58 replies to this topic

[MJLO]

I agree Colin, we need someone on board who can defend my rants about Scottsdale.

[shrek05]

Haha, i have since moved back to scottsdale (VC opportunities and great place to raise family). I think most places around phoenix have biased opinions towards scottsdale. its a great place to live

[MJLO]

I direct you to the Scottsdale thread.  You can see my rants there.  I wouldn't consider myself so much biased with Scottsdale so much as baffled by it.  I'm sure we could get a good discussion going, I'd just not like to go off topic in this thread if I could.

[sunbums]

Hello to all. I posted on the "Introduce Yourself" forum where I was led to this site.  I'm a new member and plan on spending some time here so I'll introduce myself here as well.  I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA.  I feel I'm a bit older than the rest of you (47) but I'm so far impressed with the insights and thoughts of the people who visit the various forums.  I'm a project engineer in the construction field (commercial/industrial).  I work on large projects for a national company so I've lived all over the U.S.  Places I've lived for at least a year in order:  Pittsburgh PA, Philadelphia PA, Lancaster PA, Providence RI, San Jose CA, Boise ID, Manassas VA, Dublin Ireland, Rockville Md, Chandler AZ, Pittsburgh PA (missed home), Chandler AZ (missed 2nd home and my kids who refused to leave AZ).  Places Ive worked for shorter periods to numerous to mention.  I'm currently committed on projects in Phoenix thru 2010 so hopefully I'll be staying put for awhile

[MJLO]

Let me be the first to welcome you in the AZ forum.  I would love to hear your insights into the various projects going on around the valley, as I am mainly full of hot air.  However my friend if you just want to interject an off topic feel free to do that too.  Conversation is always welcome.  

If you don't mind me asking what is your name sir?

[sunbums]

MJLO, on Aug 2 2006, 08:26 PM, said:

Let me be the first to welcome you in the AZ forum.  I would love to hear your insights into the various projects going on around the valley, as I am mainly full of hot air.  However my friend if you just want to interject an off topic feel free to do that too.  Conversation is always welcome.  

If you don't mind me asking what is your name sir?

Thanks MJLO.  My name is Mark and like I said I'm back in AZ after being away for 4 years.  It's hard to believe how things have changed.  I didn't think they could possibly develop anymore here in the East Valley.  Boy was I wrong.  There's not an open space left.  Well look forward to shootin the breeze with you down the road...

[MJLO]

Hey Newbies  Introduce yourselves , you can also find out stuff about us in this thread.

[Manolos]

Hi,

My name is Christine and I one lived in Scottsdale, Arizona (my childhood.) I moved to San Francisco and finished high school there where I went to Stanford. I've interned at large investment banks in New York and banks in Charlotte and Atlanta but also marketing at LV and Burberry in London. I love retail. I currently live in LA.

[colin]

Welcome!
And I'm glad that we're one of the few boards to actually have a female presence now. It's one of the oddities of UP that very few women post regularly.
Would you consider moving back to Scottsdale with all the changes going on? Do you see the changes as positive, negative or both?
I've been to LA many times, but really dislike it and would never consider living there. But I've heard a lot of people say that Phoenix is like a white trash LA. Is that a fair assessment?

[MJLO]

Well my folks used to live in the OC, and my take on it, is that LA is not so hot itself.  It is fair to say that those who can't afford to make it in California, come here and try to recreate it to some degree.  

Christine it's great to have you on here, I'm with Colin.  A little break from the sausage is a welcome addition and perspective.

[Manolos]

I actually love Scottsdale. My parents still live there on occasion and I visit frequently to see some friends that have moved to the Phoenix Area. I see the changes in Scottsdale as very positive. I had always introduced myself at college as from Phoenix, but Scottsdale has really earned itself a national identity. People no longer ask where Scottsdale is, and it even has a positive reputation as a nice area to live from most people I know in NYC and LA.

I enjoy LA, its large and sprawled but I don't mind it. I would like to move back to Scottsdale sometime however.

[MJLO]

We've had a bunch of new forumers, probabally most have stopped checking in, but feel free to give a bio about yourself here   it hasn't been used in over a year.   Hi I'm Matt, i'm the absentee Moderator for PHX and the west as  well of parts of the midwest.  Need help i'm here.   (no sarcasm)

[nuplanner]

I guess I never really introduced myself.  I am a community planner in West Mesa.  I grew up in Mesa, but have lived in Indy, Ut, and so cal.  All different and have their pros and cons.  I am getting ready to go to grad school (see where I get in)

I am a huge fan of sustainable urbanism (ie new urbanism, smartgrowth, LEED stuff) I do not like sprawl, especially the newer home developments.  They are like prisons.  My parents live in one, and so did I for about 3 years.  Traveling around, I see that most people here are anti-social.  I really like to research how design affects our social atmosphere and so forth.

