| Phoenix, Arizona, is one of the four major urban centers in the American Southwest. Despite a current awareness of the importance of the city in the 1980s as one of the larger metropolitan areas in land size and population, very little attention has been shown to the city's historical past. Too many writers asume that the period after World War II, with its population boom and sprawling growth, explains everything. This study is a corrective to that viewpoint.;The analysis of the physical growth studies the location and the vertical-horizontal expansion of the functional zones within the incorporated city, transportation improvements, and the zoning and annexation campaigns. Persistent urban problems, social group interaction, and cultural movements are discussed and evaluated. The impact of modern technology on urban life is examined. The boosters and private capitalist investors in urban development during the 1920s are contrasted with the federal government as urban growth promoter during the depression. The basic supporting sources for this study include: newspapers cross-checked with city, county, state, and federal records; contemporary promotional literature; and national and regional periodical publications relative to the period.;This study counters the myth that until 1940 Phoenix was an insignificant cow town in the desert by tracing its rapid transition from an agricultural marketing and service center into an important regional center and modern American city. Phoenix between the world wars is presented as a paradigm of urbanization in the Sunbelt.;The work is a topical-chronological analysis of the factors that explain the growth of Phoenix from the end of its first stage of development in 1920 to 1940, when it reached the threshold of a new stage of growth to major metropolitan rank. Central topics in the presentation are the development of the regional and municipal water delivery systems, agricultural advances, the construction and tourist industries, cultural development, transportation progress, boosterism, minority groups, and the functions of the municipal government. |
