ABSTRACT
The Phoenix metropolitan area provides a particularly rich and challenging laboratory to examine the mix of public policy, governance, and economic development under conditions of rapid and extreme urban growth, sprawl, and low density. There are clear and different perspectives concerning the capacity of the metro Phoenix governance approach to meet its urban challenges. Civic reform, the development of social capital, the citistate, and the notion of citistate mathematics are all concepts that promise more effective regional collaboration and governance. Product improvement meant that Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) and its member governments and businesses formally recognized the importance of improving state and regional policies and the quality of life, in general, to make the region more attractive for purposes of business attraction and retention. The portrait of recent dynamics of regional economic development in Phoenix, combined with examples of governmental cooperation to solve regional problems, is an illustration of significant change.
