Concepts for alternative suburban planning in the northern Phoenix area

As pan of ongoing cooperation between the City of Phoenix and Arizona State University, a charrette was organized. Planners, landscape architects, env ironmental scientists, and architects explored concepts for development wit hin a 110-square-mile (285km(2)) portion of Phoenix. The charrette was the summation of over a year of environment studies of the planning area. This part of northern Phoenix occupies a largely undeveloped upper Sonoran deser t landscape experiencing intense development pressure. Four charrette teams addressed desert preservation, rural desert development, suburban desert d evelopment, and growth corridors. This article focuses on some of the strat egies proposed by the suburban desert development team. One of these called for an alternative pattern of development aligned with natural drainage co rridors. Several concepts from the charrette and findings from the environm ental research were adopted by the City in the revised general plan for the area.