This article originally appeared in the Phoenix Business Journal.
How a once tiny West Valley city has turned into an industrial development magnet
Years before Buckeye was designated a city, people were flocking by the thousands to the West Valley suburb, which was once a small town largely made up of family-owned agricultural and dairy farms.
“It was ‘Drive until you can afford,’” recalled Deanna Kupcik, the president of the Buckeye Valley Chamber, whose family came to Buckeye in the 1950s.
Single-family homes continued going up and residents moved in because of the relatively low price to buy land and inexpensive housing, she said.
In the 2000s, when the population jumped from just 6,500 to 50,000, some people were buying upwards of five homes, Kupcik said. City officials contend that a variety of “high value” housing options is what drove people to Buckeye.
Eventually, Buckeye was hit hard like the rest of Arizona by the Great Recession, so construction stalled. But as the economy started to recover, so did the West Valley municipality, which recent Census data shows was the fastest-growing city in the nation from 2010 to 2020.