Phoenix Urban Design Week - Day 3

I had the great opportunity to attend a debate focused on sustainability in Phoenix between Andrew Ross, author of Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World's Least Sustainable Phoenix, and Grady Gammage Jr., Senior Research Fellow at the Morrsion Institute for Public Policy. Topics included water, the economy, policy and social sustainability. When speaking of revitalization, regarding urban design and economy, Grady Gammage had a top-down approach to the argument in saying that experts should go into places -- neighborhoods, communities, etc -- and fix the problem. Andre Ross argues that an alternative model should be executed where people from within the community are given resources which allow the capacity to create leaders and promoters; communities need to change organically. This debate was really insightful to what experts and residents alike think and have to say about the growth of Phoenix.