If this were any city other than Phoenix, Sunnyslope would already be our Beverly Hills. Instead, this sleeping beauty — with its gorgeous mountain terrain, its dazzling views of downtown, its proximity to freeways, resorts, and the Central Corridor — has been dogged for decades by a lousy reputation that evolved from its days as the original Tent City, back when it was a lowly convalescent camp where the sick and dying came to soak up the sun.

Founded a century ago by an architect who fell for its unique skyline and klieg-lit, hilly terrain, Sunnyslope has been kept in a continuous holding pattern by that crummy rep. It’s maintained its place as a community on the brink of significance, a place of great paradox. Its handsome, hilly landscape — which stretches from 16th Street to 19th Avenue, between Northern and Cactus Roads — has long been populated by drug dealers and hookers, undesirables whose derelict homes rest in the shadow of million-dollar hillside housing. It’s a community that’s often mistaken for a town; one that’s been home to both one of the city’s best-regarded high schools and its highest concentration of crime.

And though developers have been busy building stadiums and relocating college campuses and renovating fallen neighborhoods all over town, the denizens of Sunnyslope have been quietly rebuilding their community, one street at a time. It’s an eccentric, grass-roots effort unlike any other in the Valley, one born of necessity by this overlooked, redheaded stepchild of a borough, and funded by a corporate benefactor — a hospital, no less — that owes its very existence to Sunnyslope.

So wrote Robert Pela last year in Sunnyslopetopia, his New Times article celebrating Sunnyslope.

In the article, he interviews “the mayor of Sunnyslope” Mike Nielsen, interior designer and gallery owner, whose home you can tour this week during the Third Annual Sunnyslope Home Tour.

Here you’ll see a short history of distinguished building in Phoenix: two homes from the 1920′s, including the renovated Bohn Home — an adobe home built as a labor of love during 1928; a Mid-Century Modern ranch; and two modern homes. In addition to Nielsen’s home, the distinctive Young residence will be on display.

Mr. Young, an architect with the Woolsey Studio designed the home for his personal use. He chose Sunnyslope as the site of his home because of its magnificent views right in the city and its tolerance for creative design. No McMansions here!

When? Saturday and Sunday, November 15 & 16
Time? 9 AM to 3:30 PM. Each tour lasts approximately 90 minutes.
Where? Guided tour buses leave every half hour from Sunnyslope Historical Society, 737 E Hatcher Rd
Cost? $35 per person, benefitting the non-profit Sunnyslope Historical Society Museum. Tickets must be purchased in advance by cash or check.

Hey! Maybe it is!

We live in North Central Phoenix, right by the Arizona Canal. Alas, as walkable (and bike-able) as our neighborhood might be, it’s still in Phoenix.

So… Maybe not…

But the cool breezes of September are just around the corner! WalkScore.com will tell you how walkable it thinks your neighborhood is.

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About a year ago, when I was hosting an open house at one of Greg’s listings in F.Q.Story, a young man came to tour the home. While he and I spoke, I mentioned the home’s proximity to Phoenix’s planned light rail system, expecting that he, like most people whom I have talked with on this subject, would subscribe to this being a benefit.

“Bah” (or something to that effect), he declared. “I’m from Houston, and I know that light rail systems don’t really help people… they only sound good, and make politicians popular. They’re just another boondoggle.”

Well… I pretty much agreed with him. Greg’s very first post on the weblog that eventually became BloodhoundBlog compared the “popular” (read that “politically correct”) heralding of Phoenix’s light rail with The Goldwater Institute’s forthright white paper on light rail.

Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about killing the 27-year-old reversible lane system on 7th Avenue and 7th Street that has served us so well. It came up again yesterday in an article in the Arizona Republic, which talked about how nice it would be if our streets were more pedestrian-friendly.

And now I have to compare that to a podcast I listened to recently, in which Randal O’Toole, Senior Fellow with the Cato Institute, and author of the insightful book, The Best-Laid Plans, discusses how Portland deliberately created gridlock as a way to ensure their failing light rail system would work.

Hmmmm….

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The Palmcroft Apartments at 15th Avenue and McDowell are shuffling off to the dump at last. They are to be replaced by 87 decidedly upscale townhomes.

From the Arizona Republic:

The 1940s-era Palmcroft Apartments at the corner of 15th avenue and McDowell Road are scheduled to be demolished at 8:30 a.m. Monday. Developer Scott Haskins plans to build Encanto Parkside, a four-story, 87-unit upscale townhouse complex.

The apartments, located in the Encanto-Palmcroft Historic District, were built in the mid-1940s as inexpensive housing for returning GIs.

Some preservationists tried to keep the apartments from being torn down because they are part of Phoenix’s history. But the Haskins, who bought the 2.2-acre property in mid-2006, argued that in recent years, the apartments were a haven for drugs, robbery and prostitution, and some of that crime spilled over into the otherwise idyllic neighborhood to the north.

Construction on the Encanto Parkside development is expected to begin in early 2008, with completion slated for mid-2009. Sales prices are projected to be in the $400,000 to $900,000 range. Local architects Virginia Senior and Kim Kristoff of SRK Architects are designing the development.

