If American cities are humans of different ages and styles, then New York, Boston and Chicago are the older, established types, while Phoenix is the up-and-coming 20-something just out of school and growing fast.

It's hard to believe, but in 1950, the city of Phoenix was only 17.1 square miles and only had a population of 106,000. Today, the land of triple-digit temperatures is a sprawling 515 square miles and a population of 1.5 million. So, in 57 years, Phoenix has grown by about 1.4 million. The Phoenix metro area (counting all the suburbs) is just over 4 million strong. Simply amazing.