Profiles each city and major neighborhood in the Phoenix, Arizona area for prospective home buyers, with information on real estate and house prices, schools, shopping, dining, and more.

How high energy consumption transformed postwar Phoenix and deepened inequalities in the American Southwest In 1940, Phoenix was a small, agricultural city of sixty-five thousand, and the Navajo Reservation was an open landscape of scattered sheepherders. Forty years later, Phoenix had blossomed into a metropolis of 1.5 million people and the territory of the Navajo Nation was home to two of the largest strip mines in the world. Five coal-burning power plants surrounded the reservation, generating electricity for export to Phoenix, Los Angeles, and other cities. Exploring the postwar developments of these two very different landscapes, Power Lines tells the story of the far-reaching environmental and social inequalities of metropolitan growth, and the roots of the contemporary coal-fueled climate change crisis. Andrew Needham explains how inexpensive electricity became a requirement for modern life in Phoenix—driving assembly lines and cooling the oppressive heat. Navajo officials initially hoped energy development would improve their lands too, but as ash piles marked their landscape, air pollution filled the skies, and almost half of Navajo households remained without electricity, many Navajos came to view power lines as a sign of their subordination in the Southwest. Drawing together urban, environmental, and American Indian history, Needham demonstrates how power lines created unequal connections between distant landscapes and how environmental changes associated with suburbanization reached far beyond the metropolitan frontier. Needham also offers a new account of postwar inequality, arguing that residents of the metropolitan periphery suffered similar patterns of marginalization as those faced in America's inner cities. Telling how coal from Indian lands became the fuel of modernity in the Southwest, Power Lines explores the dramatic effects that this energy system has had on the people and environment of the region.

A collection of oddly informative columns by the Arizona Republic's Clay Thompson. Newcomers and longtime Arizona residents have challenged Mr. Thompson with questions, both vital and obscure. His witty responses entertain readers daily. This is the first compilation of his work.

Phoenix, Arizona is one of America's fastest growing metropolitan regions. It is also its least sustainable one, sprawling over a thousand square miles, with a population of four and a half million, minimal rainfall, scorching heat, and an insatiable appetite for unrestrained growth and unrestricted property rights. In Bird on Fire, eminent social and cultural analyst Andrew Ross focuses on the prospects for sustainability in Phoenix--a city in the bull's eye of global warming--and also the obstacles that stand in the way. Most authors writing on sustainable cities look at places that have excellent public transit systems and relatively high density, such as Portland, Seattle, or New York. But Ross contends that if we can't change the game in fast-growing, low-density cities like Phoenix, the whole movement has a major problem. Drawing on interviews with 200 influential residents--from state legislators, urban planners, developers, and green business advocates to civil rights champions, energy lobbyists, solar entrepreneurs, and community activists--Ross argues that if Phoenix is ever to become sustainable, it will occur more through political and social change than through technological fixes. Ross explains how Arizona's increasingly xenophobic immigration laws, science-denying legislature, and growth-at-all-costs business ethic have perpetuated social injustice and environmental degradation. But he also highlights the positive changes happening in Phoenix, in particular the Gila River Indian Community's successful struggle to win back its water rights, potentially shifting resources away from new housing developments to producing healthy local food for the people of the Phoenix Basin. Ross argues that this victory may serve as a new model for how green democracy can work, redressing the claims of those who have been aggrieved in a way that creates long-term benefits for all. Bird on Fire offers a compelling take on one of the pressing issues of our time--finding pathways to sustainability at a time when governments are dismally failing in their responsibility to address climate change.

Part of the self-image of Phoenix is that the city has no history and that anything of importance happened yesterday. Also that Phoenix, the Arizona state capital, is a "clean" city (despite a past of police corruption and social oppression). The "real" Phoenix, easygoing, sun-drenched, a place of ever-expanding development and economic growth, guarantees, it is said, an enviable lifestyle, low taxes, and unfettered personal freedom and opportunity. Little of this is true. Phoenix has been described as one of the least sustainable cities in the country. This sixth largest urban area of the United States has an alarmingly superficial and tourism-oriented discourse among its leaders. This book examines a series of narrative works (novels, theater, chronicles, investigative reporting, personal accounts, editorial cartooning, even a children's television program) that question this discourse in a frequently stinging fashion. The works examined are anchored in a critical understanding of the dominant urban myths of Greater Phoenix, and an awareness of how all the newness, modernity and fun-in-the-sun mentality mask a uniquely dystopian human experience.

