The luxury of space in Phoenix, Arizona


It wasn't until I moved to Phoenix, in my teens, that I saw so many wide-open spaces, right there in the city. I grew up in Minneapolis, in a neighborhood that had very narrow streets, and so many houses that you really couldn't get a sense of open space unless you were out on a lake. In fact, it's hard for me to picture Minneapolis before all of the development happened, as an open prairie. Not as open as the "Little House on the Prairie", which is further south, but the neighborhood where I grew up wasn't heavily forested, that sort of thing doesn't start in Minnesota until you're more north of Minneapolis.

And so I learned about the luxury of space. I also learned it again when I moved back to Phoenix from Los Angeles, which is so densely built up that I could barely breathe there. And now I've learned why the luxury of space is so expensive.

I have a good friend who recently left LA to go live in the luxury of space in Oregon. He had enough money to buy multiple acres, and the only noisy neighbors that he has are woodpeckers. And it's nice to be wealthy, and be able to afford the luxury of space.

Here in Phoenix, I see the luxury of space being eaten up by developers. They take wide open areas and subdivide them into houses, apartments, and condos. I often hear people complain of these greedy developers, who take away the luxury of space in return for crowded areas, with more traffic, more people, more congestion. And it makes me wonder about the luxury of space?

I often hear people ask why "they" don't preserve an historic building? And I know what they mean - the wasteful government that's stealing their money in taxes should pay for the luxury of keeping an old building preserved, just for the luxury of it. Or they may wonder why "some rich person" doesn't pay for it? I actually know rich people who have, but there's a limit to what they can do.

The population of Phoenix, and Maricopa County, has been growing explosively for over 100 years. People want to live there, and they need a place to live. The luxury of space is something that most people can't afford, but if you can, I recommend that you do so. Paying for restoration and upkeep of an historic property would be the minimum, it would be nice if you allowed free guided tours. If you can't, I understand.
If you liked this article, and would like to see more, please consider becoming a patron of History Adventuring on Patreon. If you're already a patron, thank you! You make this happen!

 Click here to become a Patron!
History adventuring posts are shared there daily. The basic tier is a dollar a month, and the PhD tier, which includes "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos, is five dollars a month, and is discounted for seniors, veterans, and students.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more