Talk:Phoenix, Arizona/Archive 1

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Contents

Comparison to Kansas City

In the history part, someone put that pheonix was "EVEN" smaller than Kansas City, MO in 1950. This is offensive to someone living there, saying that Kansas City is not a big or important city, when it is one of the largest in the united states, and one of it's most important. I removed "even" from the paragraph for that very reason.

City Seal Needed

If someone has an image of the official city seal, that is needed for the InfoBox. Dr. Cash 22:19, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

5th largest city

Both this page and the Philadelpia page claim their respective cities to be the 5th largest city. The Philadelphia page says:

  • A July 1, 2002 census estimate showed the population dropping modestly to 1,492,231, with Phoenix, Arizona surpassing the city proper as the 5th largest city in the United States. However, later estimates showed that Philadelphia's population loss and Phoenix's population growth had both slowed, leaving the rankings unchanged for the present.

In light of this information, I think the Phoenix page should be changed, but I'm not sure what others think... Ratiocinate 18:24, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

The Information Please Almanac shows Philly still ahead by about 50,000 as of July 1, 2004 (US Census estimate), with Phoenix having gained 100,000 since April, 2000. Since Philly lost 47,000 during the same four year period, Phoenix should be ahead within the next year or so. --Blainster 06:14, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

I think the probelem we're facing is that based on the population and growth estimates from the census, Phoenix has probably surpassed Philly in population as of this moment (November 2005). But unfortunately, there won't be official 2005 estimates for a while. So do we A: report the most recent (but perhaps obsolete) data, or B: report speculative data? I would vote for reporting only information for which we have proof, but perhaps we could note that the rankings are likely to change (or perhaps that Phoenix is "tied for 5th" with Philly. Nick 02:05, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Until the official census figures come out for 2005, we can't really say anything. Statements like, "Phoenix has probably surpassed Philly in population," are speculative and should not be mentioned in an encyclopedia. Plus, if individual users come up with their own estimates, that would violate wikipedia's policy on original research. Dr. Cash 20:29, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

The City of Phoenix already cites Phoenix as being the 5th largest city. Click here. This seems to be a reliable enough source to make the change, since it is a government website.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimates. Philadelphia still outedged Phoenix by a slim margin and until the 2006 figures care released next year, we shouldn't change it. The ranking and population wasn't challenged by the Census Bureau (see: http://www.census.gov/popest/archives/2000s/2005/05s_challenges.html) Just relying on just on information from one city's website is inconsistent and "one-sided". --Moreau36 19:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
The US Census estimate as of July, 2005 for Phoenix was 1,461,575. For Philly the estimate was 1,463,281, so we are officially behind by 1706 persons. But unofficially, I think everyone would agree that we are now #5. (If people are moving in at a rate of 80-100k per year to the valley each year but they haven't been counted yet, did the tree fall in the forest?) We can be patient until the numbers are verified. --Blainster 01:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Population Migration?

I think that the high cost of housing in neighboring California could force a population migration into Arizona. Currently, Phoenix offers some of the most inexpensive housing in the nation and is growing culturally. It certainly has much to offer a person that would like to own their own home. -- Anon User: 67.118.191.149 June 19 2004

Anon User made a good prediction. The migration is in high gear from CA (and Mex). As of July 1, 2005, housing prices in metro Phoenix had risen a whopping 43% in one year. Population inflow to the metro area is 100,000 per year and the builders can't keep up. --Blainster 09:10, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Anyone Heard of Troublechild?

An entry for Troublechild as a famous Phoenician was added today. I've never heard of this entity and I don't find anything on Google. Rather than revert, I thought I'd ask, just in case. Catbar (Brian Rock) 01:42, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Troublechild was clearly a vandal entry, as a google search pointed out. I removed it. Combuchan 23:19, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I realize that you people last talked about Troublechild over a year ago, and that you have moved on and probably don't care, but I think it necessary to point out that I did a Google search of "Troublechild in Phoenix", and on more than one result page, I am given information that Troublechild is a rapper from Phoenix. So it was not a vandal entry after all. I found Trouble child here: http://listofnotableresidentsofphoenix.quickseek.com/, as the last name under "Entertainment". Walkinglikeahuricane 11:15, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Phoenix third largest city in 2020?

I'd really like to see a cite for this assertion:

>>>projected to become the third largest U.S. city by 2020.

