Posts Tagged ‘phoenix’

August 11, 2010

Trees Improve Social Connections, Who Knew?

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Today is the second installation in a month-long Wednesday series on The Phoenix Tree and Shade Master Plan. Last week I talked about the concept of the Urban Forest and why it’s important. Today I’m going to try to address this notion quoted in the Master Plan: “(The) General public has a limited understanding of the importance of trees.” This may be why most people have no idea or don’t care that our Phoenix urban forest is being destroyed slowly. Planting trees is not in the forefront of people’s minds when it comes to improving livability. Here’s why trees…

August 10, 2010

Why Your Walk Score is More Important than Granite Countertops

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Our new tenant, Theresa Devine, an interactive arts professor at ASU who just moved here from Chicago was telling me about Walk Score yesterday, a website that generates “a number between 0 and 100 that measures the walkability of any address”. She’s in the market to buy a house in Phoenix, our duplex is just a stop on her journey, and is using this site to determine what neighborhood she wants to live in permanently. She’s living proof that people moving to Phoenix are seeking walkability. In fact, Walk Score claims that there is a dollar value attached to…

August 09, 2010

Saving the Sahara: Calling the Community to Undo a “Done Deal”

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet According to the Arizona Republic article today by Emily Gersema, Ramada Inn in Downtown Phoenix Days from Demolition, the $700,000 demolition of the old Sahara Hotel, currently a defunct Ramada Inn, is scheduled to happen later this month. Before we go into why this building is important and why it’s worth saving, let’s first visit the reason why it’s being demolished: The City of Phoenix is planning a $700,000 demolition to make room for overflow parking for the Sheraton Downtown Hotel while there are loads of empty lots all around downtown that would work just as well, not to…

August 04, 2010

The Phoenix Tree and Shade Master Plan: Restoring the Urban Forest

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Yesterday, I posted this quote on the Blooming Rock Facebook Fan Page: ‎“One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade.” – Clarence Darrow and I learned from Jo Marie McDonald, vice president of the Phoenix Community Alliance, that there is actually a Tree and Shade Master Plan in place for the City of Phoenix. The first step of this Master Plan is to raise awareness. To help with this, every Wednesday for the next month, I’ll be featuring parts of this document on the Blooming Rock blog. With the crippling budget cuts, the City is too understaffed and…

August 03, 2010

Mick Dalrymple on Interconnectedness and the Urgency of the Environmental Crisis

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet You may know Mick Dalrymple as one of the guys behind aka Green, the first-of-its-kind store that was a resource for green building materials and green education in Scottsdale. I know Mick as a leader in the local green building community. Coming from outside the building industry, Mick’s varied background has given him a wider perspective on what works and what doesn’t. Besides his unique perspective, I also appreciate Mick’s deep knowledge of green building. So many people now may go out and get a green building certification and call themselves experts while not really understanding the basics. But…

August 02, 2010

Critical Mass Phoenix Makes Room for Bikes on the Street

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet When I asked Mayor Phil Gordon at a community breakfast a year ago about the lack of bike lanes in Phoenix, he told me bikers should use the canals. Really Mayor? That’s your answer to why we have almost no infrastructure in place for bikes in this city? What if bikers want to use the roads, like everyone else? What if the canals don’t take people where they need to go? Biking has been flagrantly dismissed as a viable mode of transportation by our city ever since its modernization. Finally there’s an event in town that takes a stand…

July 28, 2010

Phoenix Planning Manager Carol Johnson Reveals the Strategy for Downtown and the Light Rail Corridor

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Below is my conversation with Carol Johnson, the Planning Manager at the City of Phoenix about what’s next in terms of codes, walkability and making our city more livable on the whole: Blooming Rock: What’s your position in the city? Carol Johnson: My title is Planning Manager. I oversee our long range planning division, that includes the planners that staff that Village Planning Committees. We have 15 Village Planning Committees which are like mini Planning Commissions throughout the city to help break it up into more manageable pieces because we’re over 500 square miles. There used to be one…

July 27, 2010

Dan Semenchuk’s Photographs Capture the Heyday of Beef Eaters

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet The Beef Eaters building on 300 W. Camelback is awaiting its new destiny. In its heyday, it was a happening dinner spot in the Valley, complete with a gorgeous bar, lots of comfortable booth seating, a community room, a huge kitchen that could serve several restaurants and a cellar basement. From the outside, it’s difficult to see the character of the building. I’ve been known to say that this building isn’t anything special architecturally. But when I saw these photographs by Dan Semenchuk, I got a new appreciation for the place. Dan captures the stories and the life that…

July 26, 2010

Feasting on Phoenix: Creating Community over Food and Place

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet There’s something special about sitting down over a meal and how it brings people together and forms a special bond between them. This is what happens at the Places, Spaces and Faces Community Dinner (PSF) every month. This event started about 6 months ago by some dedicated Phoenix residents who were craving community, Yuri Artibise, Kathleen Bartolomei, Jim McPherson, Marshall Shore and myself. The first one happened in February at the historic mid-century modern building of 407 W. Osborn in midtown Phoenix. Every month since, it’s evolved and grown, attracting many of the same people back and at the…

July 21, 2010

Kevin Kellogg on Preservation and What Phoenix Could Learn from Boston and San Francisco

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Yesterday, I posted part I of my conversation with Phoenix’s Urban Laureate for 2010, Kevin Kellogg. Make sure to check it out if you missed it. Today, let’s continue with part II: Kevin on why historic preservation is important: Obviously I think we should be preserving our historic buildings. It’s a travesty what’s happened so far. It just never ends. Something’s older than 10 years old and we just tear it down. It really makes it hard to be unique. We just don’t have the mentality, it’s a throw-away society. If we’re going to save buildings it’s because we…