Tag Archives: Phoenix metropolitan area

Best of the Best of Phoenix

5416426.40 Best of the Best of PhoenixOn Thursday, the Phoenix New Times published their annual Best of Phoenix 2010 awards. This years theme was ‘Who’s Your Hero”. Their intrepid staff “soared across this fair metropolis, finding 583 examples of the best cultural attractions, shopping, outdoor fun, places to eat, party spots, and things to do—be it morning, noon, night, or into the wee hours.”

While each of the winners has its merits—my personal feelings about Cityscape aside—even Superman himself would have trouble visiting them all. So to help guide you through this year’s best, I’ve listed ten of my favorite winners (in no particular order) below.  I must note it was great to see so many of my friends and acquaintances make this years list. Alas, sticking to a top ten list meant that some of them didn’t make the cut.  When I was on the fence, I went go with the underdog and newcomers.  I hope the others understand!

Best Dream: Canalscape

We get fired up about great ideas—even if they seem a little ambitious. Greatness, after all, was built on dreams, and we think Canalscape has tremendous potential. Planners took inspiration from places like Venice and proposed incredible ideas for the Valley’s 181 miles of waterways.

These winding canals are based on the ancient Hohokam’s crop irrigation system and have previously been seen as utilitarian systems. Not any more. The plans include beefing up our waterfronts with small marketplaces filled with coffee shops, cafes, and retail boutiques. Imagine going for a jog along the waterway, free of cars and stinky traffic, to stop for a cappuccino and a newspaper. Sounds like a dream to us. canalscape.org

Best Phoenix History Lesson: Phoenix Retro Spectacular at Phoenix Metro Retro

As a former New Yorker who’s lived in the Valley for a decade, Marshall Shore may know a lot more about Phoenix history than most natives. Like the fact that Mr. Lucky’s was intended to be Arizona’s first casino or that Wayne Newton was a regular performer at Bill Johnson’s Big Apple. Shore, who calls himself an information curator, deals hour-long doses of local lore each month at the Phoenix Retro Spectacular. For a fiver, listeners and fellow tale-tellers can sip wine and lounge on vintage furniture at Phoenix Metro Retro while Shore, through stories and images, shares his understanding of Phoenix antiquity and the importance of saving it. lostphx.wordpress.com

Best Unexpected Urbanity: Historic Glendale

Walk into an antique store to check out some vintage dishes, jewelry, and furniture. Then pop into a fashion boutique for 20-something women that’s filled with hot pink tulle, bedazzled skulls, and roller derby-like attire. Feeling hungry? Roll into a burger joint and chow down on some American fare. Then get through the digestion drowsiness by walking down the street to a world-renowned museum.

Sounds like San Francisco or New York, right? Wrong. It’s Downtown Glendale. We’re talking about antique stores like Granny G’s Shady Nook or Strunk’s Hollow; restaurants like A Touch of European Café or Haus Murphy’s; and, of course, the Bead Museum. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to historic Glendale. Oh, yeah, believe it. historic-glendale.net

Best Tortillas: Verde

Although we can’t prove it unless we start sneaking into some kitchens, it’s pretty obvious that a lot of Mexican restaurants get their tortillas straight out of a bag—and some don’t even bother to reheat them. What gives, people? There’s a lot of competition for good Mexican food in the Valley, and to set yourself apart from the pack, you need to make grand gestures.

That’s what they do at Verde, a humble little downtown spot serving cheap, casual eats and flour tortillas we’re absolutely certain are as fresh as can be. Just take a look in the big front window, where you can see ladies hand-forming and cooking them on a griddle right on the premises. These are a little thicker than the norm, tender, and perfect for scooping up gobs of Verde’s fragrant green chile pork — or simply enjoying plain. verdeaz.com

Best Urban Planning Blog: Blooming Rock

For some folks, Phoenix is more than a pit stop on their way to whatever city their company transfers them to next. Some people care about the Valley of the Sun—its history, its topography, its architecture. And no one, it seems, cares about Phoenix as much as Tazmine “Taz” Khatri Loomans, a first-generation immigrant born in Mozambique who attended high school in Mesa, then went to ASU for a master’s in architecture. Loomans moved away from the Valley and then, like so many others, came back.

