The Phoenix Metropolitan Area (Metro Phoenix) consists of a valley that has multiple city regions in it. The East Valley is a multi-city region within the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of Arizona. East Valley is a loosely defined region, with various definitions of what constitutes it.
PHX East Valley, a project with an area coalition known as the East Valley Partnership, defines the East Valley as an area that encompasses Apache Junction, Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Queen Creek, and Tempe.
The East Valley Tribune, a newspaper that serves the region, considers Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Queen Creek, San Tan Valley, and Tempe as its service area. The newspaper formerly served Scottsdale as well, but was pulled out of the city in 2009.
Ahwatukee Foothills, which is an urban village of the City of Phoenix, is normally considered to be part of the East Valley as well.
Valley Metro defines its East Valley service area for its ADA Paratransit service to include Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe, and Scottsdale.
History The use of the term "East Valley" to describe the city eastern to Metropolitan Phoenix emerged in the early 1980s. Metro Phoenix is in the Salt River Valley, which has been marketed as the Valley of the Sun. A newspaper publisher, Charles Wahlheim, started using “East Valley” for articles in Mesa Tribune, Chandler Arizonan, and the Tempe Daily News. These newspapers were commonly purchased by the Cox newspaper chain out of Atlanta - as a marketing device aimed at giving his company's newspapers creditability as alternatives to the powerful Phoenix-based Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette.
In 1980, Phoenix dwarfed other cities in the region with a population of 789,704. Mesa was the next biggest city with a population of 152,404, followed by Tempe with a population of 106,919. A group called the Phoenix 40 heavily influenced the region's politics and business matters affecting the entire region. Wahlheim approached Chandler grocery-chain owner Eddie Basha and asked him to help create a business group as answer to the East Valley's Phoenix 40. That group was named the East Valley Partnership, an organization of business, education and political leaders that continues to advocate on behalf of the East Valley and its cities.*http://www.evp-az.org/e-v-profile.php One of the founders of the partnership was the late Jack Whiteman of Empire Southwest, a heavy equipment company. "My dad and a number of East Valley businesses wanted to have the East Valley equivalent of the Phoenix 40," John Whiteman, who followed his dad as head of the prosperous dealership, told the East Valley Tribune. "Back then everything seemed to be going to Phoenix."
Ten years after the regional concept was introduced, it was politically institutionalized with the state legislature's creation of the East Valley Institute of Technology. What had once been the Mesa Vocational School was given a new name and an East Valley-wide tax base. Today, its services are offered to 10 school districts.
Demographics The East Valley experienced a population increase of 41 percent, going from 937,638 in 2000 to 1,324,922 in 2011, according to U.S. Census data.*http://www.evp-az.org/documents/2012Profile-FINAL_000.pdf
The 2011 median household income in the East Valley was reported $64,659, up from $52,100 in 2000. The 2011 median household income is also higher in the East Valley than Metropolitan Phoenix, the state of Arizona, and the entire United States.
The median sales price of a single family home in the East Valley is $205,850. This figure is also higher than the median price of a single family home in Metropolitan Phoenix, the West Valley, all of Arizona, and the United States.
The cost of living in the East Valley is quite low for such a thriving area. It has a composite score of 102 (NOTE: US average = 100), compared to 109 of Las Vegas, Nevada, 110 of Denver, Colorado, 118 of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and 147 of Los Angeles, California.
A variety of forces combined to strengthen the East Valley region's identity and political parity, but none was more important than a 30-year surge in population that saw Mesa nearly triple in its population and Chandler grow from 29,173 to 236,123 and the town of Gilbert skyrocket from 5,717 to 208,453. The cities in the East Valley literally grew together. The city of Phoenix grew, too, but not at the same rate as it didn't quite double its population in the 30-year span ending in 2010.
Ironically, The Arizona Republic contributed to the East Valley's separate identity in the mid-1990s by publishing a Sunday section called East Valley.
Perhaps equally as ironic, the grouping of newspapers that Wahlheim had assembled did not incorporate East Valley into its nameplate until new owners had combined the newspaper's community editions into a single newspaper called The Tribune. It wasn't until 1999 that the newspaper retitled itself the East Valley Tribune.
Education East Valley K-12 students are served by 14 school districts, 125 charter schools and one regional career-focused district (East Valley Institute of Technology). One measure of the academic quality of East Valley schools is that the region qualified 12 schools to compete in the 2012 Arizona Academic Decathlon competition - more than any other region.*http://azacadec.org/results.php
Arizona State University With 33 percent of its population age 25 and above holding bachelor's degrees, higher education is a priority. Arizona State University's main campus in Tempe serves more than 49,000 undergraduate students and more than 10,000 graduate students. The ASU Polytechnic Campus in East Mesa serves more than 9,500 undergraduate students and nearly 1,000 graduate students.
The Aerospace and Defense Research Collaboratory, which support aerospace and defense industries is housed at the Polytechnic Campus in the College of Technology and Innovation adjacent to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in East Mesa. The airport and campus are on the grounds of what was Williams Air Force Base and in an area focused on aerospace industry development.
