By Joshua Bowling | Arizona Republic
Three in four working Mesa residents commute outside of Arizona’s third-largest city for work, but that could start to change as big-name employers move in.
Southeast Mesa is quickly becoming one of the largest employment corridors in the city of just more than 500,000 residents. What was once a remote stretch of desert land sandwiched between Queen Creek and Mesa’s comparatively older Red Mountain neighborhood is now filling up with massive master-planned communities, huge sports complexes and big-name tech companies.
That’s a welcome change for some residents, who travel to Phoenix, Tempe and Scottsdale for work. About 24% of employed Mesa residents actually work in the city, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
David Sloan lives in east Mesa’s Red Mountain region. He works some 26 miles away in Scottsdale, near Gainey Ranch. These days, he has more flexibility to work from home, but before the pandemic, he spent at least an hour in the car every day.
