We’ve been taught that cities need to be dense in order to work. Large groups of people, living, working and playing in close proximity breeds cooperation, which breeds innovation.
Constraints are important. Nothing is infinite. This same idea works for businesses, clubs, sports teams and any sort of group that has a common goal. Hell, Captain Planet REQUIRES five people to even appear.
It seems Phoenix and Arizona as a whole has forgotten this. We have events that are offshoots of other events. We have businesses dedicated to bringing the Valley together copied. We have Gangplank and now we have Archipelago. We have Fractal, we have Dojo Collective. We have Pecha Kucha and we have Ignite.
What in the hell are we doing? Are we so naive that we think we’ll all survive on our own? Do we not understand that the only way to be great is to work together?
From the outside, Arizona is seen as a backwater, racist state that’s gone off the deep end. From the inside, we’re a bunch of insecure posers who can’t stomach the fact that we may not actually be good enough to be noticed nationally, yet we shy away from criticism. We are scared of what people might say, because no matter what, image is the absolute most important thing for nearly everyone in charge of these splintered attempts to building something.
Enough is enough. Get your shit together, creative class. Stop looking out only for yourselves. We’re wasting time trying to make ourselves the stars.
Let’s work to make everyone else shine.
(edit: not one of my better posts. Poorly researched, poorly thought out and mainly a knee-jerk reaction to what I didn’t yet understand. Nice job by Brandon Willey and Mark Dudlik in the comments.
