History of Phoenix

Housing Act, the white flight, which had begun with the Great American streetcar scandal accelerated, as the remaining white middle-class families fled the growing street gangs, violent crime, and the drug trade.

Arizona Republic writer, Don Bolles, was murdered by a car bomb in the city in 1976. It was believed that his investigative reporting on organized crime and politics, particularly the relationships in Phoenix among real-estate developers, organized crime, and out-of-state corporations, especially in regards to land and housing fraud, made him a target. Bolles' last words referred to Phoenix land and cattle magnate, Kemper Marley, who was widely regarded to have ordered Bolles' murder. Another suspect, John Harvey Adamson, plead guilty to second-degree murder in 1977 in return for testimony against contractors, Max Dunlap and James Robison. Dunlap was convicted of first degree murder in the case in 1990 and received a life sentence. He died at the Arizona State Prison Complex - Tucson on July 21, 2009, due to natural causes. Robison was acquitted, but plead guilty to charges of soliciting violence against Adamson.

As a result by the 1980s these criminal activities had become public safety issues with the transplanted, noncohesive nature of many neighborhoods, which made crime difficult to monitor. Van Buren street, East of downtown (near 24th St), became associated with prostitution, and many sections of the city's south and west sides were ravaged by the crack epidemic.

After the Salt River flooded in 1980 and damaged many bridges, the Arizona Department of Transportation and Amtrak worked together and temporarily operated a train service, referred in Metro Light Rail (Phoenix) as the "Hattie B." line, between central Phoenix and the southeast suburbs. It was discontinued