Another example is ASU's Skysong Center in Scottsdale, located not far from the General Dynamics C-4 Systems facility. ASU describes Skysong as "an innovation center designed to help companies grow by providing business services and programs offered or facilitated by Arizona State University. These services include access to new technologies, capital networks, business education and a skilled workforce.
Community Colleges Private colleges serve another 11,000 students in the East Valley. The community college system has enrolled 160,000 students at five East Valley colleges. They include the Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Mesa Community College, Rio Salado College, Scottsdale Community College and Central Arizona College.
East Valley Institute of Technology For more than 20 years, the East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT) has offered students in 10 East Valley school districts a wide range of career and technical education courses. The courses prepare students with skills for immediate entry into the local job market, but many are on career tracks that lead to higher education. More than 60 percent of the 3,000 students taking EVIT courses go on to college. EVIT is funded by a property tax levied on property owners in the 10 districts.
EVIT has two campuses. The main campus opened in Mesa in 1998 at a cost of $46 million. It spans 65 acres with 15 buildings. The campus's long-time culinary and automotive technologies programs are highly regarded, but EVIT also serves the East Valley job market with such course offerings as 3D animation, electronics/robotics and engineering science.
In 2007 and 2011 new health science buildings were opened at the main campus and quickly reached capacity. Programs offered to health and science students include biotechnology; nursing; sterile processing and distribution; and dental assisting. Many of the students are on track to enter medical school.
EVIT also offers tuition-based career education programs for adults.
In 2011 EVIT opened a 10-acre, $17 million campus in east Mesa that is clustered with the Arizona State University Polytechnic campus, the Chandler-Gilbert Community College Williams campus and Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. It is focused on health and aviation programs. Aviation students are trained for jobs in the East Valley's and state's robust aerospace sector. Arizona is fifth in the nation in aviation and aerospace employment.
Aviation and aerospace The East Valley Aviation & Aerospace Alliance estimates aerospace accounts for 35,000 high-paying jobs and generates $3.5 billion a year in the East Valley.*http://www.evaaa.org/ The Alliance is working with the Arizona Commerce Authority to extend the sector's reach by obtaining selections of the state of Arizona as a center of excellence for development and testing of unmanned aerial systems.
Among the sector drivers in the East Valley are the Boeing Corporation, Orbital ATK, Honeywell Aerospace, Able Aerospace Services, Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, Cessna, and Arizona Laboratories for Security and Defense Research (AZLabs).
Mesa is the home of Boeing's sixth largest site where it assembles the Apache Longbow attack helicopter and the A160 Hummingbird unmanned aerial vehicle helicopter.*http://www.azaerospace.com/az_advantage/sucess_stories/ Boeing will test the unmanned helicopter in restricted aerospace near the town of Florence, a short distance south of the East Valley. Boeing has a workforce in Mesa of 4,700 employees. It utilizes 576 Arizona suppliers and annually spends $1.2 billion.
Virginia-based Orbital ATK has about half of its workforce in the East Valley. In Chandler, the company designs tests and manufactures space launch vehicles, including the Pegasus and Minotaur rockets. In the town of Gilbert, Orbital ATK assembles and tests satellites. Orbital ATK describes its 135,000 square-foot satellite facility as one of the most advanced of its kind. In the past, Orbital ATK has focused on government satellite projects. But it is ramping up Gilbert operations for a major commercial project. It will assemble and test 81 satellites for the Iridium NEXT global communications system. In a 2011 press release, Iridium CEO Matt Desch said, "With this contract, Orbital becomes part of the most significant commercial space project in the world." Iridium satellites are to be launched starting in 2015.
The East Valley is also home of the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport one of the nation's most successful military base reuse projects. Formerly Williams Air Force Base, the growing reliever airport boasts a remodeled passenger terminal, convenient parking and three runways, the longest of which is 10,401 feet. The shortest is 9,301 feet. The airport currently serves Allegiant Airlines. East Valley leaders see it as an international aerospace center and a catalyst for bringing 100,000 jobs to the far East Valley in 20 years. The airport is located in Foreign Trade Zone 221. As of 2012, Gateway hosts more than 40 companies, serves 33 cities with non-stop service via Allegiant, Frontier, and Spirit Airlines as well as eight more cities with continuing service, and contributes $685 million annually to the Arizona economy. The airport's master plan projects more than 850,000 enplanements by 2017 and 2.2 million by 2027.
Another promising military facility reuse project is AZLabs, formerly the Air Force Research Laboratory.*http://www.defensecommunities.org/headlines/mesa-lab-is-now-azlabs-as-city-creates-new-tech-center/# The Defense Department in 2011 turned ownership of the facility over to the city of Mesa. The lab is near Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport and Arizona State University Polytechnic campus. Alion Science and Technology manages the 97,500 square foot facility and describes it as ideally suited for hosting classified research programs.