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Postwar suburban sprawl resulted in environmental consequences that engendered backlash from those concerned about the quality life in the places they lived, played, and worked. Few cities grew as rapidly as Phoenix and therefore the city offers an important case study to evaluate the success and limits of environmentalism in shaping urban growth in the postwar period.
Using three episodes looking at sanitation and public health, open space preservation, and urban transportation, I argue three factors played a critical role in determining the extent to which environmental values were incorporated into Phoenix's urban growth policy. First, the degree to which environmental values influenced urban policy depends on the degree to which they fit into the Southwestern suburban lifestyle. A desire for low-density development and quality of life amenities like outdoor recreation resulted in decisions to extend municipal sewers further into the desert, the creation of a mountain preserve system, and freeways as the primary mode of travel in the city. Second, federal policy and the availability of funds guided policies pursued by Phoenix officials to deal with the unintended environmental impacts of growth. For example, federal dollars provided one-third of the funds for the construction of a centralized sewage treatment plant, half the funds to save Camelback Mountain and ninety percent of the construction costs for the West Papago-Inner Loop. Lastly, policy alternatives needed broad and diverse public support, as the public played a critical role, through bond approvals and votes, as well as grassroots campaigning, in integrating environmental values into urban growth policy. Public advocacy campaigns played an important role in setting the policy agenda and framing the policy issues that shaped policy alternatives and the public's receptivity to those choices.
Urban policy decisions are part of a dynamic and ongoing process, where previous decisions result in new challenges that provide an opportunity for debate, and the incorporation of new social values into the decision-making process. While twenty-first century challenges require responses that reflect contemporary macroeconomic factors and social values, the postwar period demonstrates the need for inclusive, collaborative, and anticipatory decision-making.
Using three episodes looking at sanitation and public health, open space preservation, and urban transportation, I argue three factors played a critical role in determining the extent to which environmental values were incorporated into Phoenix's urban growth policy. First, the degree to which environmental values influenced urban policy depends on the degree to which they fit into the Southwestern suburban lifestyle. A desire for low-density development and quality of life amenities like outdoor recreation resulted in decisions to extend municipal sewers further into the desert, the creation of a mountain preserve system, and freeways as the primary mode of travel in the city. Second, federal policy and the availability of funds guided policies pursued by Phoenix officials to deal with the unintended environmental impacts of growth. For example, federal dollars provided one-third of the funds for the construction of a centralized sewage treatment plant, half the funds to save Camelback Mountain and ninety percent of the construction costs for the West Papago-Inner Loop. Lastly, policy alternatives needed broad and diverse public support, as the public played a critical role, through bond approvals and votes, as well as grassroots campaigning, in integrating environmental values into urban growth policy. Public advocacy campaigns played an important role in setting the policy agenda and framing the policy issues that shaped policy alternatives and the public's receptivity to those choices.
Urban policy decisions are part of a dynamic and ongoing process, where previous decisions result in new challenges that provide an opportunity for debate, and the incorporation of new social values into the decision-making process. While twenty-first century challenges require responses that reflect contemporary macroeconomic factors and social values, the postwar period demonstrates the need for inclusive, collaborative, and anticipatory decision-making.
ContributorsDi Taranto, Nicholas (Author) / Hirt, Paul (Thesis advisor) / Vandermeer, Philip (Committee member) / Smith, Karen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
In "Between Mountain and Lake: an Urban Mormon Country," I identify a uniquely Mormon urban tradition that transcends simple village agrarianism. This tradition encompasses the distinctive ways in which Mormons have thought about cities, appropriating popular American urban forms to articulate their faith's central beliefs, tenants, and practices, from street layout to home decorating. But if an urban Mormon experience has as much validity as an agrarian one, how have the two traditions articulated themselves over time? What did the city mean for nineteenth-century Mormons? Did these meanings change in the twentieth-century, particularly following World War II when the nation as a whole underwent rapid suburbanization? How did Mormon understandings of the environment effect the placement of their villages and cities? What consequences did these choices have for their children, particularly when these places rapidly suburbanized? Traditionally, Zion has been linked to a particular place. This localized dimension to an otherwise spiritual and utopian ideal introduces environmental negotiation and resource utilization. Mormon urban space is, as French thinker Henri Lefebvre would suggest, culturally constructed, appropriated and consumed. On a fundamental level, Mormon spaces tack between the extremes of theocracy and secularism, communalism and capitalism and have much to reveal about how Mormonism has defined gender roles and established racial hierarchies. Mormon cultural landscapes both manifest a sense of identity and place, as well as establish relationships with the past.
ContributorsAndersen, Rebecca (Author) / Gray, Susan E. (Thesis advisor) / Rugh, Susan S. (Committee member) / Pyne, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015