This coloring book was designed at the Phoenix Center for the Arts by a couple of our artists as a tool for students to learn about air pollution and to take preventative actions and become good environmental stewards. It is something fun for children to do while at the same time providing a good story that’s instructive about protecting human health and the environment.

The general goal of this report was to collect data on citizens’ needs for information about neighborhood crime patterns and trends, terrorism, and public emergency planning and response in the western region of the Phoenix metropolitan area. There was particular interest in obtaining citizen feedback on data-sharing questions related to terrorism prevention.

Over the past several years, Arizona policymakers have debated a number of immigration-related crime control policies. These discussions have ranged from arguments over the wisdom of granting local law enforcement agencies the authority to arrest and prosecute illegal aliens, to enacting legislation that sanctions employers for hiring illegal aliens. The perception that illegal aliens are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime and violence in the state is at the root of many of these policy discussions. This report examines the connection between illegal aliens and crime in Maricopa County, Arizona, using data from the Arizona Arrestee Reporting Information Network.

Artist Wayne Rainey’s Shade magazine is a good sign for the Maricopa region. The bi-monthly publication covers contemporary art and culture, supports downtown redevelopment efforts, and works with many institutions to encourage the arts. However, as promising as Shade and other inventive ventures are, the fact remains that the Maricopa metropolitan region is just waking up to the need to recognize and support arts and culture as a critical contributor to a knowledge economy.

At one time, arts and culture have intrinsic value, economic value, and value as tools to further an all-important “sense of place” as well as to aid in such areas as workforce development, education, and community revitalization. As a result, arts and culture both enrich residents’ lives and give places meaning, identity, and economic opportunity.

This report provides statistics and information that give a sense of local arts and culture resources and challenges in the areas of 1) performing, literary, and visual arts; 2) history and preservation; 3) science and nature; 4) landmarks and events.

This version of the Major Streets and Routes Plan revises the original plan and the 2004 revisions. Looking ahead to pending updates to the classification systems of towns and cities in Maricopa County, the original MSRP stipulated a periodic review and modification of the street functional classification portion of the plan. This revision incorporates the following changes: (1) as anticipated, many of the communities in the County have updated either their general or transportation plans in the time since the adoption of the first MSRP; (2) a new roadway classification, the Arizona Parkway, has been added to the Maricopa County street classification system and the expressway classification has been removed; and (3) a series of regional framework studies have been conducted by the Maricopa Association of Governments to establish comprehensive roadway networks in parts of the West Valley.