[austlar1]

Originally Posted by pj3000

And again, right. Simply cannot put Phoenix in the same category as LA and/or Dallas. They were bigger cities that had already developed more significant downtown cores... and they continued to develop those cores to a MUCH greater extent than Phoenix ever did, even with the advent of suburban sprawl to draw development away from those downtown cores.



Yes they did. Reducing the impact of the development of their cores by saying that "they got some high rise offices as everywhere did" obscures reality. It's not just that they more to begin with.

LA and Dallas (and Houston, Atlanta, and other sunbelt cities) were much more important cities than Phoenix was... and that's why Dallas was able to build 17 500+ foot towers between 1960 and 1990... and why LA built 18 of them... and why Houston built 27 of them... and why Phoenix built 0 of them.

Tall buildings are certainly not everything when it comes to a vibrant, large downtown core. But when you consider the tens of thousands of people that work and live in those large buildings in each city on a daily basis, it significantly expands the downtown area. There is no getting around that.

What I have been saying from the beginning... to claim that downtown Phoenix never developed because of the age of sprawl like downtown LA and Dallas didn't develop because of sprawl is just not accurate.

And by saying accurate things like, Phoenix was a much smaller city than the others before sprawl happened and how those other were more important commercial centers, you're disproving your original claim.

Phoenix is younger, so it never had the same chance to develop its core before suburban sprawl became the dominant development pattern; and Phoenix has never been important enough of a commercial center to develop a dense downtown core (of which, yes, tall buildings with high intensity of use, are a very significant part). It's not specifically because of sprawl... those other cities majorly developed their downtowns in the age of sprawl.

"why did downtown never develop to begin with?"

"And the answer to that is the same for LA, Dallas, or any other large sunbelt city Sprawl was the order of the day."


So the question above isn't relevant to LA or Dallas... because as we've all said, their downtowns were developed (in comparison to Phoenix's).

And the answer isn't relevant to LA or Dallas either... because as we've now agreed on, LA and Dallas were more important cities, and the downtowns of LA, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta boomed with big time skyscraper construction in the age of suburban sprawl to ALL leap into the top 6 highest skylines in the nation because of that importance. The demand to develop like this in Phoenix was obviously not there at the time.

I think we just need to acknowledge that Phoenix is a sharp outlier in the sunbelt when it comes to this specific topic.

In fairness, it should be noted that while Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and LA all developed giant skylines during the post ww2 era, especially from the 1960s onward, all of those cities experienced a significant decline overall in their central business districts. Office employment grew, but shopping, entertainment and other related business activity slowly disappeared from downtown in all of those cities, and in reality the revival of those activities has been slow to happen even today. The famous parking lot photo of downtown Houston circa 1985 or so, illustrates that point rather well. The only reason any of these sunbelt downtowns might be considered healthy today is due in large part to the development of large scale residential projects and significant convention/sports/entertainment components. The same thing happened in much-smaller downtown Phoenix and revival of downtown Phoenix is proceeding today on the same basis.