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Neighborhood guides

Phoenix isn't one place. Here's how to spend an afternoon in each of the ones worth walking.

Roosevelt Row

Murals, galleries, and the densest walkable arts strip in Arizona

Grand Avenue

Working studios, vintage, and the diagonal street that ignores the grid

Melrose on 7th Ave

Midcentury antiques, neon, and the valley's most enduring queer main street

Downtown Mesa

Mesa Arts Center, cheap vintage, and a Main Street on the light rail

Old Town Scottsdale

Galleries, boutiques, and the ArtWalk that's run every Thursday since 1975

Arcadia

Citrus lots, canal paths, and the valley's most reliable patio dining

Coronado & Garfield

Bungalows, neighborhood restaurants, and murals without the crowd

Downtown Chandler

A real town square, breweries, and the best small-city dining in the East Valley

Downtown Gilbert

The Heritage District, the water tower, and a farmers market with a cult following

Tempe & Mill Ave

ASU, the lake, Gammage, and a downtown that never fully sleeps

Public art

The mural map

Roosevelt Row mural wall

Rotating artists

Repainted several times a year — never the same twice.

Calle 16 murals

Various, curated by GENNext

Born out of protest in 2010, still expanding.

Downtown Phoenix

Her Secret Is Patience

Suspended net sculpture over Civic Space Park. Lit at night.

Old Town Scottsdale

Knight Rise

Skyspace in the SMoCA courtyard. Go at dusk.

Grand Ave alley works

Grand Ave collective

Behind the studios — walk the alley, not the sidewalk.

Garfield bungalow murals

Neighborhood artists

Small-scale, residential, easy to miss.

Mesa Main Street installations

City of Mesa program

Sculptural shade structures doubling as art.

Papago sunset markers

Land-art scale, best at golden hour.

Makers

Made in the valley

Grand Ave · Screen printing & risograph

Grand Ave Printworks

Posters for half the shows at Crescent, printed two blocks away.

Roosevelt Row · Ceramics

Sonoran Clay Studio

Desert-glaze tableware, plus the wheel classes that book out every month.

Melrose · Hand-cut leather goods

Saguaro Leather

One person, one bench, a two-month waitlist for a belt.

Downtown Mesa · Small-batch scent

Copper State Candles

Creosote-after-rain is the one everybody buys. It's uncannily accurate.

Garfield · Natural-dye textiles

Verde Textile Co.

Indigo and marigold dye vats in a converted carport.

Cave Creek · Silversmithing

Foothills Silver

Trained in the Southwest tradition, selling mostly at October markets.