they finish the Centenniel Way improvements I think that would be a big improvement over the current blah route.

If Washington were improved between downtown and the Capitol, I could see it along that route, but I don't know. It seems fine on Central, turning on Camelback and heading down 3rd Street. The area has great access for light rail riders as well; the trains were packed that day. Central Ave can never host a parade again along the light rail route because it was significantly narrowed with only two travel lanes and little median or shoulder. You'd have to shut down LRT service and that is just bad for transit even for a short time; staging and tear-down would significantly impact train service and headway as well.

Agree. As much as I think light rail is a positive for Phoenix, one thing it took from us was Central Avenue as a viable parade route. I think it would be difficult and maybe even dangerous to have a major parade on that street, even if the trains weren't running. The overhead wires might be a hazard with some of the tall floats involved, and using half the roadway would put floats too close to spectators. Like you, I think that Phoenix needs an east-west route through Downtown. Washington makes sense, but it is likely that street will eventually have light rail as well. Another possibility might be Grand Avenue. The staging could be at the state fairgrounds and the parade would then come down Grand, turn onto Van Buren at Seventh Avenue, and end just before First Avenue. Of course, that route would need a lot of enhancement to be ready for national television, but maybe having parades on Grand would stimulate some investment in the area by the City and the "big project" civic organizations that have traditionally ignored Grand.

Everything I've heard suggests the LRT will be on Jefferson, going both East and West. I thought they didn't want the overhead wires blocking the nice vista down towards the Copper Dome...had you heard otherwise?

E: VVVV Yah I just think its a bummer that we've lost the grandness of going down Central. Its not nearly the canyon of towers most cities have, but its the best we've got and hopefully over the next 20 years it'll grow denser.

It hadn't even occurred to me about the parade routes being altered due to LRT (I don't live there anymore so it's not something I've ever thought about). I used to watch all of the parades from my balcony at the Camelback Towers (the Landmark). Central was a great parade route (particularly the APS night parade).

Any suggestions on a decent Central Phoenix Pizza joint that does anchovies?

cibo has a pizza with anchovies that my roommate raves about and eats at least twice a week. Smells awful to me.

Unfortunately, this seems spot on:

Up go the skyscrapers, down goes the economy, report shows
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45957217.../#.Tw4IoPmgVI0

^ That is a piss-poor article at best. Correlation does not equal causation. Skyscrapers are indicative of the capital available to build them, capital that does not exist in the bust-end of a cycle.

Blaming skyscrapers for busts makes about as much sense as blaming high traffic or people moving to an area or hires or anything else that goes in during a boom. There are root causes of busts.

And ice cream causes polio... ;)

When I read it, I did not see the word "cause" anywhere in the article.

It is implied...especially in this sentence:

"Often the world's tallest buildings are simply the edifice of a broader skyscraper building boom, reflecting a widespread misallocation of capital and an impending economic correction," it said.

Basically the article is implying that building skyscrapers causes an "impending economic correction" because of "a widespread misallocation of capital."

This is more of a development but it doesn't fit into Phoenix, Tucson or Las Vegas.

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/n...lar-tower.html

Here's a book that I got for a Christmas gift and forgot to post here. I know a bunch of you guys would probably be interested in it. Nicely done, covers almost the entire state.

It's the official book of the Arizona Centennial
Arizona 100 Years Grand
Lisa Schnebly Heidinger
Contributors including Sen. John McCain

So, how out-of-line/ignorant/moronic/inappropriate/ill-informed was this post?

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=430

I'm only curious because I know how much I've pissed off the Arizonans on this board on a near-weekly basis, either intentionally or unintentionally.

It's dead on.

^ I agree. Arizona was a politically more peaceful state when I moved here in 1993, a more of a live and let live mentality. Due to 9/11 and now the Great Recession, the white people that dominate the state's politics and the white people that re-elect them became dark and angry, and took out their frustrations on the weakest segments of society. Never have I seen such demagoguery and outright lies promulgated to win elections, and I suspect, to some degree, this is going on nationwide.

--don

Thanks guys.

I read a fantastic book for a class last year titled Sunbelt Justice (the author's name escapes me at the moment). Its a look at the formation and evolution of Arizona's Department of Corrections since its inception in 1958. I tend to think of it as a microcosm of what Arizona's become as a whole, since back in the 1960s and 70s, the AZ DOC was considered one of the more progressive systems in the country (its directors where usually brought in from somewhere else, which was a sore point for native Arizonans in the criminal justice system).

That all changed by the time Sam Lewis became director and pandered to the pissed off elderlies in the retirement communities back in the 1980s. Not that I believe prisoners should be "coddled" but look at how ineffective "tough on crime" and "zero tolerance" measures have been over the past three decades in reducing prison populations and recidivism...last I heard, Arizona has one of the highest per capita incarceration rates in the country.

Like I said, I tend to view what happened to the Department of Corrections as a smaller version of what happened to Arizona as a whole over the last 30 years.

Wow Rep. John Kavanagh is on fire. Won't pass Downtown Campus SRC project but is a co-sponsor for HB 2675.