Unlike others, she launched a blog that celebrates what there is to love about our city—and candidly criticizes what’s wrong with it, too. In cannily written essays about wasted infills, the value of historic preservation, and the peculiar visions of Mayor Phil Gordon, Taz sets out to positively impact the city she loves. Even Phoenix haters (and they’re legion, right?) might well be swayed by Taz’s clear-headed, well-wrought prose about light rail and dust storms and “the urban forest.” It’s a heroic feat, sticking up for Phoenix—here’s to Taz! bloomingrock.com

Best Light-Rail Resource: Rail Life

You may be surprised to hear that the best resource for finding out what’s cool in and around the light rail is not associated with Metro light rail at all. Raillife.com is a site maintained by local folks who care about how light rail is changing our city. Perhaps you’re looking for a home near the route. You’re covered.

Hungry? Raillife.com has tons of listings for local eateries just steps away from the tracks. You can even receive the Twitter updates to find out if stations are temporarily closed or other pertinent infobits to make your rail life an easy one. Raillife.com

Best Neighborhood Bar, Downtown Phoenix: SideBar

It’s been just shy of two years since this cool downtown Phoenix lounge opened, yet we can’t remember what our lives were like before we had such a comfy, warmhearted spot to stop for a drink. SideBar owner Josh Parry wanted to create a landmark cocktail lounge that’s both a hot neighborhood gathering place and a cozy everyone-knows-your-name throwback to clubs of yesteryear. He’s done it!

Did we mention the cocktail menu? Smashing. We love the White Rabbit, an update on the Horchata martini that’s at the top of our list of faves. SideBar’s muddled drinks are made with fresh, homegrown ingredients, so we make sure to get there early to order one (or three!), because once the fresh stuff’s gone, it’s gone. sidebarphoenix.com

Best Concert Fliers: The Surfside IV

Each week, our music blog, Up On The Sun (PHXMusic.com), appoints a “Flier of the Week” to recognize excellence in promotional posters for local concerts. If Phoenix’s Surfside IV, a group that plays instrumental surf rock, has a show in any given week, they’re always in the running. The band has gone through some ups and downs (the drummer and a guitarist quit at the same time last year, leaving the remaining members scrambling for replacements), but guitarist Trey a.k.a. “T-Ray” consistently draws up the best fliers in town.

A poster for a show at The Icehouse Tavern featured a fantastic drawing of a man-eating Sasquatch, while the flier for a show at the now-closed Ruby Room was a dead-on take on the pulpy posters used to promote 1940s monster movies. Oh, then there was the killer robot attacking The Blooze Bar. It’s all great stuff, highly stylized in a way that fits the band perfectly. We’d love to see someone offer T-Ray a gallery show on a First Friday. surfsideiv.com

Best Coffee House, Central Phoenix: Lux Coffeebar

Coffee houses come and go, and we’re glad Lux stayed. Even with a change of ownership a few years ago, this packed-to-the-gills coffee bar earns its reputation as the place to see and be seen—and to sip—in Central Phoenix. No one minds if you bring over your Pane Bianco sandwich from next door on a hot day, as long as you buy a beverage—and we’re more than happy to oblige, since Lux brews some of our favorite coffee drinks in town. On a nice day, sit outside on the beautiful hand-carved picnic tables and watch the light rail whiz by. Nice, indeed. luxcoffee.com

Best Car Wash: Los Olivos Car Wash

How many times have you driven away from the car wash, only to notice after a few blocks that crumbs are still clinging to your console, and that your windows are all streaky? Look, in this economy, we really all should be washing our own damn cars, so if we’re going to splurge on a wash, we expect the royal treatment. That’s what we get, every time, at Los Olivos. Never, ever, do we drive away disappointed.

