Metropolitan Phoenix by Patricia Gober

Author:Patricia Gober [Gober, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Human Geography, Sociology, Urban
ISBN: 9780812205824
Google: CmUUBAAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2013-02-12T04:24:34+00:00

Figure 19. Native American communities.

The isolation and self-sufficiency of the reservations changed dramatically after World War II with the expansion of Phoenix. By the early 1970s, the Salt River Community was in the direct paths of fast-growing Scottsdale, Tempe, and Mesa. The Fort McDowell Indian Community today abuts Fountain Hills on its west side. Chandler and Phoenix adjoin the Gila River Community on its northern edge. The Ak Chin, although buffered by the Gila River Community, is less than twenty miles from Phoenix’s southern edge. The Indian communities today act as de facto growth boundaries to the south and northeast and as are prime locations for commercial, industrial, and entertainment development. They are also precious open spaces in a rapidly growing urban environment, and meaningful reminders of the region’s earliest inhabitants (Figure 19). Fewer than 20,000 people live on these reservations, but their land areas total more than 475,000 acres.

The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Community leases land for multiple purposes: the Pavilions, a 140-acre retail shopping center; an industrial park; stores, gas stations, and cafes; a country club and an 18-hole golf course; a mobile home park; and Scottsdale Community College. Development is complicated by the Pima tradition of passing land collectively to descendants. Development approval requires consent by a majority of landowners, a process that can entail a sizable number of people. The average five-acre tract, for example, has 88 owners.19 In the case of the Pavilions, there were some 250 co-owners, necessitating a collective decision to allow development. In addition to the income generated from leasing land for urban development, Indian communities benefit from sales taxes collected by reservation enterprises, and from available jobs for community members. Notwithstanding its central location and new urban development at its edges, the core of the Salt River Community retains much of its historic agrarian character. Cotton fields are abundant, tractors stir up dust, farming equipment sits ready for harvest season, and homes are organized in a linear fashion along the old farming roads. Just three miles from the glitzy shops and upscale restaurants of central Scottsdale is an open and green landscape with magnificent views of the surrounding mountains reminiscent of the region’s agricultural past.

The most obvious effects of urbanization are six Las Vegasstyle casinos (Figure 19). In 1988, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act which permitted Native Americans to operate casinos if state laws allowed any form of gambling. State governors were obliged to negotiate agreements with Indians, and if they could not or would not, a mediator would be appointed. Phoenix-area Indian communities signed agreements with the State of Arizona in 1993 and subsequently opened gaming establishments. In contrast to Las Vegas, where casino-style entertainment is focused in the city center, Phoenix’s casinos are at the urban fringe. Each day, tens of thousands of city dwellers, suburbanites, and tourists travel to the reservations to gamble, dine, and enjoy big-name entertainment. Along the way, they take in scenes of irrigation agriculture, and mountain vistas, and are reminded subtly of Phoenix’s cultural history of Indian settlement and its agricultural heritage.

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