Phoenix

Phoenix, definitely more than New York City and maybe even more than Las Angeles, epitomizes the problem the United States has with urban sprawl.  New York City’s Manhattan packs well over four times as many people into an area much smaller than Phoenix’s city limits, creating an efficient, though crowded, city center.  Phoenix, on the other hand, didn’t spread up like the New York City skyscrapers.  Though Phoenix does have a few tall buildings, almost all of the development in the Phoenix downtown area and its surrounding suburbs spread out, not up… 

Since Manhattan is surrounded by water its developers didn’t have the option to build out, otherwise they’d be in the Atlantic.  They built up instead.  Though such a dense population produced a large amount of waste, the average New Yorker produces far less waste than a homeowner in Phoenix or any other suburban area.  Few New Yorkers own cars, they live in smaller, easier to heat spaces, any excess heat from one apartment helps to heat the apartment above it; just in building and heating costs alone city living is far more efficient that suburban sprawl. 

Phoenix started in the center of a giant desert bowl.  Though ringed with mountains, the Phoenix valley is hundreds of miles wide, with nothing but cactus and sagebrush in the way to stop builders from moving farther and farther out into the desert.  Flying over the Phoenix metropolitan area gives you views of miles and miles of look-alike houses situated on cul-de-sacs and gently curving roads that curve around nonexistent hills.  With all of this development came Arizona’s wonderful golf courses, cropping up out of your airplane window as huge swaths of bright green set across the brown sand backdrop of the desert.  Of course, bright green grass was never meant to grow in a desert environment; it takes millions of gallons of water to keep Phoenix’s golf courses so green.  Most of that water is diverted from the Colorado River, which is so depleted by irrigation that it no longer reaches the ocean; it dies out in a scrubby land of marshes down in Mexico instead.

The extent of Phoenix’s urban sprawl can perhaps be best demonstrated by Luke Air Force Base.  When it was first built, Luke AFB was located in the middle of nowhere.  Surrounded by only sand and cacti, Air Force pilots could train whenever they wanted without bothering anyone.  Now Luke AFB is surrounded by developments and retirement communities who complain about the noise from the F-16s which fly training missions of the area, often right over the top of stuccoed, tile-bricked houses. 

This was a free article by consumer reports | free consumer reports.

Originally posted 2007-12-12 17:51:25.

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