The City of Phoenix announced a couple weeks ago that it will now take all numbers of plastic in recycling, except #6, which is styrofoam.

This, despite hand wringing from certain quarters that cities can’t afford to recycle because there is less demand for recycled products.

Kudos to the City of Phoenix for moving forward on this.  I look forward the day when the city or somebody finds a way to pick up compostable stuff from your house and deliver nutrient-rich composted mulch for your house, if you want it.

It boggles my mind the volume of nutrients we just bury in the ground, where they do no good for anybody, while we struggle to use chemicals to feed the plants and grass in our yards. We can do much better.

Dare I cite San Fransisco’s effort to reduce its waste stream by 90% over the next few years? That bastion of nutty reasoned thinking and common sense (sometimes).

Here are three articles that, together, point to the trend downtown.

1) Downtown is the Real Deal. OK. This is an opinion piece, but it really speaks to the fact that there is a general perception of progress, despite the economic downturn. Oh, and they mention the Urban Grocery and Wine bar of which I am a fan!

2) New Nursing College Building Opens in Downtown Phoenix. A new 84,000 square foot building in downtown, serving thousands of students means that ASU is progressing on plans that they set in motion before the economic crash.

3) More Students are Flooding in to Downtown. Slightly more than 7,000 students took at least one class downtown this fall, up from 4,963 in fall 2008.

So, if you are thinking about investing in real estate for a business or a home, CenPho, in my opinion is the safest place to be in Arizona. It is beyond safe with prices this low. It is a smart move.

But, beyond the real estate side of things. Feel free to invest in the human capitol, as well. We aren’t going anywhere!

My friend Tazmine Loomans has a great website that I look at when thinking about where to eat.

She has done a great review of Sapna, on Grand. I did a review a few months ago, but this one goes in to much greater detail.

It is worth a look. Sapna is also worth trying out, especially now that it is cool outside and they don’t have a problem cooling the place.

I graduated high school in June, 1989 from a small NATO high school in Holland.

The 400 some-odd students in that school were present at the epicenter of a changing world. Ronald Reagan had recently put MX missiles in western Europe to counter the Soviet SS-20s, to great protest by many and the glee of others.

Mikhail Gorbachev (you know, the guy who actually ended the cold war), had been loosening up the Soviet Empire to change since 1985.

The Irish Republican Army and the Red Army Faction were still actively setting off bombs around England and the Continent –one of which killed British military personnel about three miles from my house, literally shaking us awake in the middle of the night.

I think most of us in that school knew that we were in an incredible time and noteworthy place, but we just took it for granted.

I returned home a month later and enrolled at NAU. Like almost every other student, I did my orientation and nervously began the grind.  I lived in a dorm called Tinsley Hall and tried to learn how adapt to this vastly different lifestyle.

This time sticks in my memory, not so much because of the new school and bad cafeteria food, but because of November 9th, 1989. Just five months after I left Germany the Berlin Wall was coming down.

I remember coming back to the dorm, to my room mate from small town Arizona telling me that he “thought there was something happening in Germany on the news that looked important, and you should see.” He was not quite sure what it was.

So, there on my little TV was everything: people dancing on the wall that I had seen only a couple years before. They took sledge hammers to this here-to-fore insurmountable monolith. They poured champagne on each other in elation.

I remember running up and down the halls of the dorm, sticking my head in every door and yelling “The Berlin Wall is coming down! Turn on the news.”

Unfortunately nobody did. They did not get it.

It took me a while to get over the fact that this was not of incredible importance to most students. I couldn’t see how they wouldn’t find this of central importance. At the same time it was an incredible historic event that I wanted desperately to go and see first hand. It was a lesson in perspective.  People find important that which is most immediate.

It also drove home for me just how lucky I was to have been where I was the four years previous and that I should never take that kind of opportunity for granted again.

I’m sitting here typing and looking at this piece of the Berlin wall in a frame in my office. In the frame, mounted under the little asbestos-filled piece of oppression, is a picture of my brother and I as teenagers, jokingly pretending to climb the wall, circa 1987.

No much to say, but Happy 20th Anniversary of the fall of the wall.

A new central utility plant for Phoenix Children’s Hospital uses new technology and other innovations that will save 5.6 million gallons of water per year for the water-scarce Phoenix area (enough for 120 households) and will guarantee $570,000 in energy savings per year over 15 years, versus a traditional design.

They are using a chiller, which is the most efficient way to cool using existing technology. Basically, you make ice all night long and then blow air over it during the day for A/C. They basically do the opposite in the winter to make hot air and hot water.

Chase Field and surrounding buildings all share one massive chiller to heat and cool, as does the entire campus of UofA. I think ASU does, but my memory is failing there.

The only way they could use less energy to generate hot and cold water is to use solar hot water to help off-set the natural gas used to run the compressors. But, that technology is still being rolled out. Not in time for the new hospital tower.

Still, its pretty cool. I hope all new buildings take this same tactic.

Learn more at the developer’s website.

Check out this news, below, tracking the enrollment downtown.

After only four years, ASU downtown is up to 11,503 students. They are expecting upwards of 20,000 by 2012.

