About Phoenix
A Major American City
Perhaps the development of Phoenix since 1950 has been the most spectacular of all. Consider that at that time, Phoenix had an area of 17.1 square miles and a population of 106,000 that placed it 99th among American cities.
Today, the city covers more than 500 square miles and has a population of more than 1.4 million, ranking it sixth in the country. While Phoenix is the corporate and industrial center of the southwest it has not forgotten its past. It has retained its long-time reputation of friendliness and concern of its citizens for one another and their government.
This has been attested to by the National Civic League, which four times since 1950 selected Phoenix as an “All-America City” in competition with hundreds of other cities and towns across the nation.
The hallmark of an All-America City is the extent that its private citizens get involved in the workings of their government. Thousands of citizens have served on various city committees, boards and commissions to assure that major decisions are in the people’s best interest.
Since 1950, the residents of Phoenix have shown their faith in city government by approving bond issues totaling about $3.5 billion for necessary improvements in urban facilities and services. The 1988 Phoenix bond election, which authorized the issuance of more than $1 billion in bonds, is one of the largest general-purpose municipal bond elections ever.
Among the projects funded by the bonds were:
- Establishment of the Phoenix Mountains Preserve Program, a 6,000 acre open-spaces project, unprecedented in urban America.
- Expansion of the Civic Plaza, which was increased in size to 340,000 square feet in 1985 and renovated in 1995 so that it now can accommodate some of the country’s largest conventions and conferences.
- Development of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, which serves almost 25 million commercial passengers a year and is among the fastest growing airports in the country. The latest addition to the facility came in 1990 with the opening of the Barry Goldwater Terminal 4.
- Building of the 20-story Phoenix City Hall, which opened in 1993 and now houses about 1,300 city employees.
- Opening of the Central Library in 1995.
- Construction of the History Museum and Arizona Science Center in 1996.
- Expansion of the Phoenix Art Museum in 1996.
Currently, more than $1 billion in public and private projects are under construction or planned in the city. The City Council guides this unprecedented growth with an approach designed to preserve and enhance the lifestyle that originally attracted so many people to Phoenix.
The work of the council, the city staff and the many citizen volunteers has earned Phoenix much recognition over the years, both nationally and internationally.
In addition to its four All-America City titles, Phoenix won the 1993 Carl Bertelsmann Prize, a prestigious international competition that recognized the best-run city government in the world. Phoenix, which shared the prize with Christchurch, New Zealand, was praised for its highly efficient and customer-oriented programs.
Also:
- Financial World magazine named Phoenix the best managed among the nation’s largest cities in 1995 and 1991, and City and State magazine honored Phoenix with the title of Most Financially Sound Large City in 1991.
- The Phoenix Sister Cities Commission received the Best Overall Program award from the Reader’s Digest Association in 1995.
- Sky Harbor International Airport won the Airport Council International’s North America Peggy G. Hereford Airport Communications Excellence Award in 1994.
- City Manager Frank Fairbanks was named 1994 Municipal Leader of the Year by the American City and County Magazine.
- Phoenix won top national honors in 1994 from the National Association of Town Watch for its National Night Out activities.
- Phoenix received the distinguished Public Enterprise Award in 1991, the highest honor bestowed upon a city, in the annual Technology Achievement Awards competition sponsored by Public Technology Inc.
- Phoenix was the only city in the country selected to represent “Excellence in the Public Sector,” a national PBS television special produced by management expert Tom Peters.
- In 1989, Business Month Magazine named Phoenix one of the nation’s 10 best-managed cities.
- Sky Harbor Airport was selected the nation’s best airport for passenger amenities by Money Magazine in 1988.
- The Phoenix Personnel and Parks, Recreation and Library departments each earned the highest awards by their professional organizations (Agency Award for Excellence, International Personnel Management Association, 1988; and Gold Medal Award, National Parks and Recreation Association, 1968 and 1986).
Visit our Awards webpage to learn about more city recognition.
Blessed with energetic and interested citizens willing to give of their time to solve tremendous problems of growth, Phoenix faces an era of unlimited development. As long as the people have vision, the past will be but a prologue of what is to come.
Credits
James M. Barney, Arizona historian and Barry M. Goldwater, former Phoenix City Councilman and U.S. Senator, prepared the history for the 1951 Phoenix City Code. It was brought up to date for the 1962 Code by Jack Williams, former City Councilman, Mayor and Governor.
Photographs from SRP, Bob Rink and the collection of Herb and Dorothy McLaughlin. Also, from Department of Archives and Manuscripts, University Libraries, the Phoenix Elementary School District, Arizona State University (all others).
