[Wildcats]

Originally Posted by combusean

Story time!

Phoenix was never a port city or anything like that, it was picked as the center of a fairly large agricultural area when it was founded--homesteads stretched very very far around the area the townsite in 1900. Thomas Rd was considered North Phoenix in 1950--the pre-war population in Phoenix was very small compared to other established cities which is why downtown is small but it was bustling in its day and on its death knell for many years after Park Central was built. Streetcars meandered around as far as 20th St, 19th Ave, an interurban to Glendale, lines like that. But they didn't survive the post war economy as the larger area suburbanized.

North Central Avenue was basically stately mansions that started to come down in the 1960s. Then, an urban renewal trend starting with county and city government buildings and later commercial buildings in the 1970s hit downtown, but it really wasn't sustained and the immediate area looked like a large nuclear bomb went off around 1980 as white flight and later the open air crack markets ravaged the central city. Phoenix wasn't that great a place to live, it was crime ridden and corrupt during this period.

Around then, and for a while, Downtown wasn't really looked at like a mixed use urban neighborhood but an anti-urban office and government district surrounded by a collection of single uses like parking garages, convention centers, arenas, stadiums, that sort of thing. It would serve a daytime population and a nighttime population but not both if that makes sense.

That was pretty much the case until 2004 or so and the urban renewal continued with ASU and the biomedical stuff landing downtown. Although there were a few signature developments like Post Roosevelt Square or whatever it it is today, what was a ghost town or gay/affordable housing ghetto had normies actually begin to want to live in the area, and although little was built during condomania preceding the Great Recession, downtown started to finally pick up.

To answer your question, opportunity zone tax credits are behind most of the dozen+ cranes in the sky today, an unexpected thing I've been waiting for for most of the last 20 years that has pretty much turned the place around within the last five years and will put a huge population downtown and further development.

Excellent history of downtown Phoenix - the last few decades. I would add - that the University of Arizona help drive the recent growth of the Biomedical center. The biomedical campus is an important part of the recent downtown growth. It was the UofA committing to open a medical school campus in downtown Phoenix - that helped the biomedical get off the ground. It was an embarrassment for asu not to be able to open a medical school in their own backyard (many loops schools have to go through - and asu would not have been able to qualify for a medical school). Around 2004, the UofA agreed to partner with asu - having asu play a role in the UofA's medical school -downtown Phoenix. The UofA is the only school in the country to have two separate medical schools. It didn't work out - asu realizing that they would still have no medical school - so, that ended that partnership. asu instead has partnered with the new Mayo Clinic medical school - that med students from Mayo can also earn a Masters from asu in hospital management - or, something like that. Interesting, how myths - ignorance - the press, etc., can distort. Years ago, I was receiving e-blasts/e-news (still do) from the realtor that owns the Urban Connection (a downtown Phoenix realtor). He kept stating "...asu's new downtown medical school..." Finally, I e-mailed him - to correct him. The guy is right there downtown! He did respond to me and was so shocked and surprised after checking and doing some quick research. I don't believe that there is any mistake now which school has the medical school - drive down on 7th Street from Roosevelt towards Van Buren - and it is pretty clear with the large signage on the buildings.