Book description
Whether touted for its burgeoning economy, affordable housing, and
pleasant living style, or criticized for being less like a city than a
sprawling suburb, Phoenix, by all environmental logic, should not
exist. Yet despite its extremely hot and dry climate and its
remoteness, Phoenix has grown into a massive metropolitan area. This
exhaustive study examines the history of how Phoenix came into being
and how it has sustained itself, from its origins in the 1860s to its
present status as the nation's fifth largest city.
From the beginning, Phoenix sought to grow, and although growth has
remained central to the city's history, its importance, meaning, and
value have changed substantially over the years. The initial vision of
Phoenix as an American Eden gave way to the Cold War Era vision of a
High Tech Suburbia, which in turn gave way to rising concerns in the
late twentieth century about the environmental, social, and political
costs of growth. To understand how such unusual growth occurred in
such an improbable location, Philip VanderMeer explores five major
themes: the natural environment, urban infrastructure, economic
development, social and cultural values, and public leadership.
Through investigating Phoenix's struggle to become a major American
metropolis, his study also offers a unique view of what it means to be
a desert city.
Philip VanderMeer is associate professor of history at Arizona State
University. He is also the author of Phoenix Rising: The Making of a
Desert Metropolis.
