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Catching Up

Phoenix targets west Valley for neighborhood revitalization

One of Phoenix’s fastest growing communities is Phoenix’s west side. In November 2004, the Phoenix City Council approved the West Phoenix Revitalization Strategy, in which $1 million was committed to find ways to improve the community. Phoenix’s Neighborhood Services Department is taking several steps to bring improvements to this area.

JOSÉ CÁRDENAS: With us to talk about the redevelopment strategy are Phoenix Neighborhood Services Department Program Manager Olivia Delgado-Carroll and Deputy Director Tim Bolling. Olivia, tell us what area of town we’re looking at, just the physical boundaries.
OLIVIA DELGADO-CARROLL: The boundaries for the west side revitalization area are Van Buren to the south, Dunlap to the north, 19th Avenue to the east and the 101 to the west.

CÁRDENAS: Tell us about the demographics of the area.
DELGADO-CARROLL: Actually, it’s very mixed. We do have a high population of Hispanics. I would venture to say a little over 40 percent of the total population within those boundaries is Hispanic.

CÁRDENAS: Tim, let’s talk about that growth. What’s your perspective on it?
BOLLING: Well, the west Valley area has increased quite a bit. Where there used to be vacant land, it’s being filled with development and commercial development. So there’s very little open space left. The real core of this area (47th Avenue and Indian School) started around 1945 when John F. Long started to build homes in that area; it spread quite a bit from there. The downtown core is really older, but the area is getting to be 50, 60 years old.

CÁRDENAS: Where’s the growth coming from?
BOLLING: The City of Phoenix at large is growing at pretty amazing rates on a monthly basis, just because of the climate here and the city as a whole. They’re building houses anywhere they can, and people love to come to Phoenix.

CÁRDENAS: Are you getting more of an immigrant population there, too?
BOLLING: The Hispanic population for the City of Phoenix as a whole has increased steadily over the last 10 years.

CÁRDENAS: What prompted the City of Phoenix to come out with this new strategy?

BOLLING: Several residents in the west Phoenix area felt that although their area had continued to grow, the level of services had not grown at the same rate. So the city council and the mayor took a look at what the services were and they determined that we should... look at how we can improve services. We held a series of forums in the community and asked residents, what are your concerns, what would you like to see improved, what types of things would give you a better quality of life?

CÁRDENAS: I want to talk to Olivia about those meetings, but what kinds of services were people saying hadn’t kept up with the growth?
DELGADO-CARROLL: Well, inspectors to address blight situations, code enforcement, alleys not being kept up, those types of things in general.

CÁRDENAS: Did the city make a preliminary determination that those complaints were well founded?
DELGADO-CARROLL: Our study showed the population had grown a little bit faster than we could keep up. It also was across the city a little bit that way, too, but a little bit more so in west Phoenix. So the city council approved about a million dollars in services. It created some new positions and more staff to allocate specifically in the west Phoenix revitalization area.

CÁRDENAS: Olivia, what are you hearing?

DELGADO-CARROLL: What we heard was that we needed to have more police presence because they felt crime had risen a bit. We also heard that some of our infrastructure was getting old and needed to be repaired, such as streets, streetlights and that kind of thing. We heard that we needed to have an education campaign for residents about their rights and responsibilities as homeowners, such as maintenance of properties. We even had one component that was strictly for youth. 

CÁRDENAS: What was the focus of the youth meeting?
DELGADO-CARROLL: We asked the same questions we asked the adults and seniors. What would you like to see in the area? Do you feel safe in the area? What is your school like? And we heard from youth that schools need to be upgraded. We heard there are drugs and crime in the area that they’re very concerned about. We also heard that they need additional recreational places to go, such as more parks, and more structured activities for them.

CÁRDENAS: Why the decision to “revitalize” this area now?
BOLLING: What we’ve seen over the years is that comprehensive neighborhood revitalization makes an impact. We’ve also implemented several other programs, including a state housing trust fund. We got a grant from the state housing department to fix up homes and bring them up to quality standards, to fix things like roofs and electrical systems and plumbing systems. But, really building a neighborhood with some new development, mixed in with some older development that is well maintained and looks good, it really gives a neighborhood some character and gives it some diversity.

Horizonte interviews are a regular monthly feature in Latino Perspectives. This transcript has been edited. Horizonte airs Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. on KAET-TV Channel 8. For a full transcript of this interview, visit azpbs.org/horizonte.