In 1974, with a relatively young and fast-growing city in front of them, the City Council of Phoenix, Arizona charged the Phoenix Planning Commission with studying potential plans for urban form. Through the help of over 200 citizens over the next eight months, the village concept was born. Characterized by an emphasis on community-level planning, unique neighborhood character, and citizen input, the village concept plan provides an compelling lens into decentralized planning. In 1979, the Village Concept, as part of the “Phoenix Concept Plan 2000,” was officially adopted by the Phoenix City Council and has remained a component of the city’s long-range planning ever since. Each village features a core of dense commercial and residential activity, with a surrounding periphery featuring varied densities and land usage. There were nine original villages outlined in 1979. As of today, there are 15 villages. Each village has a Village Planning Committee (VPC) made up of 15 to 21 citizens, each being appointed to the committee by the Phoenix Mayor and City Council. This exploratory study was born out of an interest in the Village Planning Committees and a desire to understand their function as a mechanism for citizen participation in urban planning and urban governance. Similarly, with the rapid onset of the automobile and freeway expansion in the decades after WWII, once-insolated communities in the Valley have become connected to each other in a way that raises questions about how to maintain neighborhood’s unique character while promoting sustainable growth and expansion of the city. Phoenix’s Urban Village Model attempts to answer those questions. The efficacy of the model can be considered from two perspectives––how does it aid in making land use decisions, and how does it promote citizen participation? While there is an extensive body of literature on neighborhood councils in the United States and plentiful analysis of the merits of such models as participatory mechanisms and devices of urban planning, there is a lack of discussion of Phoenix’s Urban Village Model. This thesis aims to include Phoenix in this growing body of work.

This paper compiles the history of the development of public housing in Phoenix, Arizona between the years 1930 and 1970. Starting with the national public housing program created as part of the New Deal programs, the thesis examines how public housing was started, viewed, and supported in Phoenix. There has always been a shortage of affordable housing for low-income residents in Phoenix and the housing history examines the reasons why Phoenix has struggled to construct affordable housing in the past. Public opposition, city values, racial prejudice, and business influence over government were revealed to be some of the many reasons Phoenix struggled and continues to struggle today. In chronological order, the thesis will examine how Phoenix interacted with public housing legislation during the mid-1900s to provide a comprehensive history of what has been done that has not worked.

Low-income areas are more likely to be exposed to poor air quality and hazardous levels of criteria pollutants, including particulate matter. While this relationship is well documented in environmental justice and equity literature, there is less discussion of how it is addressed by regulatory air quality departments and their monitoring networks. Socioeconomic clustering in highly polluted areas presents a challenge for local regulatory agencies as it may result in over- or under-monitoring of certain income brackets. This is significant because, for regulatory bodies, what is monitored determines where environmental regulations are enforced. In this study, I look at the spatial concentrations of low-income neighborhoods and their proximity to regulatory fine particulate matter monitoring stations in Maricopa County, Arizona and Santiago Metropolitan Region, Chile. This study also evaluates which monitors are most often in exceedance of air quality standards for PM2.5. Using census data, individual monitor readings, and monitoring network assessment data to create tables and maps, I illustrate that, in both case studies, regulatory PM2.5 monitors are frequently positioned in proximity to very low-income or highly impoverished communities. The monitors most often and furthest past exceedance of federal air quality standards are those in (or closest) to the poorest parts of the urban center of the region. In both cases, these populations and monitors are heavily concentrated to the south and west of the region’s primary city. This is likely due to compounding factors attributed to urban geography and zoning that should be explored in future studies. I use these findings to suggest that income and poverty level should be evaluated as an environmental justice factor and as an area for improvement in assessments of regulatory monitoring networks, and to provide further evidence in the debate about equitable air quality monitoring.