Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, United States

🇺🇸 Phoenixville is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States, 28 miles north-west of Philadelphia, at the junction of French Creek with the Schuylkill River. It is in the Philadelphia Metro Area. As noted by Forbes, Phoenixville is a former beaten-down mill town with a recent downtown revitalisation plan that led to 10 craft breweries and a distillery. Downtown Phoenixville has the most breweries per square foot in America.

Phoenixville has a diverse local economy that largely includes many local artisans and restaurants. Among the local hotspots are Steel City and the Colonial Theater, two establishments that survived both the economic downturn and Phoenixville's recent revitalisation.

While the plans for an economic revitalisation began back in 2001, it was not until 2009 that first brewpub opened in Phoenixville. That brewpub was Iron Hill Brewery. Molly Maguire's Pub, both located on Bridge Street. Customers Bank, the nation's fourth-best community bank for return on equity in 2011, according to the American Bankers Association, is headquartered in downtown Phoenixville.

One impact of economic revitalisation has been the increase in the cost for residents living in Phoenixville which was partially the result of increased demand for housing caused by the growth of local restaurants, breweries and boutiques in town. Community leaders, the Phoenixville Borough Council, along with two consecutive mayors, saw the need to create an Affordable Housing Task Force to study what personal financial issues existed in the community, as well as to propose solutions to any housing issues they uncovered.

That task force later became the Affordable Housing Council of Phoenixville. The Council's website states: "In Chester County, we recognised that the community was changing and Phoenixville needed to keep pace with the evolving demographics of its wonderful town. Our community saw an increase in homelessness as well as limited housing options for families and seniors/individuals with a limited income. Several of the local community leaders took it upon themselves to research the issue and gained the support from the Borough of Phoenixville to create a task force. The focus of the task force is to create affordable housing options for families and seniors/individuals with a fixed income".

In 2017, several community leaders and residents voiced support for the approval of Steel Town Village which was an affordable housing community, as well as the general need for affordable housing throughout the borough.