Part of the self-image of Phoenix is that the city has no history and that anything of importance happened yesterday. Also that Phoenix, the Arizona state capital, is a clean city (despite a past of police corruption and social oppression). The real Phoenix, easygoing, sun-drenched, a place of ever-expanding development and economic growth, guarantees, it is said, an enviable lifestyle, low taxes, and unfettered personal freedom and opportunity.Little of this is true. Phoenix has been described as one of the least sustainable cities in the country. This sixth largest urban area of the United States has an alarmingly superficial and tourism-oriented discourse among its leaders. This book examines a series of narrative works (novels, theater, chronicles, investigative reporting, personal accounts, editorial cartooning, even a children's television program) that question this discourse in a frequently stinging fashion.