I find it very difficult to believe that a city with only 1.321 million people will surpass the population of Chicago (2.896 million people in 2000) in the space of only 20 years. That would mean 1.575 million people would need to move to Phoenix in the space of 20 years - more than doubling the population of the city (that is, if Chicago's population remained stagnant. While Chicago isn't known for its recent population spurts, it's unlikely- with the current popularity of urban renewal and living- to lose enough people to make this Phoenix assertion any more likely). Considering that Phoenix is hemmed in by suburbs, limiting its potential for growth, and that such a level of population growth is pretty much unheard of even for the Sunbelt, I'd really like to see a cite on this alleged fact. If the fact is supposedly for the metro area, that would mean that Phoenix would somehow need to become more populous than the San Francisco Bay Area by 2020 - extraordinarily unlikely.

I've seen so many wacky "facts" lately - I almost wish Wikipedia required footnotes. User: Moncrief

To quote a USA today article outlining the fastest growing counties in 2004 from the US Census Bureau...
"(The county with the highest numerical increase was Maricopa County, Ariz., which added 112,000 residents.)" - http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-04-14-county-growth_x.htm?csp=34
Multiply that by the remaining 16 years... and you have a 1,792,000 population increase. Give some of that to some of the outlying Maricopa County cities, and you are becoming awfully close...
I migrated from CA to AZ, and a good portion of neighbors are from CA as well. It's definitely not scientific, but I think the the CA to AZ cheaper housing migration is accurate. --my 2 cents.
True, Phoenix may not grow that much, but the metro area is and will continue to. Mesa, AZ on the east side of Phoenix grew from 150,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 2000— an example of "more than doubling" in 20 years that is "pretty much standard" in this corner of the Sunbelt. Same goes for Las Vegas. Just the eastern side of the Phoenix metro area is currently projected to grow by one million in the next 20 years, and Mesa will grow to 650,000 (barring Armegeddon or bin Laden). Every year for the last 20 years, 100k have moved to the metro area, and there will no stopping them for the next 20. So while the city of Phoenix itself may not generate the growth mentioned, the whole valley certainly will— there is nothing but desert "hemming it in". Yep, they have the water, too. --Blainster 10:33, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Although Phoenix is now the 5th larest city, its highly unlikely it will pass Houston. Houston has been quoted "The Fastest Growing City in America" and it is predicted that it will pass Chicago and claim the number 3 spot in the Top 10 Largest Cities in America in 2010 Census. It has now a little over 2 million people, and at this rate, Phoen will not be able to pass in at least...never. I don't think Chicago will have its arms crossed either on this one.

I live in Phoenix, but am currently in Houston on a business trip. Houston is hot, and humid. Blech! There is nothing worse than humidity, something Phoenix is famous for not having. Whatever the case, expect Phoenix to easily take out Houston in the list.

Houston being the fastest growing city is an old designation. APlease see the Wikipedia page for Houston, and the comments there.

Most of this info about population is largely speculation (e.g. saying that Phoenix will move past Chicago by 2020, or other statements), and as such, really don't belong in an encyclopedia. The only thing we should really be offering are the actual details of the population size and makeup; where the city currently stands in relation to other cities. It is perhaps among the fastest growing cities in the US, but it is not "the fastest", which I believe there's a lot of speculation there, too (Las Vegas, Houston?). Dr. Cash 22:06, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Phoenix was declared the second fastest growing city in the US, just behind Las Vegas, and they will stop growing very soon.

Phoenix, although growing at a modestly fast pace, will unlikely outedged Houston anytime soon due to the fact that Houston is also growing at a fast pace with a current population of over 2 million inhabitants. Weather plays a little factor in population growth. Let's take an example above about population and humidity. If that statement is true, Florida wouldn't be the 4th largest state (with a population of almost 18 million and growing) and Miami wouldn't be the 5th most poplus metro area in the country. Weather aside, the reason why more people are moving to Florida and the southeast is due to a relatively low cost-of-living. It's interesting that you have a few east coast cities bouncing back slowly in population. Anyway, Phoenix will be 5th for the next two to three censuses, in my opinion. Nwe York, Los Angeles, and Chicago will likely not be touched (barring any great disaster). --Moreau36 19:38, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Other names

Although I respect the position of Navajo and Western Apache, I just added the O'odham name and put it right after the name.

This is for a number of reasons.

