The Suburbanization of Phoenix

Thanks to the Urban Demographics blog for sharing this interactive map of Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix. The images below are taken from NASA. According to the Urban Demographics blog, this suburb grew from just 3,799 residents in 1950 to 176,581 residents in 2000, based on 10-year census figures. "That's an average population growth rate of 8% per year".

The implications of this growth are noteworthy from an urban planning perspective. While I've heard that US Southwest cities are not growing as fast today (due to a slower real estate market among other reasons), interactive maps like these really demonstrate years of suburban growth when developers took advantage of a relatively stable real estate market, good housing demand and inexpensive (and highly undervalued) water supplies. The sad reality is that such suburbs today (particularly in the US Southwest) are really not practical to live in due to the disadvantages of urban isolation and the growing scarcity of water.