How to preserve the historic neighborhoods of Phoenix


If you love Phoenix, like I do, you want to preserve the historic neighborhoods. And yes, there are a lot of ways to do it, most of which I have no idea about. You can be one of those people who walks around with a clipboard, or serves on a committee, that sort of stuff. But you don't have to do that to preserve an historic neighborhood in Phoenix. I help preserve my historic neighborhood, which was built in 1985.

Yes, I mean it. And that's because everything is historic. If you just moved into your brand-new house today, it's historic. No, I don't mean that someone will be walking by with a clipboard, or talking about it in an Historic Committee. That's not what matters to me.

If you're looking for a definition of historic, my favorite one comes from my brother who likes to show me a picture of himself, maybe from last week, and says, "Here's a picture of me when I was younger". It's kinda goofy, but it's true.

To me, there's no dividing line. No one tells me that something isn't precious enough to be preserved, I decide. When I was a kid, someone once told me that something had to be 100 years old to be an antique. I have no idea who said that, but it's just some arbitrary rule, that means if I have something that's only 99 years old, it's worthless. I find that type of thinking to be nonsense.

So preserve your historic Phoenix neighborhood. Go get rid of some weeds. Wash your car. And don't do it because some Homeowner's Association tells you to. Do it because every part of a city you love is precious, wherever it is, however old or new it is. And take a photo of it, just of your street, just of your newly-washed car. It's historic.

Image at the top of this post: Glendale in 1993. You're standing in front of the Glendale Main Library, looking east at the bus stop on 59th Avenue and Brown. In my historic neighborhood.
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