1) The city is still known to the tens of thousands of native O'odham speakers as Skikik. Many of these speakers live in or near the city. 2) The name has a strong historical significance, due to the prevalent idea that Phoenix was once a Hohokam settlement. While it is unknown whether or not the O'odham are descended from or otherwise related to the Hohokam, the O'odham themselves claim that they are the descendants of the Hohokam (o'odham "Huhu:gam"), a claim not echoed by any other group. 3) Whether or not the Hohokam are the ancestors of the O'Odham people, the O'Odham people (specifically the Tohono O'odham [ex papago]) have a history of settlements in Phoenix and the surrounding area (much of the surrounding area is inhabited by Pimas, who are a subdivision of the O'Odham) since it was first visited by Mexicans. 4) "Skikik" is the only O'Odham placename without an obvious origin or meaning. All other O'Odham names have meaning, or are loans from other languages. For example: "s-vasai vesoni" refers to Scottsdale, it means "soggy grass/hay"; "cuk son" refers to Tucson, it means "black base", "mo:mli" refers to Mesa, it means "mormons" (a loanword from English), "nowa:l" refers to Nogales, it is a loan from the Spanish name, etc, while "Skikik" has no other meaning than "Phoenix", and is not a loan (like the name for Nogales or for Sonora). 5) Given 4), it emphasises the strong ties of the O'odham people to Phoenix, stronger than even to Tucson or Baboquivari (O'odham Vav Kivalik, meaning "navel of the world").

Node 07:10, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Major Reorganization

I just completed somewhat of a major reorganization of this article. First, the infobox at the top has been redesigned somewhat. The old infobox just didn't look right, with the skyline picture at the top, separated by the infobox below. I have now joined these two and included the pic with the infobox, which looks a bit neater. Furthermore, on some browsers, the picture was so separated from the infobox that the text of the first paragraph came between the two, which just looked bad.

The different parts of the article have been organized in a slightly different fashion, following guidelines from other articles; mainly the Featured Articles of Louisville, Kentucky, Seattle, Washington, and San Jose, California. The sections are now:

  • History - didn't touch this section at all, really.
    • Prehistory
    • Origin of the city
    • Prosperity and modernity
  • Geography
    • Climate - merged from separate section.
  • Economy - written as prose, moved lists to separate page.
  • People and culture
    • Demographics
    • Media - removed lists of radio/tv and wrote as prose.
    • Sports - removed lists of teams and wrote as prose.
    • Museums and other points of interest - needs to be written as prose and not as a list. Probably needs some good photos here, too.
    • Parks and outdoor attractions - Not there yet. But a section describing city parks and things like camelback mountain, with photos, would be desirable.
    • Annual cultural events and fairs - Also not there yet. This should be a section with details on some of the annual events in the area. With a picture or two.
  • Infrastructure
    • Government
    • Education - added college information. more information is needed on the K-12 schools, though obtaining this could be difficult, as there are 32 school districts in the area.
    • Transportation - rewrote this section.
  • Sister Cities - added list of sister cities.
  • See also - Basically, this section is for linking to articles elsewhere on wikipedia that have info pertaining to phoenix. We should have a list of past mayors here.
  • External links - Don't want this to become a so-called, "link farm." The only things that really should be here are links to the official government page, chamber of commerce, convention & visitors bureau pages, and links to maps of the city. Lots of people have the tendency to add links to their own personal websites here to drive traffic to their site, which is wrong.

Dr. Cash 22:18, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Is this needed?

"The area's adult contemporary station KESZ (FM) 99.9 has been known to play Christmas music during the holidays, as has classical station KBAQ (FM) 89.5." ? WTF? is this necessary? sorry,no offense intended,this just seems silly.

I agree that temporary progam information is superfluous here. Especially since many stations do this. --Blainster 20:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


Ad removal

I removed two external links under the Places of Intrest list for Child's Play, and Valley Youth Theater I don't think youth theaters are that important but if anyone dissagrees they can add it back in as an internal wiki. Deathawk 21:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Public Service Announcement

This guy obviously got fired from a job in Phoenix for drinking on the job. A Hazard? Please tell me no one takes this seriously.

While this is mainly just my opinion, and so I can understand that it does not seem to belong on the main page, as someone that lives in Phoenix as a result of a court allowed move away of my kids, I think that we really should place some sort of HAZARD warning on the main page of the Phoenix entry. Phoenix is just about the worst city to live in. Boring. Few arts. Rotten schools. Non-diverse population. Chain restaurants. Chain stores. No interesting local stores or restaurants. VERY MONEY DRIVEN. WAY TOO HOT. (It is a dry heave). Very few jobs in interesting fields. Terrible place for most engineers in that there are few jobs and they are far, very far away.

