Phoenix as Everycity: A Closer Look at Sprawl in the Desert - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 263

downtown areas. Lawmakers should work to ensure that development is truly paying for
itself and that, in particular, developers pony up for the cost of schools and other infra-
structure needs. In Arizona, the legislature should explicitly authorize cities to impose
school impact fees and to recover the full costs for development, including costs associated
with parks and protecting open space.
Communities should evaluate and then implement measures that require inclusionary
zoning so that the current economic segregation patterns are curtailed. Cities also need to
look at allowing more mixed-use zoning and lessening some of the zoning restrictions that
require wide streets, huge lots, and, ultimately, more sprawl.
Better transportation planning and investment in mass transit, so that people have real
choices, are another imperative for better planning—not to mention protecting air qual-
ity and the overall quality of life. Communities must look at better and safer methods
for accommodating both bicycle and pedestrian transportation—for example, developing
bike paths away from the roads themselves and allowing for narrower streets that accom-
modate pedestrian travel and slow down automobile traffic.
If Phoenix and other desert communities are to address urban sprawl, live sustainably,
and better protect and live in the desert, it will require significant leadership from elected
officials, business interests, neighborhoods, and environmental and civic organizations.
In lieu of leadership from elected officials, it may require additional ballot measures in
the states that allow them. As these areas grow into this century, it will require a focus on
quality rather than quantity and an end to the growth-is-good-for-growth's-sake mental-
ity. It means an end to measuring value by how much concrete is laid and instead measur-
ing value by the quality of the air, the safety of streets and highways, the time not spent in
traffic, and the vibrancy of our communities.
Phoenix demonstrates all too well the downside of denying the environment in develop-
ing communities as well as the significant costs associated with sprawl. But Phoenix is also
showing us that it is not too late to change, to revitalize our downtown neighborhoods, to
invest in mass transit, and to reconsider sprawl. Perhaps, the 2008 real estate crash that has
hit deeper and harder in Phoenix and its surrounding suburbs is helping to drive home
these lessons and giving policymakers some room to consider more sustainable alterna-
tives to sprawl. The City of Phoenix lays claim to several planning awards, including the
title of “best managed city.”* However, in our opinion, Phoenix is currently not on a sus-
tainable path—environmentally or economically—in building neighborhoods and com-
munities that adequately connect the residents to sensible transportation, housing, and
employment options, which allow these people to recreate and live without the burdens
posed by urban sprawl, but it could be.
References
1. Reagor, C., Growth pattern crippled Phoenix: Half-empty outskirts suffer as once-reliable cycle
busts, The Arizona Republic , February 15, 2009.
2. Pilkington, E., Paving Arizona: The state is urbanizing the desert at a blistering pace as millions
grab a slice of the American dream, The Guardian , Guardian International section, February 23,
2007, p. 29.
* http://www.cityofphoenix.gov/citygovernment/awards/index.html (accessed August 10, 2011).