Rising out of the ashes of the pre-Columbian civilizations that left their marks on this rare area of fertility in the southwest, Phoenix is spreading its wings across the vast and empty desert to the edges of the mountains that surround it. What was once a tiny farming community has exponentially exploded with the arrival of the railroads, the dams, the military bases, and the technology industry.

Made possible through the wonders of air conditioning and the automobile, Phoenix represents the new American city of the 20th century. A center of modern skyscrapers and office buildings, surrounded by endless fields of developed housing, where each family can have a lawn and a carport. And every major American baseball team comes here to take advantage of the good pre-season weather and do some spring training.

But Phoenix is more than the picturesque representation of modern life in the land of the free. The ancestral lands of the tribes that populated the area are being dug up, the African American population redlined beyond the golf course, and the increasing quantities of auto traffic become bigger and bigger headaches. Indeed, Phoenix is the present of America, but it remains to be seen if that's good or bad.