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June 9, 2008
Changing the American Southwest, one new suburb at a time
Billboard Homes, 2006, © Andrew Phelps, from his book "Higley"
American photographer Andrew Phelps has created a minor masterpiece of a photobook that documents in an artful way, the end of the town of Higley, Arizona, as it is swallowed up and completely transformed into just another sprawling generic suburban development in the desert lands to the east of Phoenix.
The story, which took three years to photograph, is particularly interesting since all four of Phelps' grandparents lived in the sleepy outlying town of Higley while Phelps was growing up in Phoenix. So, we can watch in an intimate way as the funky little town gets bulldozed to make way for instant suburbia, American style.
Check out our book review and a dozen photos from Higley, here in Lens Culture.
Hopefully you'll excuse the self-promotion here, since I think it's genuinely relevant.
Trulia Hindsight is a we made map for online real estate site Trulia to show the year that every home in their database was built. You can see Higley, Arizona here: http://hindsight.trulia.com/map/#lat=33.306&lon=-111.721&zoom=15&mix=0.500
(Each dot turns from transparent to solid in the year the home was built, you can slide the year back and forth in the chart at the bottom).
If you zoom out you can see the incredible growth of Phoenix itself over the last 20 years or so. Higley certainly seems tiny in comparison to all those homes. That just goes to show how many Higleys there are, that never will be again.
Personally I find these views of rapid urban growth as disturbing as I find them fascinating, but it's credit to Trulia that they recognise that it does us all good to see these things from many different angles.
I'll certainly be checking out Phelps' book, thank you for the tip.