Arizona Daily Star is reporting on a special way some Tucsonans have chosen to honor notable community members that have passed. 

In 1997, local police officer Joe Curran sought to memorialize the good deeds of his friend and fellow officer Ralph Alvarez. After stumbling on a map of the Civano community near Houghton and Irvington Roads in Southeast Tucson, he noticed that the streets had not yet been named. So, he reached out to David Case, partner with Civano projects, and the idea was born to name all the streets after notable locals.

To include other community members worthy of having a street named after them, they put out a  city-wide call for suggestions. More than 50 names were suggested and 15 were ultimately chosen. The street names now include Ralph Alvarez (Ralph Alvarez Place), who volunteered at the former Connie Chambers public housing project south of Downtown; George Brookbank (George Brookbank Place), who founded what became the Community Gardens of Tucson in 1990; and John McNair (John McNair Place), who volunteered in repairing rundown Tucson homes.

Civano continues to be a community which strives for “balancing human needs and natural resources,” according to Terrain. The master-planned community has saved 30 percent of the 1,145-acre site for Sonoran Desert land preservation. The community includes 2,600 homes built using sustainable techniques, including straw bales for insulation, water harvesting from the structure’s roof, and thermal mass of the interior walls to help moderate heat extremes.