The staff is courteous and hard-working, they listen to our silly special requests—like, “Please don’t make my car smell like perfume!” or “Can you reach all the French fries the kids spilled in the way-back?” And on the few occasions we’ve really gone hog wild and paid for a detailing, we could have sworn we were driving off in a brand-new car. Not bad for an investment under $100. Not bad for an investment under $100. Los Olivos, you sure clean up nice. losolivoscarwash.com

Bonus

It wouldn’t be a ‘Hero’ edition without some heros and villains. Of the 30 best and worst Phoenicians a few stood out, Kimber Lanning, Matt, Erina and Christopher Pool, but one rose to the top of my pack, my friend, Kate Benjamin:

Pasted Graphic Best of the Best of Phoenix

Best of the Best of Phoenix
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Friday Five: What I've been reading

Five posts I’ve found interesting over the past seven days:

  • The Audacity of Doing Nothing. Flash mobs have become increasingly popular over the past few years. Their popularity poses a paradox, however. When once people gathered in the streets in celebration or protest, today people are gathering for no particular reason. This post asks: now that we know that kids can still gather, why can’t it be for positive change?
  • Jane’s Walk Phoenix: A blatant plug for my other site that I maintain for an event that is returning to Phoenix on May 1, 2010. I’ll be posting details on the walk  (and related events) as the become available In the meantime, there is a lot of urban goodness including a growing list of Jane Jacobs ideas and commentary.
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Friday Five: What I've been reading
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Opportunity Mirage

  • The Big Apple
  • Motor City
  • Beantown
  • City of Angels
  • The Big Easy
  • Opportunity Oasis

Who’s the odd one out here?

Most major cities in the world have a nickname or brand. They can help in establishing a civic identity, helping outsiders recognize a community or attracting people to a community. They can also promote civic pride; and build community unity. Nicknames that successfully capture a city’s “ideology or myth” are also believed to have economic value in some cases.

The Metro Phoenix Partnership for Arts and Culture has chosen ‘Opportunity Oasis’ for Phoenix on the recommendation of Arthesia, a Zurich and L.A. based consulting firm. On Tuesday I attended a public presentation of the current status of the branding strategy. In the room with the usual suits and powers that be were a few social media colleagues, including Derek Neighbors, Tyler Hurst, Francine Hardaway and Ward Andrews. We were not impressed.

The Opportunity Oasis concept is part of MPAC’s Metro Phoenix DNA strategy book (which, alas is not online, more than a year after being published can be downloaded here.)  It is based on three main ‘story ideas’: Urban Pioneers, Upscale Dessert Garden, and Open Space Thinking.  Sure, there is a certain bureaucratic appeal to the concept of Opportunity Oasis. (After all it was done by a top-notch firm paid big dollars to come up with appealing concepts): it is iterative, it rolls of the tongue, it represents optimism. The fact is, however, that it doesn’t reflect reality. Not even close. Sure marketing campaigns are aspirational, but this is stretching things too far.

10806 fireworks parking%20lot Opportunity Mirage
What I find ironic about this strategy is that the very name Phoenix was chosen as a brand for the region well over 100 years ago. It was chosen by Darrell Duppa to reflect that Phoenix is built on the ashes of past civilizationa. This is an apt metaphor that I’ll return to later.

Here is what I think when I hear the term: Opportunity Oasis.

Opportunity. Sure it is a cheap place to do business, if low ages and cheap rent are your only concerns. This is why WalMart is our #1 employer.

Oasis: Sure the Valley was once a desert oasis. It was first settled thousands of years ago on a fertile river crescent. Alas, over the past 50 years we have done everything to forget this. (Except for our golf courses and back lawns)

So yes Phoenix is an opportunity oasis if you have don’t need talented workforce, want cheap land, don’t need to connect with others on a regular basis, and like to play golf or mow lawns.

