Phoenix: The Good, the Bad, and the Mildly Dystopian

Insane streets with wild traffic configurations, robot taxis that play trance music, scorpion exterminator billboards everywhere — what more do you want? Phoenix, Arizona has it all...including some pleasant surprises too!

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Patreon — a way to directly support my ability to talk about what i want to talk about every week. Much appreciation to all of you who are already patrons!

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The Urban Phoenix Project does great work organizing folks to advocate for a more livable, less car-dependent Phoenix. Get involved here!

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Previous CityNerd videos referenced:

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Resources:
- Bukhamsin, Mohamed. "Applied Project Thesis Report — CEE 593: Reversed Lane Study — 7th Avenue and 7th Street Evaluation, Analyses, and Alternatives." 2024, Arizona State University

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Images
- All courtesy yours truly (and Google Earth of course)!

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Instagram: @nerd4cities
BlueSky: @nerd4cities
Threads: @nerd4cities
Twitter: @nerd4cities

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Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (YouTube music library)

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[bobi]

Fuck, I missed my sidewalk exit, now I have to stay on the express sidewalk for another 2km.

[lavenderw]

hey! im the "industrious tennis player" featured in the video. i just wanna highlight that people do in fact walk and bike and take transit in phoenix, and that we deserve better! there have been steps in the right direction (for instance the bus i was catching in the video now runs every 15 minutes on weekdays, along with a handful of other transit service improvements in central phx) and i personally see hope for the future of our city but, as this video highlighted, there is sure a lot more to be done. thank you for highlighting my city, citynerd :)

[ChangingHandsBookstore]

Wow, a shout from CityNerd! Thanks for the kind words, and for visiting the bookstore and our First Draft Book Bar. Really appreciate it.

[glanmore]

The best part about Phoenix in the summertime is coming out of a frozen movie theater at midnight and luxuriating in beautiful 98 degree comfort. At least until you warm up but by then you are in your car.

[darbywalker]

As someone born and raised in Phoenix, "mildly dystopian" is the most accurate description I've heard

[julianallen]

That energy comparison between a Minneapolis winter and a Phoenix summer would be interesting. I'd like to see that one.

[simonkutenga]

“Not to be confused with the grand canal in Venice”

[pistachiopals]

Ok now take all of the robot taxis, connect them together, put them on a grid and a schedule... Oh wait we just recreated a streetcar.

[SkippingHellPHX]

Born and raised Phoenician here. 4:30 Fun fact about the canals in Phoenix, they are actually the oldest "structures" in the city. Originally dug by the Hohokam, they are over 1000 years old and still in use.

[liamtahaney]

Culdesac has got to be the most ironic name for a car free development in the entire universe

[JeffBilkins]

That sidewalk of a stroad in Phoenix heat is the hell bad urbanists get sent to walk forever.

[Squrtie]

As someone who grew up in Phoenix, I can confirm that everything you talked about here is generally accurate. I can't wait for that bus riding tennis player to show up in the comments of this video.
I also love that Kari Lake is a more disturbing advertisement than a giant scorpion billboard.

[dennischiapello]

I'm a first time viewer, and as a resident of central Phoenix for 40 years, I find your observations to be spot-on. The City really has made an effort to make this area more pedestrian-friendly, though the basic layout makes it extremely difficult. I can't tell you how absolutely deserted downtown Phoenix was less than 20 years ago. (The building of the stadiums and their garages were NOT helpful, as they merely brought hoards of people into the area when a game was being played; afterwards, they'd walk back to the garages and drive away. The restaurants that opened up in anticipation of a reliable stream of customers were forced to close within a very short time.) The turning point was when Arizona State University finally built a campus there. The changes happened slowly, but they've been accelerating the past 10 years or so. The stroads can't be made to disappear, but I'm glad to learn there's a movement afoot to get rid of the suicide lanes. I did not know that!

[extrasalt]

Phoenix had a reputation for being affordable and now it's priced like the whole city is walkable and a coastline appeared overnight.

$1500/mo for a studio apartment surrounded by stroads is ridiculous.

[thepersho]

As somebody who lives in the Melrose neighborhood and went to school for urban planning. You nailed the Phoenix experience. There have been ALOT of improvements in my 17 years here and the central/7s midtown to downtown urban environment has improved majorly in that time. Still a lot of work obviously but he slight improvements have big effects.

[bamsler]

Water usage actually peaked in the 1980s in Phoenix and has been on a steady decline since then as agricultural land was redeveloped into housing.

[benwhite]

I was born in Phoenix, never really lived in Phoenix, but predict one day I'll die in Phoenix (bare knuckle boxing a robot taxi in motion)

[Sevenfold]

Sign at 0:04 is the most confusing jumble of information on a sign I have ever seen. Too many commands on a sign. Too many different time alternatives. Im not even sure what the X means? No turning or no driving in that lane or down that road? Nobody really has time to stop and read the sign when they are deciding if they are going to make a left hand turn in the middle of a stroad. Its not safe. Remove turning altogether.

[jjazman]

It is nice to see a fairly balanced view of Phoenix. It gets a lot of hate by people who haven’t been here much and I have been watching it improve dramatically for the past 15 years. Still a long way to go but really nice that they are trying.

[davypaul]

Really cool seeing a lot of my favorite places show up on this. Also as far as "Don't leave your house until 8pm" it's actually a lot closer to "Don't leave your house until September". For some reason the nightlife in Phoenix is kind of lackluster and few places are open past midnight. Plus due to the daylight saving abstinence the sun even sets earlier in the summer but there's still just not a lot of people around this time of year.