Arizona lawmakers have proposed a bill that would require some in-state students at ASU, NAU and UA to pay a portion of their tuition without the assistance of scholarships or grants.
House Bill 2675, proposed by Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, would require all public Arizona university full-time students to contribute at least $2,000 of their annual tuition, without the assistance of money funded by a university or university affiliate.
The bill has not yet been assigned to a committee, where lawmakers would debate the bill and decide whether to approve it for full floor discussion.
Part-time, in-state students would pay an amount proportional to their credit hours.
Students who are registered for at least 12 credit hours during a semester are considered full time, with students carrying less than that considered part time.
According to HB 2675, a student may not use any “source of public or private funding, including grants, gifts, scholarships or tuition benefits, or other types of funding administered by or through a university or an affiliate of a university.”
Up to 5 percent of first-time undergraduates who pay for school using a competitive, national merit-based or athletic scholarship wouldn’t have to pay the $2,000. The bill exempts scholarships based “solely on academic merit or solely on a special aptitude, talent or ability from a competitive national program.”
Rep. Nancy McLain, R-Bullhead City, co-sponsored HB 2675 and said she chose to support the bill because a large number of students don’t pay for tuition.
“A student should have (an) investment in their own education,” she said. “If you have an interest then maybe you wouldn’t drop out or take frivolous classes.”
Although McLain said she would support the bill if it made its way to a vote, she questioned the exceptions for students on athletic and national merit-based scholarships.
“That doesn’t seem right to me,” McClain said noting that this section of the bill may be reworked.
Arizona Board of Regents spokeswoman Katie Paquet said while the Board is still reviewing the full impact of the bill, they have voted to oppose it.
“Our initial response is that it would have a negative impact on students’ educations,” Paquet said.
Rep. Bob Robson, R-Chandler, another co-sponsor of the bill, said he believes the $2,000 tuition contribution to be a little excessive, but is still a firm supporter.
“There (are) a whole host of ways to pay for education,” he said. “There are ways to work out paying for tuition.”
Aeronautical engineering junior Victor Dominguez said he receives a need-based scholarship available to engineering transfer students from community colleges. This scholarship pays for his entire tuition.
He said having to raise the required annual $2,000 contribution could be a problem for him.
“If I couldn’t afford it, I probably wouldn’t be able to go to school,” Dominguez said. “That’s $2,000 I might not have.”

http://www.azcentral.com/ic/news/air...lede-image.jpg
Mark Henle/The Republic

Surrounded
by pollution
Pollution persists after decades of regulation; growth and land use compound the challenges
Story by Shaun McKinnon
http://www.azcentral.com/news/air-qu...ent=1-overview

Totally love that photo. This should be a very good, hopefully interesting series. I'm very impressed by the stuff, like this, that is done by the Arizona Republic.

I may quibble with phsSUNSfan over particulars but when it comes to the KISS approach to sprawl, nobody does it better. It's sad.... It's frustrating.... Until the body politic of this area changes
it will continue to be a struggle to prevent sprawl and encourage urbanism and transit. Baby steps I guess.

I noticed that Arizona showed the President its best collection of cranes.

Just caught this... not a problem. Coffee Talk, I had no knowledge of such things.

Actually, I anticipated that my time would tighten up end of January. It indeed appears that my "randoming" time has been eviscerated, evaporated by the desert air.

Here's hoping a few of those cranes make their way to the urban core. It can be dramatic the change to an urban landscape, even with reclaimed brownfields. ... http://denverinfill.com/blog/wp-cont...tan.1.28.8.jpg

Arizona state legislators are EVIL.

I wouldn't say evil, more like retarded.

Too poor to afford college? too bad, now clean my toilets peasant!

Glad that air pollution article touched on the fact that all the empty lots contribute to our poor air. There's really so many simple things the City could do tomorrow to promote infill and temporary uses on all those dirt lots, its frustrating it hasn't happened years ago. PhxDowntowners great Valley of the Sunflowers project showed the way, we need dozens more projects like that.

Land bankers absolutely shouldn't be allowed to just sit on dirt lots that blow dust and create a blighted neighborhood. Either plant sunflowers, or date palms/citrus (then harvest the fruit), grass, a temporary community garden, etc. or face a dramatic increase in your property taxes. That tax could be specifically directed towards other things to help with air pollution, i.e. funding for transit.

Unfortunately Kavanagh will probably get re-elected. He's from Fountain Hills. The town that fought against having the city do trash pick-up (to save money on road maintenance and free the roads from numerous stinky trucks) because they thought it was a big government takeover of their rights as citizens. Fucking tea party pieces of shit.

'Tea partyers' oppose changes to Fountain Hills trash collection

By saying he's retarded you're giving him a free pass. A retard doesn't understand the nature and consequences of his decisions. Kavanagh, on the other hand, fully understands his decisions and is consciously trying to hurt young and educated people, and hinder the growth of Phoenix. He is evil, not retarded.

^ Never will happen in a laissez faire state like Arizona. What you propose would be derided as:

1. a tax increase...
2. big government run amok...
3. a restraint on the freedoms of landowners everywhere to be left alone.

--don

I have some photos of the city taken from South Mountain in late December 2011 that, no matter how much I try to clear some of it up through Photoshop, continue to show ridiculous amounts of air pollution.

Its unfortunate and disgusting :(

The Republic used to do this series as far back as the 1990's. It was "The Brown Cloud" series. They also used to cover the explosive growth with a series called "An Acre an Hour". I used to love to read these articles too.

So I know I already posted my thoughts here on Hance Park, but since I had written it all up already, I just lazily used it as my Blooming Rock post for the month, which you can see here:

http://bloomingrock.com/2012/01/30/r...rst-urban-park

I added a few slides, corrected some grammar and clarified some things. Check it out if you're bored :)