By Philip Haldiman
Twitter: @PhilipHaldiman

Project Cities is kicking off its third year of working with the city of Peoria, bringing ASU faculty and students alongside city staff to improve quality of life for residents.

The program brings cross-disciplinary collaboration and research-backed solutions to complex municipal sustainable challenges, while at the same time adding value to students’ learning experience by providing real-world applications to each student’s field of study.

Past projects have included a P83 urban village visioning project, COVID-19 needs assessment, sustainable waste management, water conservation and drought shortage response plan, and a transit circulator best practices study.

In the fall 2021 semester, the city worked with 66 students and nine faculty members in the Project Cities program.

Current projects in the works include transit and recycling messaging, community engagement strategy, Dark Sky ordinance study, frameworks and guiding principles for historic preservation, as well as safe battery storage in residential areas.

Mayor Cathy Carlat said the Project Cities program is important because the subjects addressed are timely and the solutions found can pave the way for a better future.

“These are things that we would have to pay consultants large amounts of money for, so having the information we need to solve these kinds of problems is a really an important facet of what we can do as a community to help our residents move into the future,” she said.

And the coming year stands to bring a slew of new projects to the city. Potential subjects include fine glass recycling, sustainable growth in the face of water policy and participatory budgeting.

Anne Reichman, director of the Sustainable Cities Network at ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, said she is looking forward to a productive semester with the city and hopes to continue to bring value to the city in the years to come.

“We really look to the city to tell us their needs and want to match them directly with the faculty and the classes that we know are coming up,” she said.

Philip Haldiman can be reached at phaldiman@iniusa.org, or on Twitter @philiphaldiman.

Philip Haldiman
Senior News Editor | Peoria
@PhilipHaldiman

phaldiman@iniusa.org

Meet Philip
Haldiman is an award-winning journalist who most recently took first place for investigative reporting in 2023 from Arizona Newspapers Association. He joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2015, covering Sun City West his first year. Since 2016, he has covered the city of Peoria. Prior to coming to INI, he was a reporter with The Arizona Republic for seven years, covering numerous cities throughout the Valley. Before that, he was a freelance writer.

Community: Haldiman spearheads the Peoria Independent Hometown Heroes Awards program, honoring local individuals and businesses that give back to the community. He has hosted local candidate forums over the years and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Haldiman also served as a member of the Journalism Program Community Advisory Board at Glendale Community College. Outside journalism, Haldiman served as a member of the city of Peoria Complete Count Committee for the Census, 2019-2020. Lastly, he has served as a member of his HOA governing board since 2021.

Education: Arizona State University with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications and a BA in Theater. 

Random Fact: Haldiman is a fourth-generation Arizonan as well as wrote and produced an autobiographical comic book about his time spent in Hollywood and his life as a cult film star.

Hobbies: He enjoys hiking Arizona’s mountainous landscapes and is currently working on a play for the stage.