By Gary Nelson | East Valley Tribune
Back in 2001, life was discovered in Arizona outside the city limits of Phoenix.
Fannie Mae, a federally backed mortgage corporation, made headlines that year when it coined the term “boomburb” to describe large and growing communities where much of this life existed.
“Incredibly,” one report said at the time, “some of the boomburbs described by Fannie Mae are so large they exceed the population of actual cities.”
Mesa was listed as the prime example, already boasting a population larger than that of Minneapolis, Miami, St. Louis, Pittsburgh or Cincinnati.
