Glendale is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, located approximately 9 miles (14 km) northwest of Downtown Phoenix. It hasd a population of 248,325. In the late 1800s the area that is now Glendale was all desert. William John Murphy, a native of New Hartford, New York, who resided in the town of Flagstaff in what was then the territory of Arizona, was in charge of building the 40-mile-long (64 km) Arizona Canal from Granite Reef to New River for the Arizona Canal Company. In 1885, he completed the canal, which would bring water to the desert land. Murphy was deep in debt, since he had agreed to be paid in Arizona Canal Company stock and bonds and land instead of cash. read more…
The city serves as the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, home to 5.8 million people and the ninth-largest metropolitan area in the nation. Atlanta is the seat of Fulton County and a small portion of the city extends eastward into DeKalb County. Atlanta was founded as a transportation hub at the intersection of two railroad lines in 1837. After being mostly burned to the ground during the American Civil War, the city rose from its ashes to become a national center of commerce and the unofficial capital of the “New South“. During the 1960s, Atlanta became a major organizing center of the civil rights movement, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and many other locals playing major roles in the movement’s leadership. In the decades following, the city earned a reputation as “too busy to hate” for the relatively progressive views of its citizens and leaders compared to other cities in the “Deep South“. During the modern era, Atlanta has attained international prominence as a major air transportation hub, with Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport being the world’s busiest airport by passenger traffic since 1998. read more…
Tampa is a major city in, and the county seat of, Hillsborough County. It is located on the west coast of Florida on Tampa Bay, near the Gulf of Mexico, and is the largest city in the Tampa Bay Area. The city has a population of 377,000. Today, Tampa is part of the metropolitan area most commonly referred to as the “Tampa Bay Area”. For U.S. Census purposes, Tampa is part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The four-county area is composed of roughly 2.9 million residents, making it the second largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the state, and the fourth largest in the Southeastern United States, behind Miami, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. Tampa displays a wide variety of architectural designs and styles. Most of Tampa’s high rises demonstrate post-modern architecture. The design for the renovated Tampa Museum of Art displays post-modern architecture, while the city hall and the Tampa Theatre belong to Art Deco architecture. The Tampa mayor Pam Iorio made the redevelopment of Tampa’s downtown, especially residential development, a priority. Several residential and mixed-development high-rises have been constructed. Another of Mayor Iorio’s initiatives was the Tampa Riverwalk, a mixed-use path along the Hillsborough River in downtown. Channelside was recently approved to undergo major renovations by Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik along with other investors. Several museums are part of the plan, including new homes for the Tampa Bay History Center, the Glazer Children’s Museum, and the Tampa Museum of Art. read more…