Circle City is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

(CDP) in

Maricopa County Maricopa County () is a county in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census the population was 4,420,568, or about 62% of the state's total, making it the fourth-most populous county in the United States and ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

, United States, located northwest of Surprise on

U.S. Route 60 U.S. Route 60 is a major east–west United States highway, traveling from southwestern Arizona to the Atlantic Ocean coast in Virginia. The highway's eastern terminus is in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where it is known as General Booth Bouleva ...

. As of the 2020 census, the population was 522.

History

The development was built in the late 1950s by The Workmen's Circle, a Jewish fraternal and mutual aid society with roots in the

socialist movement The history of socialism has its origins in the Age of Enlightenment and the 1789 French Revolution, along with the changes that brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''The Communist Manifesto'' was written by Karl ...

of the early 20th century. The group created the town as a retirement community for its aging members, but also welcomed anyone over the age of fifty to live in the community. The community welcomed people from all races and religions that were interested a decade before the Fair Housing Act was passed. Ben Schleifer, himself a Jewish immigrant and who created the nearby retirement community of

Youngstown Youngstown is a city in Mahoning County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Ohio, 11th-most populous city in Ohio with a population of 60,068 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Mahoning ...

, was tasked with designing the community.

References

{{authority control Jewish socialism Jews and Judaism in Arizona Socialism in Arizona Unincorporated communities in Maricopa County, Arizona Unincorporated communities in Arizona Census-designated places in Maricopa County, Arizona Census-designated places in Arizona Secular Jewish culture in the United States Yiddish culture in the United States