End the urbanization of Arizona

In 2021, Phoenix became the fifth largest city by population in the United States trailing behind New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston. Another title that came alongside the city’s growing urbanization was “the least sustainable city in the world,” a name branded by Andrew Ross, a sociologist at New York University. The growing urbanization of the state will only create an unhealthy and unsustainable environment.

Urbanization is the process of people moving from rural settings to urban centers. It is almost always the result of growing populations, migrations or industrialization.

This phenomenon is rapidly occurring in Arizona.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, from April 2010 to April 2020, the population in Phoenix grew by more than 160,000 people. Arizona’s overall population is growing at a rate of 1.28% per year. It is projected by the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity that if this rate is sustained, the state’s population will surpass eight million people by 2026.

New cities will need to be built to accommodate the growing population, and more people will move to Arizona because of its growing economy, creating a never-ending cycle, meeting the same fate as a state like California, the most urbanized city in the country.

One of the biggest problems that arises from the rapid urbanization of suburban areas is the lack of resources, specifically water. In terms of precipitation, Arizona receives 13 inches of rain water per year, and Phoenix receives less than 8 inches in an average year.

Due to the scarcity of this resource, central and southern Arizona receive most of its water supply from the Colorado River — a river that, according to The Washington Post is drying up due to a combination of chronic overuse of water resources and a historic drought. Climate researchers have been analyzing the long-term effects that result from this reckless water usage, one of whom is Jonathan Overpeck, the Samuel A. Graham dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan.

“There are plans for substantial further growth and there just isn’t the water to support that … the