Photos by Evie Carpenter and Alexis Macklin
There needs to be a balance between embracing density in downtown Phoenix and preserving the integrity of the arts community, panelists said Tuesday at the semester’s second installment of Downtown Devil Discussions.
The topic of the discussion, titled ‘Who Gets to Stay?’, was arts and gentrification in Phoenix. Connor Descheemaker, director of community initiatives for the Downtown Devil, moderated the discussion.
Descheemaker opened by explaining the process of gentrification. Artists come into an area and improve upon neighborhoods, which raises property values. Eventually, artists are priced out of their communities. It is difficult for artists to maintain their voice in communities while those communities are expanding and developing.
Eric Brown, former owner of Artisan Homes, said residents want to be proud of their downtown.
“You want something that’s local. You want something that is yours that you possess,” Brown said.
One way to achieve this is through property ownership, Alwun House founder Kim Moody said. Very few artists have the money to purchase a gallery or studio, rather than rent it. Still, prices are much cheaper in Arizona than they are in other comparable large cities, Moody said.
“I can assure you that the spaces that we have out here are something that people look and say, ‘How did you get all this yard?’” Moody said. “Well that just came with the space. It was built that way in 1912. That’s one of the benefits of looking into the historic areas that Phoenix is surrounded by.”
Phoenix has many opportunities for redeveloping older buildings and filling empty lots, Brown said. Taking advantage of what makes Phoenix unique can help the community embrace and maintain a specific identity.
“I think even if you have ownership mixed with use of empty lots that haven’t been built on, and suddenly they’re built for student housing, that’s a very positive thing,” Sloane McFarland, principal of Martha + Mary, said. “There’s an element of downtown where we just, on a really deep level, need more people, need more density.”
Kimber Lanning is the founder and director of Local First Arizona, founder of Modified Arts, and founder and owner of Stinkweeds Record Store. She attributes her success in downtown Phoenix to cooperation between neighbors.
“That inclusive environment and collaborative spirit has led to the success of the district,” Lanning said. “Again, it’s that linking arms, and that’s a big piece of what makes the ideal environment.”
The panelists also discussed ASU’s role in both supporting the growth of the arts community and pushing current residents out.
“I think ASU is probably the number one thing that got us through that recession,” Brown said. “I mean, if it wasn’t for the students going to the shops and the stores, we probably would have seen a terrible time.”
ASU hasn’t been downtown long enough for accurate statistics on community retention rates to be measured, but Moody said a significant amount of students seem to take up residence in the Garfield Neighborhood, either after moving out of the dorms or after graduating.
“It’s nice having the vitality, the intelligence, the problem-solving,” Moody said. “Vitality is good. What would be bad is if we started losing ground to having dorms built in our neighborhood.”
Lanning said downtown has great cultural diversity, but it’s difficult to preserve that uniqueness when working with city government.
“As long as the system is set up that we have districts that are geographically bound rather than having more at-large representation, you’re not going have an entire council that cares about downtown,” Lanning said.
Brown said people don’t associate downtown with the name of Phoenix. When they hear Phoenix, they think of the desert and cities like Scottsdale, which have very different identities from downtown Phoenix.
“Historically, downtown areas have been the heart and soul of communities,” McFarland said. “Ours is in need of rebuilding, repopulating. It’s a very young downtown still. It’s about cycles of development and growth.”
Contact the reporter at kimberly.koerth@asu.edu