I am thrilled. Downtown students tend to be serious students and graduate students. These folks, along with faculty and staff, are going to make up the neighborhoods around downtown.

For those of us in Garfield, I think this is great. I think it means that we are going to have a vibrant community of people who are engaged as home owners or land lords. I think it will result if homes being renovated and people being active in the neighborhood.

It is a great time to invest in Garfield as the next campus community.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on it all.

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You might have seen my previous post on this topic of the potential of the $8,000 tax credit.

The National Association of Realtors wants Congress to extend and expand the $8,000 tax credit. Now it will not only be for first time home buyers, but everybody.

As an agent, I would continue to do everything I can to get my clients this credit if it remains in effect.

However, I believe that the cost to the country (over $200 billion) is not necessary. Further, I believe that this could encourage more unrealistic upward pressure on home prices –something that got us in to this mess.

I think the expectation is that the housing market will drive the economy. That is questionable when the commercial real estate market is tanking.  I believe that there will be an imbalance as people obligate themselves to new homes while unemployment might continue to rise and the commercial real estate market might result in more lay-offs.

The result could be many more people buying houses that they cannot afford.

This recovery needs to be driven, not by real estate, but by investment in infrastructure, energy and technology.

For your information, here is the National Association of Realtors Call to Action. I have called and told the Senators and Rep. Mitchell that I do not want to see the extension.

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Dear Arizona REALTOR:

The U.S. Senate will be voting on an amendment this week that would extend the first-time homebuyer tax credit.

NAR is supporting the Dodd-Lieberman-Isakson amendment because this amendment will:

–Provide the $8,000 tax credit to any buyer (not just first time)
–Set income limits at $150,000/$300,000 for single/married buyers
–Make the credit available until June 30, 2010

NAR’s Legislative talking points on the Dodd-Lieberman-Isakson Amendment $8,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit also are attached for your use.

NAR is asking for your help in generating phone calls from Arizona REALTORS to the offices of Senator McCain and Senator Kyl in Washington, DC.

Please request to speak to each Senator’s Tax Legislative Assistant and ask them to support the Dodd-Lieberman-Isakson amendment. We need to generate as many calls as quickly as possible.  Below are the phone numbers for our Senators.

Senator McCain:   202-224-2235
Senator Kyl:       202-224-4521

Thank you for your prompt response on this important issue!

My friend and architect Tazmine Loomans has a blog where she highlights restaurants that feature sustainable food choices.

Locally-grown, organic even proximity to public transport.

She has a whole new list of restaurants and coffee bars. Some are in Phoenix and some are not. Regardless, it is a pretty good guide and a good place to check in for ideas.

Which makes me think, perhaps we need a U.S. Green Building Council certification for restaurants.

That is a totally geeky idea and very “insider” if you don’t know that the USGBC certifies new and existing buildings as “green” if they do a number of things, including installing better insulation, solar panels and features that support people who use mass transit. They even give credits for reusing waste created when you build the building or tear down an existing structure.

How would your favorite restaurant fare if measured up against a U.S. Green Eating Council?

You may know that the US Green Building Council will be here in town in November for a huge conference featuring Cheryl Crow, Al Gore, Smokey Robinson and, oh yeah…building sustainably.

You may also know that it is more expensive to build green. So, how can we build inexpensive sustainable structures for low-income home buyers? How can we renovate existing structures so we use less energy there?

The local USGBC will be hosting an event on just that topic. See the announcement, below. I plan to be there.

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USGBC

Affordable Housing Summit

Phoenix, AZ

November 10-11, 2009

Join us on Tuesday, November 10, for a full day of panel discussions with national experts on green affordable housing, focusing on the rehabilitation of existing homes and transit oriented development, as well as small group charrettes on real projects around the country.  The second day of the Summit will include a guided tour of innovative projects in and around Phoenix, AZ.

This is a free pre-conference event organized In conjunction with the

2009 Greenbuild International Conference and Expo.

Contact Tom Flanagan at tflanagan@usgbc.org to receive an invitation.

The Arizona Republic ran an editorial (I think) on October 11th with a list of problems in policy-making and possible solutions.

They suggest that the best way to reduce extremism in AZ politics is to (1) get rid of Clean Elections and (2) make competitive districts.

It is nice to see that my three-year long mantra is starting to stick with some folks. However, the idea that eliminating Clean Elections will do anything to improve politics in AZ is ignorant of our own history.

Clearly nobody at the editorial board (or among our legislators who talk about “reforming” Clean Elections while they try to gut it) remember what it was like before Clean Elections.

The only people who could run a campaign were those who could get gobs of money from the Arizona and Phoenix Chambers of Commerce, lobbyist or the home builders. This meant that candidates were, in many ways, hand-picked before they even got started.

That is why the chambers and the home builders would like to see us go back to the old, broken ways.

There are problems with Clean Elections, but not enough to justify tearing it all down!

If you have competitive districts –i.e. within 6% registration, Dem/Rep, it will be more difficult for the extremes of both party to get candidates in to office, regardless of whether they run clean or not.

So, why tear down a system that allows more people to get involved?

Like Columbo, we need to just keep coming back to the suspects behind this effort to ask the same questions over and over. Motive? Opportunity? Means?