PHOENIX — It probably comes as no surprise, but once again the fastest-growing communities in Arizona are on the far outskirts of the two major metropolitan areas.
It is true that of the more than 97,000 people who decided to make Arizona their home in the year ending July 1, nearly one out of every eight landed in Phoenix. That brought the city’s population to over 1.7 million according to new estimates by the Arizona Commerce Authority.
But it represented a year-over-year growth rate of less than 0.7% — much slower than the 1.3% average for the entire state…