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Down­town Phoenix isn’t about busi­nesses, build­ings or parks. It’s about peo­ple. Those that live, work and/or play here make this place what it is.

It’s not that great. Plenty of poten­tial, lots of usable space and we really haven’t done much. Cop­per Square is a failed exper­i­ment. Have you EVER seen that place busy? It’s impos­si­ble to walk any­where north of I-10.

And what are we doing about it? Well, noth­ing, really. We’re hav­ing our lit­tle events and hop­ing that some­thing good will hap­pen. Then we con­grat­u­late each other.

It’s time to stop flail­ing blindly and get on the same page. Share our gripes and fig­ure out a way to be better.

Here are mine:

1. Any­thing fun is spaced too far away. We have small lit­tle hives of activ­ity con­nected with long, dark patches of absolutely nothing.

2. Most of the peo­ple liv­ing here are lib­eral artists. They don’t make much money, don’t under­stand how to make money and seem con­tent with First Fri­days for sell­ing any­thing. Yeah, good luck with that.

3. We have tons of groups, yet no one talks to each other. Go ask the mar­ket­ing per­son at the Phoenix Art Museum and he’ll tell you the same. We all have our own thing on our own day, and they’re all sparsely attended.

4. Every­one wants a cre­ative class down here, but no one under­stands what the hell that even is.

5. Most are against any­thing cor­po­rate or chain, yet they don’t under­stand that’s where the money comes from.

6. Every­thing is shiny happy uni­corn rain­bows all the time. THE BEST EVENT EVER! First Fri­day was a blast! The lit­tle scav­enger hunt we had changed my life (okay, that last one was actu­ally fun)! It’s called per­spec­tive. Try it.

7. No one looks around. Nice Twit­ter­hunt last week, Cen­Pho busi­nesses. Didn’t bother to check that many of the peo­ple using social media had their own Geek­WeekAZ and were too tired to par­tic­i­pate, did you?

8. Too many busi­nesses think A) Twit­ter is the answer or B) don’t have a fuck­ing clue what the inter­net, much less social media, even is. I live down­town and I don’t hear a damn thing about what goes on down here, and I’m con­stantly search­ing social media chan­nels. It’s about BALANCE.

9. Every­one bitches, but no one bitches out loud and in pub­lic. Pissed about Mod­i­fied Arts? SAY SOMETHING. Want to start a music venue? ASK AROUND.

10. We want our down­town to be just like some­one else’s. Doesn’t work that way. While I love the Gaslamp Dis­trict, our city lead­ers seem too con­cerned with north Phoenix to make that hap­pen. You want to improve your city? DO IT.

11. Phoenix thinks it has an image prob­lem, when Phoenix IS THE PROBLEM. It’s foot-burning, nose-drying, armpit-sweating hot five months every year here, and we have a down­town WITHOUT ANY SHADED SIDEWALKS.

12. You built a park in the mid­dle of the city and didn’t bother to shade it. Instead, we got a float­ing cervix that only looks good at night. How fuck­ing stu­pid are you people?

13. The AZ Repub­lic still exists, appar­ently above ques­tion­ing. Does any­one even read that rag any­more? Arpaio met with Biden? WHO’S REPORTING WHAT?

14. Busi­nesses think Light Rail is the answer. No, being amaz­ing is the answer, Light Rail is just a more effi­cient way of bring­ing peo­ple to you.

15. Too often, crit­i­cism is passed off as com­plain­ing. Ever try ask­ing a critic if they’re will­ing to help? I bet they are!

16. ASU has been allowed to grow in the mid­dle of down­town, with­out any sort of clear plan as to what role it will play in the com­mu­nity. Right now, it offers res­i­dents lim­ited WiFi. Woohoo.

17. There’s always talk about shop­ping local, yet no one actu­ally does it. Ever seen unman­age­able lines at the Farmer’s Mar­ket? Me neither.

18. That peo­ple prob­a­bly haven’t even read this far.

Agree or dis­agree, get down to Local Breeze on Tues­day, Novem­ber 24 from 5:30–7:30pm and get your point across. You don’t count if you don’t show up.

Dis­clo­sure: I live at Roo­sevelt and Cen­tral, so any improve­ments to this city would directly ben­e­fit ME.

Cross posted on the DPJ.

Visit Radi­atePhx for more down­town meetings.

Com­men­tary from Derek Neigh­bors

More from tdhurst

• The state of down­town Phoenix…
• Down­town Phoenix “Ambassadors”
• What I learned today
• What I learned today…
• I’m not sure what happened

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