METRO Light Rail. Photo by Photo by Steven Vance via Flickr.
Pheonix began to see its future a little differently in 2008, when the city began operating a 29-mile light rail line with 28 stations. To take advantage of this new infrastructure, Phoenix focused the city’s growth and giving its residents with what they wanted: more housing and transportation choices.
“Those two things — providing neighborhood choices and transportation choices, and neighborhood choices that allow you to reduce transportation costs — are really essential for the success of Phoenix,” says Curt Upton from the city’s planning department. “From an economic development perspective, the stakes are pretty high for us to make sure that we’re a livable city and we’re an attractive city going forward.”
Reinvent PHX is a community-based planning effort that seeks input from residents, works with them to design potential scenarios, and then adjusts codes and regulations to allow growth happen. Made possible by a Community Challenge grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the plan takes into consideration the city’s existing problems with vacant property, lack of mobility, high housing and transportation costs, and lack of open space. HUD provided this grant as part of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities – a collaboration between HUD, DOT, and EPA.
“We wouldn’t be able to do this without that program,” he says. “It’s given us the resources and capacity to really do this work we think is important for the future.”
Read the full story at Atlantic Cities.