Can Phoenix un-suburbanize?
There’s a movement afoot to bring new money into urban areas all over the country, and surprisingly, Phoenix, is part of that movement.
The city has long been famous for its suburban sprawl. But now, plans are moving ahead to link high-rise downtown with a neighboring Latino barrio that wealthy developers have mostly ignored for the better part of 100 years. Not a shovel of dirt has moved, though neighbors already have expectations and fears.
With a good arm, you could probably pick up one of the empty beer bottles on 14.6 acres of land set aside for the proposed development, give it a good chuck, and clear the railroad tracks that separate Grant Park from the polished office buildings of downtown Phoenix. Feliciano Vera is the developer who intends to bridge this divide between rich and poor. “This is a condition that predates statehood,” he said.
In Grant Park, trees and good sidewalks are scarce. Decades of industrial use have polluted the soil. In 2012, median income – at about $19,000 a year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau – was less than half what of it was citywide.
“For our community to go over the railroad tracks and for the downtown people to come on this side of the railroad tracks, it’s like going to China,” said Eva Olivas, CEO of the Phoenix Revitalization Corporation, a group that works to improve the local neighborhoods.
But Olivas said the area is also rich with Latino history. In the 1970s, the now famous saying “si se puede” – Yes, we can – was coined just a few blocks from here when Cesar Chavez embarked on his historic fast for farmworker rights. “We have been waiting and learning and preparing for this moment,” Olivas said. “This community wants to support something.”
That “something” could be up to 800 new apartments and townhouses – a third of them set aside for low-income residents. There’s room, right under an airport flight path, for about another 300,000 square feet of commercial and retail space.
But with such long a history of disinvestment in this area, what makes the developer think he can pull it off? “The timing,” said Vera. Indeed, from Las Vegas to Detroit, American inner cities are revitalizing. “On the macro level, nationally we are going through this period of intense urbanization,” Vera said.
To gauge the community’s support, Vera is hosting a series of meetings for residents. At a recent gathering inside the Grant Park gym, Vangie Muller and Nenette Parra fantasized about this idea of urbanization. For both women, something as simple as a grocery store would be a huge improvement. But Parra also worried developers will put the community as she knows it at risk. It wouldn’t be the first time in Arizona that working-class Latinos got pushed out of their neighborhoods. Developers “cater to those that are more educated, that are able to speak up,” she said. “Everything that our neighborhood isn’t — that’s what they cater to. That’s what we don’t want.”
The feeling is echoed at El Portal, a Mexican restaurant across the street from Grant Park. “There’s really not an embracing of the Mexican-American culture,” said owner Earl Wilcox. “It’s more the cowboy stuff, the Old West stuff.”
Wilcox’s family is well connected politically, and he’s used that clout to complain that the wrong development will threaten small businesses like his. Wilcox said competition from a big chain could wipe him out and spoil the atmosphere of the entire place.
“If they just come in, historically and traditionally the way they do things – build it and worry about all these things later – then there’s going to be a lot of problems,” he said. But if the developer recognizes Grant Park’s Latino culture, he said “it could be something really beautiful.”
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