For the rest of us, Metro Phoenix is more of an Opportunity Mirage:

  • Instead of nurturing ‘Urban Pioneers’ we push aside those who have worked tirelessly on their business in favor of flashy new developers. We tell people with new ideas that they haven’t been here long enough to understand; we ignore worldviews that fall outside their engrained ways (ways that have led Phoenix into a constant boom and bust cycles.)
  • Instead of preserving our ‘Upscale Urban Garden,’ we bulldoze over the desert and replace it with red tiles roofs. We build McMansions up the side of our mountains. We turn our back on to our water sources (or make ‘fake lakes’ to entice developers.). We tear down historical building and put up Parking lot (apologies to Joni Mitchell)
  • Instead of promoting ‘Open Desert Thinking,’ we under fund our education system. We subsidize sprawl making it difficult to connect people with ideas. We let the Mormon Church and others of the ‘righteous right’ enforce their narrow social views on the rest of us.

Perhaps worst of all, we turn our backs on the very opportunities we seek. We are so amounted by attracting the shiny new firm, or any outsider for that matter, that we ignore the businesses that are growing under our nose.

The Way Out

Phoenix doesn’t need another marketing campaign or branding effort. We need live up to our name and rise from the ashes of our past bad decisions. Here some starting points:

  • Stop trying to lure the big fish. They don’t stick around for long (remember Google?) Low costs, government incentives and marketing campaigns are only a small part of the equation. Without focusing on the big things like talent and community, we are just creating a revolving door for business looking to exploit what we offer.
  • Stop the zero sum game of luring developers to build yet another retail epicenter to one Valley or another to enhance retail taxes takes. Instead look at ways to diversify our economy so we are not continually hit by real estate meltdowns. The current crisis was not the first, and won’t be the last. Instead of waiting for the cycle to start again, we need to find another cycle.
  • Focus on getting the fundamentals right. Re-think and re-balance our state tax system to be less dependent on high corporate taxes, even if it means individuals and property owners pay a bit more. Make sure that we offer a solid education system and natural and cultural offerings.  Invest in multi-modal transit to weave stronger connections between the various hubs in the Valley. This will make it easier for people AND their ideas to connect. THESE are what attract talented people and innovative businesses.

MPAC has it backwards: they came up with a marketing campaign first and are acting second. While the MPAC report admits that Phoenix has its flaws, instead of endeavoring to correct them, they want to gloss them over with flashy magazines, yet another website and faux ‘viral’ video competition, and the now requisite iPhone app (that still isn’t quite ready…) We’re told that this is the first part of a long, multi-year process. I suggest that they go back and reevaluate their strategy and help Metro Phoenix get the fundamentals right first. Otherwise their Opportunity Oasis will be seen, not as an authentic expression of what the Valley represents, but as an Opportunity Mirage solely designed to attract the latest business looking for concessions.

*     *     *

Post Script 1: To their credit,  Amy Heisler from MPAC has agreed to sit down and talk with me next week.  I’ll be sharing these concerns and other with her. If you have any comments or concerns to add, please leave a comment.

Post Script 2: If you are indeed going to follow through on the Opportunity Oasis strategy, be sure to get some SEO advice. Right now a Google search shows up Francine Hardaway’s critique and two development firms. Not exactly the image you want to project, whether it’s meant for public consumption or not.

This is day 17 in my 28 Day Blogging Challenge. 11 days to go.

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Opportunity Mirage
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Friday 5: What I've found interesting during the week of November 20-27th

Five of the best articles and blog posts I’ve read over the past week.

Note: In order to keep better track, (and a more reliable schedule) of my Recent Readings lists, I and going to use the meme of ‘Friday 5′, which several other blogs I use also employ. it is kind of like the Twitter ‘Follow Friday’ meme, but with blgs and interesting posts instead of Twitter account. this format has the additional benefit of giving people some weekend reading material, and a chance to catch up on some interesting articles and blog posts they may have missed during the busy work week. Hope you like it.