Everything from clothing styles to tequila shots is kicked back in Arizona. From teeming, cosmopolitan Phoenix to long stretches of open roads to intriguing trails that lead to incredible sights or adventures, Arizona has it all. This friendly guide helps you enjoy it all, with info on: 5 great itineraries, including kid-friendly jaunts, plus day trips and two-day trips The grandeur of the Grand Canyon, the Red Rocks of Sedona, the expanses of northeast Arizona—Hopi and Navajo country, and more Fantastic historic attractions, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s former home and studio, a ghost town, a mining town, an active trading post, Holbook (home of classic Route 66 kitsch), and more Upscale shopping in Phoenix or bargaining in Nogales Rafting on the Colorado River, mountain biking in Sedona, being a cowhand at a dude ranch, star gazing, horseback riding, and more Where to find Native American crafts, Navajo rugs, Western art, Southwestern and ethnic furnishing, katchina dolls, silver inlay jewelry Fantastic museums and monuments where you can delve into Native American culture, plus some places where the ancient traditions are practiced today Like every For Dummies travel guide, Arizona For Dummies, 4th Edition includes: Down-to-earth trip-planning advice What you shouldn’t miss — and what you can skip The best hotels and restaurants for every budget Handy Post-it Flags to mark your favorite pages Whether you want to experience the Old West or the new West…whether your style is luxuriating at a plush resort, golfing on glorious, challenging courses, appreciating incredible sights and scenery, or exploring historical attractions and our Native American heritage, you’ll find lots to do in Arizona. Kick back, relax, and enjoy.

Global Suburbs: Urban Sprawl from the Rio Grande to Rio de Janeiro offers a critical new perspective on the emerging phenomenon of the global suburb in the western hemisphere. American suburban sprawl has created a giant human habitat stretching from Las Vegas to San Diego, and from Mexico to Brazil, presented here in a clear and comprehensive style with in depth descriptions and images. Challenging the ecological problems that stem from these flawed suburban developments, Herzog targets an often overlooked and potentially disastrous global shift in urban development. This book will give depth to courses on suburbs, development, urban studies, and the environment.

I think of myself, sitting around a pub table or around a campfire, as a story teller informing people of how to be successful enjoying life and helping others any way possible if I can.. That is the way I would like to be remembered. Of pure Irish descent, Marton Murphy can trace his family in North America back to 1836 and follow their progression from the Atlantic to the Pacific, North to Alaska and South to the Mexican border. As a boy growing up in Freetown, PEI, one of the prettiest and friendliest piece of ground in the world, I absorbed all I could about the familys earliest heritage including my fathers expertise in business and neighborliness and my mothers charitable good works as a nurse, class of 1921, who taught me how to live my life. I left home at the age of 18 and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including farm chore boy, potato picker, cow hand, stooker, tobacco primer and fruit picker in the East. When arriving in the West I became a doodlebugger, oilfield roughneck, cat-skinner, construction worker, taxi driver while working my way up the corporate ladder before starting my own business in oil, land, cattle, engineering, contracting, environmental, manufacturing, distribution, transportation and travel while enjoying a life involved in church, community, charity, and back room politics while travelling the world for business and pleasure.

The Insiders' Guide to Phoenix offers travelers, newcomers, and even locals the best, most comprehensive information on what's happening in the area. With 300 days of sunshine a year, Phoenix's Valley of the Sun welcomes travelers with great golf, luxury resorts, stunning sunsets, a rich cultural history, and a variety of shopping, dining, and nightlife opportunities. Now that you are coming, let the Insiders' show you where to go.