Quote:
Originally Posted by Arquitect
. But perhaps one of the best examples of this is Vancouver. If you look at their core, there really isn't too much "old" left; yet they have become a very vibrant and urban city. Starting around the 80's, the city had a large push to build up their downtown (which also meant tearing down part of their history, like Phoenix did). Where they were smart is that unlike Phoenix, their main driver was not business. This business first mentality kills cities. They opted for not having mega projects, but rather a lot of mid-sized developments. And most of them were residential (to the point that now office space is Vancouver is severely needed, but space is very limited). They did not build massive towers, but rather small high-rises and mid-rises, and focused on creating attractive public space.
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Vancouver's best decison was simply to oppose all freeways within its city limits. It put its focus on mass transit (Phoenix - actually MAG - borrowed freely from its Sky Trains to advance its own failed Valtrans proposal in 1988). The net result is that Vancouver's urban texture was never devastated as it was in most other North American cities. Phoenix didn't have Vancouver's density, needless to say, and it's decision to retrofit a smallish downtown for cars, and then expand that downtown up Central Avenue, guaranteed that Phoenix urbanism would always be an uphill effort. These mistakes are understandable given that Phoenix's meteoric growth spiral came after the golden age of city-making, that is, following WWII.
But Vancouver is blessed in a way very few cities in the world. It has one of the world's finest settings - water on three sides of its downtown with mountains framing it to its north. This is seemingly outside the scope of our concern - what can downtown Phoenix possibly do about its lack of a natural focal point? - but it does serve to illustrate another civic failing from the late 80s, the Rio Salado proposal. Tempe kept their share alive, and Town Lake now solidifies Tempe's claim to have the one truly urban downtown in the metropolitan area.
You are right that Vancouver doesn't have the great old building stock of other cities (e.g., Seattle, San Francisco, Montreal, Toronto), but it does have some stunning relics, particularly in its "old town" (Gastown) and industrial warehouse area (Yaletown). Vancouver has been justly criticized for its lack of really imaginative architecture, however. This is beginning to change for the better, but it's still dispiriting to see all the bland, lookalike condo towers crowding False Creek and Coal Harbor.
For Phoenix, there is no catch-up game because there's no business/stewardship class that can galvanize the community on behalf of a strong, economically dynamic core. Make no mistake: for all the happy talk that comes from politicians and public information officers, this is a huge economic development issue for the metropolitan area. The proof, ironically, is the utter and complete absence of this conversation in the public square. Phoenix is being left behind in the dust, and the only conversation permitted on this topic is denial. With people like Grady Gammage, Jr and Bob Robb setting the tone, the dominant attitude is more deflection than concern. Every bad decision we make compounds equally bad decisions from the past to the point there is simply no conscious strategy for dealing with this problem aside from the usual cosmetic kind. If you're old enough to remember the Valley National Bank, you'll understand exactly what our issue is - the absence of strong hands-on leadership that can give this city an actual central nervous system.
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