Reply #25: My grandparents lived in Phoenix for a while [View All]

they told me that Phoenix started as a whitopia in the 1950s. It was the epitome of the American dream where you could get an affordable house, good schools, and the temperatures rarely below freezing. Here is an advertisement for a subdivision from 1958:

Maryvale! Fortunate home of the American dream. A single-family detached house in the suburbs: three bedrooms, living room, den, all-electric kitchen and carport, laid out in a neat rectangle of a one-story ranch house. We've got thousands of 'em, ready to sell, on safe winding streets in brand-new Phoenix. New as a hoola hoop. New as a teal '58 Chevy. New as this morning's hope. Leave behind those snow shovels and below-zero winters. Leave behind the old dingy cities of the East and Midwest, with their crime and racial trouble. Time for a fresh start, thanks to a VA mortgage and the FHA. You've earned it: backyard lifestyle with a new swimming pool. Here in Phoenix, its eighty degrees in January, and in summer, we've got air-conditioning. Green lawns, blond children, pink sunsets. All in Maryvale.

In the 1980s, many white people moved out of Maryvale because of an inordinate amount of cancer cases. The prices of the house plummeted and a lot of poor people moved in and turned it into a ghetto. In my opinion, Phoenix now is the epitome of white flight and the big sort.