For this post, I am going a bit farther into town and photographing decay that is technically right in the Valley of the Sun (that's the Phoenix, Arizona area for y'all lookin' from out of town). I now bring you downtown Buckeye, AZ as of about a month ago. Amazing how there are all the new exurban McHomes and not one person gives enough of a hoot to revitalize a little old downtown. Knowing this area, give 'em a few years and they'll knock it down for some new upscale lifestyle center or something.

The next few days promise to be busy ones, so I shall leave you with a photo of an old theatre again in Superior, Arizona. From what I have been able to learn, it was closed already by sometime in the 1970s, but I'm going to have to find more information on it.

An introduction to the landscape

Thanks to the urging of another retail and urban development fan (Mitch Glaser, author of the very interesting and informative Paradox Unbound), I am finally getting up some photos of recent excursions I have taken. Most of my photos of the built environment are of things around Arizona, but I have a handful from Chicagoland that I will try to pull out as time goes on.

I took my first venture to Superior, Arizona (approximately 50-75 miles east of Phoenix) in February 2007. I was completely amazed at first sight. Here was a town where the mines closed about 25 years ago, and it looked like nobody had done much with the town since that time.



I had to start with Sprouse. I lived in a town in southern Arizona in the early 1990s and Sprouse was the only department store in town. It was much more modern than this store, however.

Welcome!