Here is an aerial photo of the area. It is a housing development west of Phoenix near the White Tank Mountains that has stalled with the economy. The surrounding area is sloped from north to south but the housing lots are relatively flat and mostly graded to drain runoff onto the streets, which is then funneled into a series of mitigation basins throughout the development.
http://www.tartesso.com/aerial_progress.aspx The project is hypothetical for now, and is acting as my thesis design project for architecture school. As it stands, I am proposing a series of cisterns in the mitigation basins that would catch and cover water, and offer a service program (bathrooms, kitchen, tool storage, etc) for those working the surrounding landscape (now the unbuilt housing blocks). I am planning to make a schematic landscape plan using swales and water catchment systems along with plantings to make the landscape productive for the community that does live there, and that is now relying heavily on fossil fuels. The area gets just under 8" of rainfall annually.. Less than a 1/10th on an inch of Rain in June, usually.