Because the West Branch area has been left alone, it has a chance to recover and become a part of the larger Paseo de las Iglesias project, and a cornerstone of a more extensive effort at ecological restoration involving the mesic coorridors of Pima County, the Santa Cruz, Rillito, and Pantano.

We need to look at what is management and how it has changed. What was once considered good practice in farming in some areas is no longer considered good practice because you are losing soil. The same thing is happening in ranching and as we look at the way range management has changed in the last 30 years, it is really dramatic in what the goals and objectives are of those people that are on the land is to stay on the land.

The information in this report is based on telephone interviews with 700 registered voters. One random sample of 500 registered voters was selected from all registered voters living in Arizona. This sample was proportionately stratified so that voters in each of Arizona’s 15 counties were included in the sample. An additional sample of 100 interviews with registered voters living in Pima County was also interviewed. A third random sample of 100 registered voters living in the more rural counties also was interviewed. The purpose of selecting the two smaller samples was to create sub-samples of Pima County and rural voters that could be compared with the opinions of voters in Maricopa County.

Fast Growth in Metropolitan Phoenix is the first product of a comprehensive effort to describe and analyze the region’s growth. The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy in Washington, D.C. presented the opportunity for this project to Morrison Institute for Public Policy. The story of growth in metropolitan Phoenix is a complicated, often surprising, tale. There is much to be proud of in the region. Yet there is also much to worry about, and much that needs to be done. Hits and Misses will have been successful if it becomes a catalyst for getting started.