Reinvent Phoenix: A Transit-Oriented Model for Creating Healthy Urban Communities

Reinvent Phoenix, a multi-sector and trans-disciplinary collaboration between the City of Phoenix, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, St. Luke’s Health Initiatives, Arizona State University and several other local organizations, is multi-year project focused on evaluating extant conditions in the five communities along the newly developed light rail to develop action plans for future growth. In addition to increasing affordable housing and job opportunities, Reinvent Phoenix placed a purposeful focus on assessing resources that encourage healthy daily habits. Through a series of community workshops, the health team worked closely with community residents, with a concentration on those with lower incomes or limited English proficiency, to assess existing constraints to healthy living. The many findings included a high prevalence of chronic disease among residents, limited access to safe recreation including parks, limited access to affordable, healthy food, a high percentage of immigrants who feel unsafe on their streets, and low car ownership resulting in a high reliance on public transportation, biking and walking. Working from these findings, a community-based planning process has been established to guide future investment decisions, new policies and incentives that will support the creation of assets that support healthy living within a transit-oriented development environment. Although in close proximity to each other, the demographics, physical environment and existing resources varied greatly between the five communities, thereby impacting the recommendations. Extreme heat, lack of water, orientation to the automobile, a newly-developed light rail system, concentration of lower income, limited English proficient residency and a state-level conservative mindset makes Phoenix a unique environment to examine how built environment policies affect health.