  • How to build community: first, get out of the office Four suggestions on how to create community assets our of unused land and buildings/ Key Quotation: ‘It’s great to see how much can be done by the will of the people.’

    regional planning 6 Friday 5: What I've found interesting during the week of November 20 27th

    Image from Identity Theft for Cities

  • Identity Theft for Cities, by Carol Coletta on Good.is, A look at how poor regional planning can suck the life out of cities. This is especially true of a region like metro Phoenix, which although thought of as one ‚Äòcity‚Äô by many outsiders, in fact has several dozen different municipal and county governments, each with separate (and sometimes competitng or conflicting) visions. Carol is one of my Favorite urban commentators. She is the President and CEO of CEOs for Cities, and the host of the nationally-syndicated public radio show, Smart City Radio. I follow both religiously. Carol can also be found on Twitter.
  • What Makes Cities Live. Why authenticity matters in creating great urban spaces, even if it is gritty and a bit messy at times.

And for some non-urban, but related fare:

  • The Generation M Manifesto. A letter to the “Old People Who Run the World” describing the tectonic shift that is currently rocking the social, political, and economic landscape. Generation M “is less about age and more about a movement that is doing meaningful stuff that matters the most”
  • The Death of the Cool. How ‘being cool’ has become yet another commodity it today’s society. Key quotation: “Where literature once gave us models to emulate in creating lives for ourselves, media now give us merely images to ape.”

To keep up with other articles that I’ve found interesting, be sure to check out my shared items on Google Reader.

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DPJ Article: Treasure Hunt on the Metro-November 14

Originally published in the Downtown Phoenix Journal on November 9, 2009.

METRO light rail has been a boon for Phoenix‚Äôs art scene. Many people are taking advantage of the rail system to get to and from Downtown Phoenix on First Fridays, without worrying about traffic or parking. In addition, several of Phoenix’s premier arts and culture venues and some of our best public art installations are along the route. This includes the 28 installations that are part of the light rail system itself.

This Saturday, November 14, Arizona Citizens for the Arts is highlighting these venues and installations by challenging teams of two or more people to “ride the rails” in search of Phoenix art treasures along the light rail line. The PHX ART Treasures coincides with Phoenix’s Green Week celebrations. It will take place on November 14 from 1-6 p.m.

“This unique event is intended to showcases the amazing array of arts and cultural opportunities in and around Phoenix METRO light rail,” says Brenda Sperduti, Executive Director of Arizona Citizens for the Arts, which will benefit from the proceeds of the event.

Arizona Citizens for the Arts is the nonprofit charitable arm of Arizona Action for the Arts. Its goal is to increases discussion and awareness of the importance and impact of the arts in achieving quality of life, educational excellence and economic health for all Arizonans and Arizona enterprises. It also presents the Governor’s Arts Awards annually with the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Office of the Governor.

Registration for the event will start at 1 p.m. at the Wells Fargo History Museum, 100 W. Washington in Downtown Phoenix (map). The “hunt” itself gets underway at 1:45. Participating teams will head out on a treasure/scavenger hunt to earn points toward cash prizes by deciphering trivia questions, finding clues and demonstrating artistic and creative talents along the light rail route. Teams begin returning to the starting location at 4:30 p.m. Scores will be tallied at 5 p.m., and announced at 6 p.m. The top three teams will win cash prizes of $300 for first place, $200 for second and $100 for third.

Registration is $30 per person (children in grades K-8 are FREE) and $20 for students (student IDs required for 9th grade and up). Register two or more people online by November 10 and each will receive a $5 discount. In addition to the chance to win a cash prize, each registrant will receive:

  • a METRO all-day ride pass ($3.50 value)
  • free all-day parking in the Wells Fargo garage ($12 value)
  • event t-shirt ($10 value)
  • food, beverages and musical entertainment by local reggae/punk/surf band RAC from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Wells Fargo History Museum
  • a swag bag with great stuff from sponsors and art venues

This is a great event for families, school groups, corporate team building, service groups and friends. It will help you discover the core of your city and explore the many arts and culture treasures it has to offer.

For more information or to register, visit phxarttreasures.org or call (602) 253-6535. You can also stay up to date on Arizona Citizens for the Arts on Facebook and Twitter.

Sponsors for the event include Wells Fargo, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona and METRO.

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