John Wise

This facade is from a mid-rise downtown Phoenix, Arizona office building. I spent the morning walking around the downtown area to see if my opinion about our city center has improved, sadly, it is as boring as ever. Seedy bars or posh grills for lawyers, politicians, and business people with nothing like a cool eatery to be found. Not a bookstore, nor an art shop, no funky antiques, clothes, or doo-dads. The only coffee shop is a Starbucks with a few cramped sidewalk tables and chairs.

In front of every building, the smokers congregate, requiring non-smokers to scurry by instead of enjoying a walk below the high-rises. I strained to hear music or find a busker but this downtown area is on par to be as lonely and vacant as some random spot outside the villages of the Hopi Reservation. Our city government is spending hundreds of millions trying to bring life here, not understanding that diversity, entertainment, and life are requirements to foster such an environment. Adding insult, the price of real estate and the cost of renting are becoming so exorbitant here in Phoenix that even before a dynamic downtown can be scratched out, the people who create these types of life are priced out of being here – what a shame.

This is not Anthem; this is not a corporate-owned model community. This is the reality of blight and urban squalor. Here, all races can live. The crime in this neighborhood is high, as is the poverty. Culturally, the place is awash in color; people who are black, brown, white, yellow, and red can all come here and live on the marginalized edge of America, where the cracks are big and dangerous.

This is the white and fluffy perfect community of Anthem, Arizona. Not just any community, this is a Del Webb 5,860 acre master-(race) planned village for whites. Anthem is not advertised as a white community, nor may there be overt racism at work to keep minorities from this place, but a visit to the sub-communities called Laurel, Joshua, Willow, and Jubilation with street names of Cartier Court, Steinbeck Drive, Hemingway Drive, and the Outerbanks Drive are strangely generic and lacking color.

Anthem is devoid of Arizona’s cultural heritage as an ancient home to Native Americans and a long-time home for Hispanics. You will be hard-pressed to find minorities here. The local McDonald’s was staffed with 100% white people, as was the Safeway grocery store. The Mexicans I ran into do not live in Anthem; they work construction or gardening or even the night shift at McDonald’s, but they all live in Phoenix.

This corporatized version of the American community is an abomination unless, of course, you are looking for that perfect all-white place to settle down.

This homeless family sits on Cave Creek Road in Phoenix, Arizona, waiting for someone to stop to help them find shelter for the evening. It is 104 degrees (40 Celsius) under this late summer sun as this woman’s sign went unanswered from 9:00 in the morning through late afternoon.