Phoenix's Walkability Gamble Might Actually Pay Off

Phoenix may never shake its reputation as an unsustainable city, but that isn't going to stop it from trying. In 2011, the Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the city a $2.9 million Sustainable Communities grant for a project called Reinvent PHX — a community-based planning effort to guide transit-oriented development in five districts along the new light rail corridor. That's not enough money to reverse decades of sprawl, of course, but it is enough to give each district an action plan for promoting walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods.

"What was really the catalyst for thinking and pushing for a greater focus on transit-oriented development obviously was we started operations of our light rail line in 2008," says Curt Upton from the city's planning department, who's part of the Reinvent PHX management team. "We definitely wanted to take advantage of that new infrastructure."