Arizona Republic: Phoenix made a plan for its future. 38 years later, the results are mixed

In 1987, a prominent urban affairs journalist named Neal Peirce came to Phoenix with a team of colleagues to examine the regional issues facing the Valley of the Sun.

At the time, about 1.7 million people lived in the Valley — more than half of them in the city of Phoenix. The region had experienced uninterrupted growth for decades, increasing its population tenfold since World War II.

Laid out as a 16-page broadsheet in The Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette, the “Peirce Report” highlighted the Valley’s successes and challenges. Topics included education, growth and development, regional governance, efforts to rejuvenate the Rio Salado and the Valley’s civic culture.

The Peirce Report kicked off serious regional discussions among elected officials, business and community leaders about what the young metro wanted to be when it grew up — a dialogue that extended well into the 1990s, setting the table for the next generation of growth and change.

Phoenix was an adolescent. Now, it's a young adult

When Greater Phoenix Leadership — known in Peirce’s time as the “Phoenix 40” — began to plan for its 50th anniversary in 2025, the organization commissioned an independent update of the Peirce Report.

Though Peirce passed away in 2019, the Neal Peirce Foundation was tasked with revisiting the issues of the ‘80s and how the region responded, while looking ahead to future challenges and identifying the questions and opportunities of today.

The Neal Peirce Foundation team reviewed decades of information and data, interviewed more than 30 Valley-area business, government and civic leaders, and leveraged extensive public opinion survey research and “progress meter” data from Center for the Future of Arizona.

In many ways, the metro region resembles what Neal Peirce saw in 1987. It’s still a fiercely independent and optimistic place, propelled by a constant influx of people from elsewhere — “a civilization of newcomers,” as Peirce put it.

Yet, in other ways, it has transformed.

Phoenix has become America’s fifth-largest city. A growing number of second- and third-generation people born or raised in the Valley either stayed or boomeranged back to make a life here.

A range of community, academic and philanthropic institutions have grown up alongside a stronger public voice, building the bones of a civic culture that Peirce had found missing in 1987.

As Phoenix’s economic development director Christine Mackey observed, Phoenix was like an adolescent in 1987, and now it’s like a young adult.

Water, affordability weren't on the radar then

The region successfully faced some of the challenges the Peirce Report identified, a testament to its capabilities for collaboration and long-term planning. Other challenges remain. Some have evolved with new dimensions.

For one, the Valley has continued its dramatic growth. The population tripled to more than 5 million, and metro Phoenix continues to add nearly 100,000 people annually. It’s far more diverse, with people identifying as Hispanic or Latino now accounting for a third of the region’s population.

Can this pace of growth continue?

As sprawling development races west around the White Tank Mountains, one key question is how much the region will keep growing outward versus upward in high-density housing close to transit.

The availability and sources of water — not even mentioned in the 1987 report — is now a major topic, although most experts say it can be managed.

Another new factor: skyrocketing housing prices. Affordable starter homes are increasingly out of reach for middle-class families.

More than half of voters say the state isn’t prepared for future growth — a concern that now sits alongside housing affordability as a top-of-mind issue. An overwhelming majority believes that it will take higher levels of planning and infrastructure investment to support growth while maintaining Arizona’s quality of life.

Transportation is perhaps the Valley’s best story of successful regional planning.

In 1987, Phoenix had only a few fragments of freeways, but voters had just passed a half-cent sales tax to raise transportation funds. That tax, now extended twice, fueled a freeway building boom and a modest but effective light-rail network.

The region avoided Los Angeles-style traffic jams and boasts the shortest big-city commute in the U.S. The question now is whether the region can maintain this advantage as growth continues.

Phoenix successfully diversified its economy

Economic development is another success.

The real estate boom-and-bust cycle no longer dominates, thanks to conscious and focused diversification. From Motorola to Intel and now with the arrival of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in north Phoenix, the region has emerged since the early ‘90s as the nation’s microchip leader.

Bioscience is also on the rise, and Arizona State University has become a major force of economic impact. Still, keeping pace with rapid technological change and generating power capacity for new manufacturing and growing AI-related needs will remain key challenges.

At the same time, air quality — with Phoenix’s among the most ozone-polluted in the country — is a growing concern for residents and further growth.

The Peirce Report identified K-12 education and workforce development as major problems — and they remain so today. The rise of charter schools and private school vouchers have generally not altered the state’s low national rankings on key education metrics.

Public funding for education at all levels lags national norms, even though residents overwhelmingly support greater investment in K-12 schools, teacher pay and postsecondary pathways.

For now, the region relies on importing skilled and qualified workers from elsewhere. But can Arizona count on being a magnet for talent over the long term, given rising housing costs, infrastructure strains and climate pressures? Should the region invest more in homegrown talent?

How well is this larger region building consensus?

Finally, the Rio Salado, the dry river bottom once so filled with trash that Peirce called it “a jagged, ugly, dried out scar,” is seeing new life.

A sweeping regional plan for restoring river-adjacent areas failed a countywide ballot soon after the 1987 report. But Tempe moved forward a decade later, constructing Town Lake and creating a unique recreation and open space amenity drawing boaters and bicyclists, while attracting jobs and billions of dollars of economic investment.

Downstream in Phoenix, a more naturalist vision is in formation with some mixed-use development, habitat restoration, and creation of vast nature reserves in the heart of the city.

The late U.S. Sen. John McCain launched a promising new effort to link river area projects into a regional vision. While planning efforts are underway, any large-scale regional vision will require equally large collaboration and must contend with big challenges, such as fragmented land ownership among the multiple jurisdictions comprising the Rio Salado project area.

Perhaps the biggest question is whether the region’s civic leadership is maturing, evolving and ready to meet a new generation of challenges — one where the public expects not tradeoffs, but solutions that deliver on multiple priorities across civic boundaries.

That requires leadership capable of embracing complexity and building consensus.

In 1987, Neal Peirce wrote: “To deal with the problems the growth has created, the region will need more collective decision making, more cohesion among its competing businesses, and stronger and more effective government than ever tolerated.”

The gap is growing between expectations and results

A stronger and more centralized government did not materialize. But to their credit, civic and business leaders stepped up in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, in part because of the Peirce Report.

Since then, CFA’s statewide surveys consistently show that Arizonans across backgrounds and political affiliations want leaders who listen, act on shared priorities and foster greater civic engagement.

Yet, fewer than half of voters believe their elected leaders represent their interests. Although public values are clear and widely shared, the gap between what people want and what leaders deliver is growing.

Today’s region is far more complex, and the challenges more interconnected — making it more vital than ever for business and civic leaders to come together around shared public values.

The very clear question today is whether a broader, more diverse civic leadership — representing a larger and more economically robust region — will step up again to face the challenges of the present day and advance together to an even brighter future.

William Fulton is a journalist and urban planner who specializes in writing about cities and regions and serves on the board of the Neal Peirce Foundation. Christopher Swope is a writer specialized in city innovation and leadership and serves on the board of the Neal Peirce Foundation. Sybil Francis, Ph.D., is chair, president and CEO of Center for the Future of Arizona, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that brings Arizonans together to create a stronger and brighter future for our state.