Last week, about 500 people gathered at infilling southern Phoenix to discuss their visions about how Pinal County will fill out.

The process is already well under way along Hunt Highway — in a house-rich, job-poor manner which won’t fit the needs of future Arizonans, according to Portland-based planner John Fregonese, keynote speaker of the event at the Arizona Grand Resort.

A consultant on a master plan for the 275 square miles of state trust land east of Queen Creek and Florence known as Superstition Vistas, Fregonese predicts this and other parts of the “Sun Corridor” between Phoenix and Tucson will develop into a series of town cores offering work, residential and retail uses close together.

He said future growth patterns will be the product of trends just starting to emerge: aging populations, smaller households and ballooning fuel costs and the resulting demand for shrinking carbon footprints.

Growth will continue as an inevitable facet of life in Arizona as immigration helps fuel population growth nationwide, he said. Some 7.5 million people will live in the Phoenix area by 2060, with 2.6 million of that in the East Valley.

But he doesn’t think the workforce of the future will settle for half-hour-plus commutes. People will want to live closer to work as well as shopping and educational destinations, There will also be fewer families with children, which means an increased interest in multifamily housing.

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