New study takes stock in fast growth in America's fastest growing city.
They also show the region is getting denser even as its urban fringe moves outward at a rate of one half mile a year. However, we also are facing some tough challenges thanks to past circumstances and past policy choices. On the one hand, the Morrison study suggests that metropolitan Phoenix has grown differently from other urban regions and in ways that confound stereotypes. Given residents' dependence on cars, most observers would not expect the region to be showing increases in population density from its core to its edges. But it is making it one of only a handful of large areas in the country to do so.