The other Central Avenue and Van Buren in the Phoenix metro area


If you've lived in the Phoenix area for a while, you know where Central and Van Buren is. It's where Chase Tower is, in downtown Phoenix, right?

But, oddly enough, there is another Central and Van Buren in the Phoenix metro area. In Avondale. And now that the Phoenix metropolitan area has all grown together, this sort of thing just kind'a strikes me as weird.

All of the cities around Phoenix, like Tempe, Scottsdale, Peoria, etc. have held onto the original names of their streets as much as possible. If you live in Avondale, you know that Avondale has held onto a lot of its original historic street names.

Of course Avondale is its own city, as Tempe, Scottsdale, and Peoria are. It has its own fire department, police force, mayor, which how you differentiate a city from merely a named area, such as Sunnyslope, or Hollywood (uh, which is Los Angeles).

Personally, I like to see cities stand up against being told what to do by Phoenix. So what if it's confusing that Dunlap turns into Olive here in Glendale, or Lincoln turns into Glendale. If you live anywhere in the Phoenix metro area, you probably can name quite a few. My winter visitors wonder how all of this happened. They see a continuous city, not a patchwork.

So the lesson here is to be sure to put in the city into your GPS, not just Central and Van Buren.

Image at the top of this post: Central Avenue and Van Buren, Avondale, Arizona.
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