If you are wealthy and can afford the A/C and can afford a Hummer and can afford to eat at the top top restaurants and can afford to fly away for you winter and summer and spring vacation, then Phoenix is the town for you.

Life here is possible only because of the nation's largest nuclear power plant located 30 miles outside of town.

Not quite: its more like 40 miles away and nearly 30% of its power goes to California. --Blainster 17:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Hurricane Katrina revealed that Phoenix has very limited options for evacuation. The main freeways will not be able to handle the traffic.

Rates only behind Australia for skin cancer.

I am not a troll or a spammer -- I am sincere in my beliefs -- I didn't post this on the main page, but I do think a PSA warning is required for this "town" -- User:71.39.78.68 24 December, 2005

That's Just Silly
Phoenix is a great city. I don't think we should be judging cities by their climate. Worrying about Palo Verde blowing up or whatever is silly as well; has it ever happened before? What, are we worried that it'll be the subject of a terrorist attack? Terrorists aren't stupid. Just because it's big doesn't mean they'll chose it over nuclear plants in more "famous" cities. The statement that life there is only possible because of it is, again, silly. And "money-driven"? Last time I checked, the whole world is money-driven. And if you think the population isn't diverse, and the whole place is filled with chain businesses, you're wrong. Phoenix is a wonderfully cultural city. Yes, the schools suck. But large strides are, indeed, being made. I know everybody gets upset about how hot it is there, but you know what I think? Darwin at work. If one can't take the heat, one can get out of the gene pool. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather live than Phoenix.-- 68.230.68.120 03:47, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Too hot? yes.

Money driven? Not nearly as much as, say, New York City (or any large city).

Nothing cultural? I've taken field trips that drove 5 hours (one way) just to see some of the culture in Phoenix. The Heard Museum and the Science Museum are both fabulous for kids.

Boring? Besides the above, you have major and minor league sports teams (I highly recommend you check out a minor-league baseball game- it's much more fun than major league and tickets are dirt cheap. The kids'll love it, even if they don't like sports, which I don't). They even have a *hockey* team.

Non-diverse population? Only if your only definition of "diverse" is "large black population" (which there doesn't seem to be). Because it's one of the fastest growing cities in the country, it has people from all sorts of backgrounds, plus a very large hispanic and significant Native American population.

No Jobs? A thirty second google showed 30 new *engineering* jobs posted on a single job site just today. In addition, Honeywell's main HQ is there, Boeing has a plant, GE, Motorola, and more.

As for limited options for evacuation- well, I don't think there is a single major american city that wouldn't fall victim to this criticism. Heck- you can't drive in or out of NYC even when there isn't a natural disaster.

And why the heck would you want to fly away for your winter vacation when everybody else is flying *into* PHX for that time of year.

Will I ever live in Phoenix? Probably not (as I already admitted, it's too hot)- but it's not nearly as bad as this person wants to think. --User:128.187.0.164 9 March, 2006

Cleanup

I added the cleanup tag to bring attention to some sections of the article that need copy-editing, organization and wikification. Great article!!! Adhall 08:04, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Would you mind elaborating on which sections need attention? Dr. Cash 05:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I removed the cleanup tag -- I apologize for the misclasification Adhall 13:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


Pics & Other stuff

There are a lot of nice pics on this page, but some of them were unnecessary. There were four pics of downtown, and we simply don't need that many. Also, sunrise and sunsets are nice, but also not necessary. The upside down cactus pic is cool, but it might be next on the chopping block.

Also, portions of this article have a travel guide feel to it, and that is not appropriate (see What wikipedia is not). The neighborhood sections need some updating and facutal info, or they might just have to go. This article is much longer than it should be (articles should be <32K), so we should be trimming the fat at this point. -Nicktalk 03:51, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Phil Gordon

The Phil Gordon link in the box is broken, as it links to the wrong Phil Gordon.Simon12 13:30, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

thanks for catching that. I've made it into a red link. -Will Beback 21:58, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Golden Bullet?

I've never heard of such a thing (see page history for the paragraph I deleted), and even if it did exist, I highly doubt it will go 370mph. -Nicktalk 01:24, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


Radio Stations

There has been a change on one of the radio stations in the AM, KPHX 1480 is no longer All Comedy Radio is some other type Skindrafter