Sneak Peek, Wed Aug 14, 2024

Today you're getting part two of my trip to the Phoenix area. This one focuses on Tempe, home of the largest university in the United States, and a pretty good college town in its own right — but the focus of this video is really Culdesac, a privately developed "car-free" (spoiler, it isn't actually completely car-free) neighborhood a couple miles out from downtown Tempe on the light rail line.

My commentary on Culdesac, such as it is (it's only at about 15% buildout at this point), is in the video so I won't regurgitate it here. But I'll give you a bit more insider detail on how all this went down. I've been aware of Culdesac as a planning/real estate development concept for at least five years now, even though it only broke ground pretty recently. So, I was definitely going to go visit while I was in the Phoenix area to get a feel for how it's actually working; it was going to be on my travel itinerary either way.

Well, after I publicized my (then upcoming) trip to Phoenix on social media, Culdesac reached out by DM to see if I'd be interested in not only visiting while I was in town, but possibly staying in one of their short term rental units for free for the duration of my trip. I actually kind of thought about it for a minute, but (1) the fine folks at the Urban Phoenix Project had already gotten me a deal at the hotel I ended up staying at Uptown, which stilll cost me a few hundred bucks but was close to the areas I was most interested in filming in PHX, and (2) I didn't want Culdesac giving me any free stuff that might influence what I had to say about them in the subsequent (today's) video. You guys, I have at least a shred of credibility to maintain! But I did accept a backstage tour from Culdesac staff, including the CEO, since that was going to allow me to film the secure common spaces and residential "pods" that are otherwise inaccessible if you aren't a resident. So, lots of the footage in today's upload was made possible by access I wouldn't have otherwise gotten. Oh, and full disclosure, they gave me...a Culdesac hat.

I have thought about it further, and considered that it COULD have been interesting to stay there for four days and just a do a video travel diary or "day in the life" of some sort. This would be way out of the usual format for my channel, but I don't mind trying new things! Anyway, let me know if you'd be interested in that kind of content at all, or other format ideas for "city visit" type videos.

Happy Wednesday!