Key quote from developer Scott Haskins:

“The Encanto-Palmcroft neighborhood is a treasure in the heart of Phoenix. With imagination and creativity, we are replacing tired, worn-out apartment buildings that had minimal historic value and destabilized the neighborhood with first-class, modern residences. I want this development to rejuvenate McDowell Road as a gateway to downtown, while enhancing property values of the surrounding neighborhood.”

Putting 87 townhouses on 2.2 acres sounds like a tight fit, but this project will be a better introduction to the splendor that is Encanto-Palmcroft than the crummy little slum buildings that were standing on that parcel until today.

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Does tradition count for nothing? From The Arizona Republic:

An Arizona State University think tank will help decide the fate of reversible lanes on Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue, following a vote Wednesday by the Phoenix City Council.

The council voted to contract with the Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory, a think tank based out of ASU’s College of Design.

At stake is what becomes of Seventh Avenue and Seventh Street, major arteries into and out of downtown Phoenix, where the center lane becomes a one-way lane during peak hours.

For more than 25 years, the lanes have helped the traffic flow into downtown in the morning and out of it in the evening. But nearby residents and merchants complain that the lanes are unfriendly to pedestrians and confusing and possibly dangerous to motorists.

The Seventh Avenue Merchants Association has endorsed eliminating what they call “suicide lanes.”

Could this be a ploy to induce more commuters to take public transportation? Don’t hold your breath waiting to find out: “The ASU study is expected to take until the end of the year.”

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Did you catch Phil Gordon’s letter to the editor on Friday’s online issue of the Philadelphia Daily News? The article begins by citing claims that had apparently run in an earlier issue:

IN A SHORT article accompanying your report that Phoenix had surpassed Philadelphia as the nation’s fifth largest city, Phoenix was described as lacking cultural history, having water problems, being unfriendly to gays and lesbians and, in order to grow, “cheating” by “swallowing up its suburbs.”

Then the Mayor goes on to shred this ignorant stereotype point by point. Like

The cultural history of Phoenix is long and rich. The Hohokams flourished here dating back to the 3rd century B.C. and developed an extensive irrigation system that made (and makes) the desert habitable. Modern political leaders like Sens. Carl Hayden and Barry Goldwater continued being good stewards of our water needs by envisioning and funding the Central Arizona Project Canal.

Thanks to them and to so many other state and local leaders, we have a safe and assured water supply. Phoenix water regularly wins accolades for being both clean and healthy.

And

Tempe, Scottsdale and Glendale are also prospering. Phoenix hasn’t “swallowed” a square inch of any of them. We grow because 5,000 new residents move to Phoenix every month. That’s 60,000 every year and 600,000 between 10-year census reports. We don’t gerrymander people in. We pick them up at the airport.

They come to Phoenix because the sun shines 350 days a year; our cost of living is favorable; we invest in our own community and rely on citizen involvement to move our community forward. Our council/manager form of government is responsive, stable and free of scandal.

Opportunities are abundant – Phoenix is a job machine. As a city, Phoenix creates more jobs every year than 45 states. We are building an economy on education, science and research, and we’re doing it quickly.

You should read his entire letter, because there’s more… I get so tired of people who don’t know better trying to hang the backwater town label on Phoenix, comparing us unfavorably with the cities that developed before the automobile. We’re a new city, unlike Boston or New York or Philadelphia or San Francisco or Seattle. Phoenix developed after the organic growth of the old U.S. cities resulted in zoning laws. Phoenix is a western city, where land seemed abundant — in infinite supply, when Phoenix was young, but the ocean-cities were already mature. A single county in a western state is almost the size of New England! Rather than depicting Phoenix’s growth as avarice, the author of that article, had he bothered to learn about Phoenix at all, might have realized that our vastness comes, simply, from having so much land! But obviously that isn’t what the census was measuring when it recognized Phoenix as having overtaken Philadelphia in size. The census was talking about population. The fact that size of yard per capita in Phoenix is significantly larger is yet another bonus of living here… another reason for people to move here!

Phoenix is a vibrant city, without natural disasters or bitterly cold weather. It’s a business-friendly city. Employers like to bring their businesses here, and people can get jobs here, live where the sun shines year round… and have large yards! We should stop worrying that we’re not like Philadelphia, or New York, or Seattle, or San Francisco. Let’s love what makes us Phoenix, because with their moving vans, people from all over the world are demonstrating that Phoenix is a place worthy of calling home.

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Downtown needs a super-market. Will it start at the top of the food chain?

It’s deja vu all over again at the Arizona Republic. Magazine names Willo district one of top cottage communities it says in Wednesday’s paper:

They’re busting their buttons in the downtown Phoenix neighborhood of Willo.

Cottage Living magazine has named the historic district as one of the “Top 10 Cottage Communities in America.”

A profile of the neighborhood, generally bounded by Central and Seventh avenues and Thomas and McDowell roads, will appear in the July/August 2006 issue of the national publication.

Great news. Trouble is, it’s old news. The same article ran in the paper on June 30th.

Oh, what the heck. Even if it’s a twice-told tale, it’s still a great story:

“Places with charming architecture, where you can skip the car and stroll to locally owned shops and restaurants; places where neighbors know your name and are happy to have a cookout on Friday evening,” [Cottage Living Editor in Chief Eleanor Griffin] said. “Willo boasts crisply manicured lawns and small, doted-on houses of all types – it’s definitely a charming community of tight-knit residents.”