Matthew Petro

Affordable urban downtown?

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The Phoenix metropolitan area doesn’t have a financial/professional center downtown like many older metropolises do. Most of the big business is spread out across the Valley, clustered around smaller epicenters (Scottsdale, Chandler, North Phoenix). Also, most of the high-dollar housing areas are in suburbs, such as Scottsdale and PV. Since a lot of the moneyed class in the Valley all live and work in suburbs, CenPho has been left as a fairly cheap place to live. Sadly, it also hasn’t been a place many have wanted to live until recently. Gentrification as begun along the light rail corridor, but CenPho definitely isn’t an expensive and exclusive place like San Francisco or Manhattan are.

The lower housing prices in downtown mean that it’s revival is starting on a fairly affordable base of lower cost of living. Rising costs are certain to follow, but they won’t approach the high levels of older, denser cities. The very wealthy will stay in their mansions in Scottsdale, PV, Fourntain hills and Carefree. This means that Phoenix will wind up with a vibrant urban core mostly populated by middle-income people who want to live in that environment…the artists, technogeeks and professional people who love the exchange of ideas and creativity fostered by great city living.

I have a lot of hope for CenPho.