Friday, August 28, 2009
'Twilight' under the stars
ASU students will resume their free movie showings at the Civic Space Park tonight with a screening of 'Twilight' at 8 p.m. The plan is to run movies on the fourth Friday of every month during the school year. This is a great concept, and I give a ton of credit to the ASU students who put this together. The current crop of students seems different from their recent predecessors, whom I criticized in the past for their knee-jerk derision of downtown Phoenix and their failure to lead. This group of ASU students is just the opposite, and is helping to shape downtown Phoenix in a very positive way.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Caffeine High for downtown Phoenix
Flash back to 2004, and it seemed like the nationwide coffee shop craze had bypassed Phoenix. Despite the success of independent coffee houses in basically every city nationwide-- even Buffalo has a hip local coffee chain known as 'Spot Coffee'-- Phoenix had only the Willow House and Lux and a few outposts in Tempe.
But in a boom that parallels the explosion of restaurants in and around downtown Phoenix, a lot has changed in a few years. Downtown and central Phoenix are now awash in java places, and the suddenly competitive landscape is going to test the depth of the downtown market.
By my count, there are three independent coffee shops and at least five Starbucks outlets in downtown Phoenix. Three more places (Tammie Coe, Krispy Kreme, and Calabria) serve coffee but specialize in other fare. Further uptown are several other popular indie coffee houses, including the aforementioned Lux, which sparked the trend.
And in the next few months, the number of independent shops is set to double. All the entrants are familiar faces-- Royal Coffee Bar will open a branch at the Downtown Phoenix Public Market's indoor store, the people behind Matt's Big Breakfast will open a shop near the Phoenix Art Museum, and on Friday Fair Trade Cafe will start up a second branch at the new Civic Space Park. In addition to the new independents, another chain-- Press Coffee-- was announced at CityScape.
As with every positive sign for downtown, there are sure to be naysayers and doubters that will come out of the woodwork. A common refrain will likely be that there aren't enough people downtown to populate these enterprises. But like the new restaurants, which all seem pretty popular even in the face of a recession and a massive cutback in consumer spending, I expect the coffee shops to do just fine.
The suburban doubters often misunderstand the urban market. Unlike suburban stores, which seem to like to isolate themselves from competition, urban shops benefit from clustering. The more places to go-- even places of the same type-- the more people will get out and walk the sidewalks and eventually decide to stop inside some place for a drink and a break. Coffee shops particularly fit the urban streetscape with their windows that let patrons face out and observe life outside the shop.
So, as with the proliferation of condos and restaurants, the more coffee shops in downtown Phoenix, the merrier.
But in a boom that parallels the explosion of restaurants in and around downtown Phoenix, a lot has changed in a few years. Downtown and central Phoenix are now awash in java places, and the suddenly competitive landscape is going to test the depth of the downtown market.
By my count, there are three independent coffee shops and at least five Starbucks outlets in downtown Phoenix. Three more places (Tammie Coe, Krispy Kreme, and Calabria) serve coffee but specialize in other fare. Further uptown are several other popular indie coffee houses, including the aforementioned Lux, which sparked the trend.
And in the next few months, the number of independent shops is set to double. All the entrants are familiar faces-- Royal Coffee Bar will open a branch at the Downtown Phoenix Public Market's indoor store, the people behind Matt's Big Breakfast will open a shop near the Phoenix Art Museum, and on Friday Fair Trade Cafe will start up a second branch at the new Civic Space Park. In addition to the new independents, another chain-- Press Coffee-- was announced at CityScape.
As with every positive sign for downtown, there are sure to be naysayers and doubters that will come out of the woodwork. A common refrain will likely be that there aren't enough people downtown to populate these enterprises. But like the new restaurants, which all seem pretty popular even in the face of a recession and a massive cutback in consumer spending, I expect the coffee shops to do just fine.
The suburban doubters often misunderstand the urban market. Unlike suburban stores, which seem to like to isolate themselves from competition, urban shops benefit from clustering. The more places to go-- even places of the same type-- the more people will get out and walk the sidewalks and eventually decide to stop inside some place for a drink and a break. Coffee shops particularly fit the urban streetscape with their windows that let patrons face out and observe life outside the shop.
So, as with the proliferation of condos and restaurants, the more coffee shops in downtown Phoenix, the merrier.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
The free market did not give us suburbia
A common refrain of defenders of the dominant American suburban form is that it is simply the culmination of millions of microeconomic decisions by consumers to "vote with their feet" and buy a house in the 'burbs. If mainstream Americans really wanted urban living, they would have chosen to stay in the cities, goes the argument.
A great article in today's Wall Street Journal debunks that free market myth, and discusses the way that government-- through its creation of Fannie Mae and federal underwriting for mortgage loans, among others-- shaped our sprawled-out society through multiple market-distorting policies throughout the 20th century. One key quote from the article:
The article is a worthwhile read, and makes one ponder how America would look if government policy (authored by politicians of both parties) hadn't for decades obsessed over increasing (mostly suburban) homeownership. And it goes without saying that Phoenix, which came of age as these policies were in their ascendancy, would have looked much different. It also makes one wonder about Phoenix's future as these policies increasingly come under question by politicians and more importantly, consumers.
A great article in today's Wall Street Journal debunks that free market myth, and discusses the way that government-- through its creation of Fannie Mae and federal underwriting for mortgage loans, among others-- shaped our sprawled-out society through multiple market-distorting policies throughout the 20th century. One key quote from the article:
The article doesn't even get into the federal government's massive freeway-building programs that laid waste to central-city neighborhoods in order to whisk commuters into and out of downtowns and back to the suburbs."Federal housing policies changed the whole landscape of America, creating the
sprawlscapes that we now call home, and in the process, gutting inner
cities...[o]f new housing today, 80% is built in the suburbs-- the direct legacy
of federal policies that favored outlying areas rather than the rehabilitation
of city centers."
The article is a worthwhile read, and makes one ponder how America would look if government policy (authored by politicians of both parties) hadn't for decades obsessed over increasing (mostly suburban) homeownership. And it goes without saying that Phoenix, which came of age as these policies were in their ascendancy, would have looked much different. It also makes one wonder about Phoenix's future as these policies increasingly come under question by politicians and more importantly, consumers.
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