I just had my first ever television interview on the local PBS station’s news magazine, Arizona Illustrated. I was really nervous because although I love to talk about art, I tend to clam up when put on the spot, particularly when questioned by “authority” (art institutional types, administrators, posh curators or artists, academics, media), so I rehearsed some thoughts as I walked my dog yesterday. With exercise, the repetition of movement jogged my thought process as well. I think I finally started making some mental progress comparing/contrasting Austin and Tucson, after over a year of living here in Arizona.

When I mention I’m from Austin to people in Tucson, their eyes bug out and glisten with anticipation, as though I were some prophet who’d seen the Promised Land and returned to deliver a sacred message. THERE IS NO SACRED MESSAGE. I repeat: THERE IS NO SACRED MESSAGE.

Quoting from a particular document from the mid-90’s about a day in the life of a person living in/near downtown Tucson, as projected in 2010:

“It’s 7:00 a.m., January 12, 2010. The sun is beginning to rise overhead; and as you step outside, you feel the comfortable, cool breeze of a Tucson winter. You walk the one block from your home to catch the shuttle, which arrives just a few minutes later at the City’s intermodal transportation center, the old Amtrak Station. Strolling across the plaza, you glance at the kiosk and see that there’s a new show opening at the Temple of Music and Art. You’ve already made plans for dinner at Cafe Magritte, if it’s not too busy, and then you are going to catch a live jazz show down the street. Maybe Tuesday you’ll see the new show at the Temple. As you weave your way through the outdoor dining area at Hotel Congress, you step up to the take-out window and wonder if you’ll get everything done today. Another busy Saturday. Normally, you’d sit outside at a table for breakfast, but today you grab coffee and a muffin to go, and begin your walk down Congress, past dozens of stores teeming with local and regional goods. A new gallery catches your eye and then the bookstore next door which has recently doubled its size. Didn’t it just open a year ago? You walk past the main library, stopping to grab two loaves of French bread from a cart vendor. They have bread at the Farmer’s Market, too, but you’re not sure you’ll have time to get there today. As you walk under what used to be the old Pima County Courthouse and is now part of the Museum of Art…”

I came across this text as I was researching raw material the Field Guide to Downtown Tucson Master Plans booklet and Pop Up Spaces’ ±92 exhibition. In my experience with gentrification in Austin (Tucson is sooo not even close to using “gentrification” as a bummer-buzzword in polite conversation), what struck me was how much this lifestyle was crammed down the throat. But it’s not for everyone. It’s not inclusive.  Yet people see this ideal as the big success story of Austin as a 21st-century national cultural center. What outsiders don’t realize and what many Austinties take for granted is that Austin was a segregated city for generations. African-Americans and Mexican-Americans resided and maintained business communities within separate pieces/peaces of the city (East Austin, Clarksville, South First/Cumberland a.k.a. at Casa Diaz as Cumbialand, et. al.), in some areas for over 100 years. What people think of as “downtown” Austin (not central Austin at large) has been/is largely influenced architecturally, spatially, culturally by Anglos. It is homogenous. Tearing away all the highbrow festoons, it’s still leisure centered around the gut and the eye. What is this person doing? Consuming.

What I have learned as a part of coordinating ±92 is that downtown = history = identity.

Tucson’s identity, history, and landscape is much different than Austin’s: Mexicans, Native Americans, and Anglos. The desert and mountain landscape is an identity, an entity, in itself. It’s all in yo’ face. And yet it’s not (just drive to South Tucson and you’ll see chain-linked fenced, concrete lion-adorned barrios similar to my in-laws’ y tios’ y tias’ neighborhood just off the farthest reaches of Southmost Blvd. in Brownsville, TX, el Rio and that abominable wall less than a mile away [slicing through orange groves and reedy marshes buzzing with grasshopers, locusts, crickets {you cannot cut Twilight}], then traveling a few miles Highway 77, up to north Brownsville, up to the primos’ y primas’ garage-enclosed suburbs, it’s all the same here, as if you mixed the Valley and San Anto, minus the Gulf-breeze green).

The master planning exhibition I helped facilitate is not about how sad it was that buildings and roads were not built, because identity is at the heart of it all. People constantly argue over what downtown Tucson should and should not represent. The truth is, there is something there for everyone. There are services for the people that need them: homeless, Veterans, Native Americans (Indian Affairs), Mexican Nationals (Mexican Consulate). There is fine dining. There are bars for bros, bars for hos and bars for hipsters. There are coffeeshops and casual dining and sushi and sandwiches and Sonoran hot dog stands. There are theatre, film, art, music shows. There are places for children and families. There are places that celebrate the outdoors. There are houses of religion, there are suppliers for the spiritual, pagans, wiccans, curanderos. There are spots for people who drive; there are lanes for people who cycle. People can work in banks, government administration, convenience stores, food service, clothing boutiques, schools, upholstery shops, arts, social services, car repair, real estate, bicycle sales, furniture and appliance stores. There are fancy-schmansy condos, there are single-family homes, there are residences affordable for students and artists, there are barrios, there are alleys.

This day-in-the-life-of story took up 3 single-spaced pages. It reflects the identity of a 60-year-old retired U of A professor. It reflects the identity of one demographic. And really, a lot of positivity is crammed down the throat in the name of cultural understanding, political correctness, mental safety. That’s not fair either. But it seems that  people don’t like about downtown Tucson is not about the space, it is about the people using it. If you have a gripe with the cultural/business/service/food offerings and architecture downtown, you might need to dig deeper into your prejudices about history, skin color, family, age and financial status.

There is something for everyone in downtown Tucson. And it is beautiful.