Also, check out ABCD (http://www.abcdinstitute.org/), yet another addition to the alphabet soup of community building. My biggest complaint about the complaints (hypocrisy intended) is that they are often comparisons to other major cities.

I love Phoenix for Phoenix, not for the ideal of Phoenix. I love having a car culture mixed with a slowly growing movement towards mass transit. I like the pace of downtown development. I like the long stretches of vacant lots. It’s not perfect, but that’s what I like. Where most see empty lots, I see future opportunity. And I can wait for that to happen.

So when I get frustrated with downtown “haters,” it’s not because they’re offering smart, critical observations of “what’s wrong with downtown.” My frustration stems from the fact that they are often insulting what I love: the imperfect, hot mess that is downtown and central Phoenix.

Then again, my living room window looks right at the now-imploded wreckage of the Mountain Bell building in central Phoenix. And I always thought the skeleton, and now the wreckage, were beautiful. And so will some development if (or when) it happens on the site.

And on the point about events being in other parts of the valley but retaining the “Phoenix” name, I think I am more frustrated by how little they try to bring these events to central Phoenix. We have venues downtown, even if they aren’t as shiny and new as Mesa Arts Center or the Tempe Center for the Arts. But, of course, they offer nice amenities and things Phoenix cannot offer, so maybe the events belong there.

But Yuri, you and I had an email conversation about this and I think you’re right that the city of Phoenix needs to be more active in trying to lure these small, local events downtown. I’m just not sure they need it as much as Mesa and Tempe do since Phoenix has become a national conference destination with the opening of the new parts of the convention center.

In the end, I think the negative voices have a place. It’d just be nice to hear some asset-building from the most negative voices, and some criticism from the most ardent cheerleaders.

I think most of the people you would call “cheerleaders” are also some of the first to admit short comings of our city. Many of them are also the people trying to change it for the better, they would not be trying to improve things if they did not see a problem with the status quo. I think what makes many of us work to try and improve the city is the idea that we can change it, that the potential is here.

My problem with most of the “Haters” you say we should listen to more is they never offer constructive criticisms, rarely do they ever offer up suggestions on what they would like to see improve, or when they do they are such big picture complaints it is hard to see what they would like done. The same people who have spent the last 5, 10, or 20 years complaining about lack of public transit were the first to complain about the light rails shortcomings before they even road on it.

There are very valuable conversations to be had on how we can improve this city that does includes the complaints and criticisms, but throwing your hands in the air and saying “Downtown is dead” or “Phoenix Suck” is not going to help that dialog in any positive way.

PS. If you have read much on Local Firsts 10% shift campaign you would know that “eating dinner at a local restaurant” does far more good than most of the “haters” ever do.

Tony- Great, but in order to fix anything, you have to identify your problems, see what inventory you have on hand and then figure out a way to get what else you need. Your comment here is even emptier than my complaining.

“but can you tell me how Radiate Phoenix actually impacts/shapes the future of the city?”

This is a major problem with most of these groups. They have no “actionable” plan to make a difference. They just want to talk. I have never been to Radiate so I’m not sure where they stand, but your question is valid.

“As mentioned briefly in this post and others, many Phoenix area events are held in other locations (Tempe, Mesa), supposedly due to the lack of an affordable venu location in downtown Phoenix that has WiFi capabilities. If this is such a big issue for some people, what is the plan to remedy it? Are there people in the community that are actually working with the City of Phoenix or some other private venue in Phoenix to try to improve it?”

I think that it’s silly to nit pick events calling themselves PhoenixXYZ or XYZPhoenix even when they are not in Phoenix. As Phoenix is the term used to talk about all of Metro Phoenix. In fact, when Tempe suggested making it IgniteTempe people threw a fit.

Additionally, you are assuming the only reason events are not happening in Downtown Phoenix is because of venue, but in reality the organizers might be choosing other locations for other reasons.

If you want to see activism mixed with pragmatism, come to a Downtown Voices Coalition general meeting, held the Second Saturday of almost every month. More info on the website. I urge you to read the position paper of DVC. Many of its points were adopted into the city’s last Downtown Strategic Plan, and we are working on a re-examination of the current state of the plan’s points in a facilitated discussion to be held (tentatively)in January 2010. By the way, the very large open space of A.E. England has great video capability and wifi, and is a free city of Phoenix rental(if of course, the event is free)….or so said the Mayor at the State of Downtown.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by YuriArtibise: New blog post: Downtown Phoenix: Don’t Hate the Haters http://www.yuriartibise.com/writing/blog/downtown-phoenix-dont-hate-the-haters/...