Not sure what the real point of this post is other than to cry over our city's destruction. But on a positive note, since the 60s and 70s, downtown has come a long way, and I think we're on a course for it to be really good.
Here are a progression of aerials from a section of downtown Phoenix from 2nd St to 7th St, Polk to Washington.
There used to be some grand old homes and dense blocks of houses and buildings in this
1930 view:
By
1969 this area was almost completely destroyed and a desolate wasteland of parking lots and empty lots:
Today there aren't many empty lots left, most have been developed with super-sized developments. We've lost more houses/small buildings, but added a lot of important structures and landscaping:
Granted, I'd rather have saved what we had in the 1930s than build the Mercado, the Herberger, and the crappy St. Mary's building, but the Convention Center and Heritage Square are nice and important for downtown.