A recent poll found that nearly half of Phoenix’s
residents would pack up and leave tomorrow, if given the chance.
Two-thirds think the region is doing a “poor” or “fair” job of
preserving the desert or open space. With this harsh assessment of
the city’s quality of life in mind, a team of university
researchers, land-use planners and civic governments collaborated
to take a hard look at growth in this sprawling Sunbelt
metropolis.
Issued by the Morrison Institute for
Public Policy at Arizona State University, the report,
Hits and Misses: Fast Growth in Metropolitan
Phoenix, uses colorful charts, graphs and GIS-generated
maps to illustrate urban growth trends. The report finds,
surprisingly, that Phoenix is one of a handful of metro areas to
show increases in urban density over the last 30 years, a healthy
sign of “smart growth.”
The news is not all
sunny, however. Metro area development creeps away from the city
center at the alarming rate of one half mile per year, eating away
at surrounding desert and agricultural lands. Morrison Institute
researcher Mark Muro hopes the report will also serve as a “wake-up
call to the social divide that goes along with sprawl.” Frank
Mizner, director of planning for the city of Mesa, sees the report
as a tool for updating land-use strategies. “If we continue as
before,” he says, “things are going to get
worse.”
Copies of the 50-page report are
available online at http://www.asu.edu/copp/ morrison/growth.htm or
for $8 through the Morrison Institute at
480/965-4525.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Assessing Sunbelt sprawl.
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