Phoenix and the Fight over the Papago-Inner Loop: Race, Class, and the Making of a Suburban Metropolis, 1969-1979

Abstract

Few postwar cities grew as quickly as Phoenix, as suburban, pro-growth policies created a sprawling metropolitan area, but also problems like acute traffic congestion, which policymakers attempted to solve with an urban freeway. The Papago Freeway revolt highlights that transportation policy, like other aspects of suburbanization, had deep roots in intentional and incidental race and class discrimination at all levels of government and private decisions. Moreover, the debate reveals the changing relationship between the federal government and cities under President Nixon and the incendiary political, social, and cultural forces fracturing metropolitan America. The revolt led to design changes that mitigated some of the negative impacts of the freeway, but the Papago still resulted in inequitable outcomes for minorities and low-income populations in the inner city. Most important, it shows that ignoring historical inequities in policy decisions runs the risk of continuing or, worse, exacerbating them.