[silverbear]

Hi. My name is David. I'm 42 and live in North Central Phoenix. I have no professional connection to urban planning, but it's a topic that interests me greatly. I've lived in Phoenix for almost 20 years and have a great deal of enthusiasm for the city and its potential. For the past two decades, I've enjoyed all the hiking trails and the semi-resort lifestyle, but I think Phoenix has reached the limits of reasonable horizontal growth. I'm therefore more interested these days in high-rise development, historic preservation (Those two goals can coexist!), and transit issues. My usual habitat is Central Phoenix and Tempe. I'm a big fan of independent, locally based stores and restaurants and publish a blog called PHX Rail Food.

[colin]

Love the blog, David! That's a really good idea.

[traal]

I'm Derek, I'm 34 and I recently moved to San Diego from Mesa. My parents and most of my siblings still live there. I also lived in and near Tokyo in the early 90s. I really liked being able to get by without a car there. Imagine not having to worry about a car payment, insurance, registration, maintenance (both regular and unplanned), fueling up, traffic, finding places to park, or getting tickets, and still being able to get wherever you need to go in a timely manner.

I'd like to be proud to say I'm from Mesa, which is my main motivation for voicing my opinions and ideas on this forum. But if I were to return to the valley, it would probably be to somewhere close to downtown Tempe, within walking distance of all the shops and restaurants and the light rail line.

[cueball1914]

Hello everyone. I came across this by way of an E-mail alert that I get. Amazing what you can find by clicking links...

Anyway, sounds like an interesting local forum, so I thought I'd hang for a while, see what's up.
I grew up here, Scottsdale actually, and I remember when there was no Pima Road, much less the 101. I'm 52, in construction most of my life, both Comm & Resid. Personally responsible for sprawl, so you can blame me.
A lot of the posters here seem to think that a urban lifestyle is easy and quick to come by if we only make some cosmetic changes to the existing system (transportation, building design, you name it). In my experience, and I've been to some great cities, Paris, London, NYC, SF, what these places had is what PHX never did, and that was AGE. Great urban cities sprang from the closeness and density that was planned from the start by necessity. Also from centuries of life concentrated within a few miles of area. We may never get to that point here simply because the scale of our cities, even the central core is far to large to accomodate pedestrian travel for more than a few minutes in the summer.
MAYBE, if a large underground subway system was already in place, the urban lifestyle might have taken hold, but without a cool way to get around, this will always be a winter stopover for most people.
Simply put, the automobile killed PHX before it even had a chance to be a great city... That said, I'd much rather be on the beach in SD. Later.

Edited by cueball1914, 14 February 2008 - 04:45 PM.

[colin]

Welcome, cueball!
Good point about Phoenix growing up around the automobile. I do think that was somewhat of a crutch that hampered its development and why it now has to catch up with older cities like San Francisco and east coast cities like Philly and Boston.
But I also think that building urbanism is way more than just transit. Connecting the population centers with the employment centers is a must, but I also think that there's a lot of exciting things going on now in the actual implementation of modern urban planning concepts, especially those that involve the live-work situation. It's just a matter of time before it's realistically (instead of small-scale stuff like Civano here in Tucson) implemented in Arizona and, when it is, we'll see some really cool environs sprout up. For Phoenix, the light rail, IMHO, is definitely a step in that direction, if not a leap. The Central corridor is already turning into a much more urbanist area, and the light rail hasn't even opened yet.
It's exciting!

[MJLO]

Wow i'm loving hearing all of these stories of everyone!  It's great to hear people talk about these things.  Cueball, I love what you said about the cities and age.  I've long been saying that the developers in Phoenix can't just make an older looking facade, and add a couple of bricks in the road and call it urban.  We have to embrace Phoenix for what it is, and what it has been.  All of the major dense cities across the country had the majority of their infrastructure put in place before the automobile, and turned out that way out of necessity.  Phoenix is just to new.  I love Phoenix for what it is and would love to see the forecoming developement from here out, to be just well thought out.  We will get there, we are on our way.