A great town that still has the magic. - 4/7/2024

As someone that has lived in Chandler nearly my whole life. I understand Chandler has it's fair share of problems in recent decades from affordability to certain areas that have become desolate and just blight. But that is no reason to write off a town as good as Chandler, as all towns go through it's phases from great to decline back to great again. Chandler has been absolutely resilient and is a beloved area for all natives in Arizona, that have lived in the state for decades to where it commands the respect of Phoenix, Mesa, Chandler and even Gilbert Town Council members that visit annually, including those that visit from California. There is also small business owners that are placed with greater emphasis than just your standard franchise, the weather is beautiful and crime is not really much of an issue compared to larger cities and towns. Chandler is a Blue Collar town as a whole much like Gilbert is. With that being said, i can positively agree that Chandler does need some TLC in regards to Transportation and Housing. Transportation needs to be better and be every 15 minutes with Bus Rides, there also should be a Streetcar that heads into Mesa like another user mentioned. While there is plenty of shopping and hospitality, but there is a severe lack of housing and perhaps Mixed Use would be very helpful as a whole for Chandler to retain it's small town feel with 5-10 stories without compromising on it's small town feel by building a giant skysc****r looking really off in a small town like Chandler. I have visited the Chandler Council these last few months and have felt very encouraged by the direction the town is heading in addressing these new challenges i mentioned above to grow smart rather than grow huge and to plan everything out with efficiency in mind than just approving everything and throwing it out there. I do believe Chandler still has the magic, and i would encourage everyone who can no longer live here and are frustrated to have patience as the housing crisis will be behind us one day and those who were priced out will one day be able to live in Chandler again once more.

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Used to be the ideal AZ City, now it's a wasteland - 11/16/2023

I have grown up in Chandler for almost 25 years and left in 2012, used to live near downtown with apartments that were affordable on a minimum wage job, until i could save enough money to get a townhome at 120k with some smart investments in the 85225 area for my child and myself, sold my townhome in 2012 and decided to live near my grandparents until they passed in Downtown Chandler recently. Decided to take a visit and noticed that a lot of the 85225 area and everything else surrounding it is not only more expensive to live in and no longer affordable for starting out until you can own, but it is unaffordable to even live in. A lot of the Metro areas in Arizona have their own set of issues, but not as unique as Chandler that used to have upward mobility for starter families and those who have lived here for decades being priced out unless they work in Intel to afford anything or being a lucky homeowner who has theirs and who cares about everyone else. Chandler desperately needs to work on fixing urban sprawl the car centric infrastructure, housing affordability, prioritizing missing middle with some being built to be market rate/affordable and some to be Workforce housing for minimum wage workers to prevent them from being priced out. mixed use should become a thing, and Chandler should absolutely build a Streetcar feeder after all this is done for the city that eventually goes into Mesa. I know they can do it, and they will but for now i will be rating this city a 2/5 stars when 10 years ago i would have rated it a 4. Chandler really could be a 5 if they implement all of these things.

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Went from great to just ok and declining. - 3/6/2022

I lived here 20 years ago, left to work in a different AZ city and returned four years ago. Unfortunately, the city is on a decline and COVID sped it up. The city is becoming overcrowded and ridiculously expensive. Taxes are going up and angry people keep moving here from other states. Ultimately, that's the problem. People moving here and trying to turn it into what they are running from. Chandler has already lost it's charm. Homes all look the same, no more luscious gardens and no more fun colors. When I left Chandler in 2002, I made $40,000 per year. Came back making $130,000. The homes I could afford were in the same neighborhood I lived in. My house is 200 square foot larger than the house I left I 2002. Homes here sold for $80,000 to 100,000. Now they sell from $410,000 to $500,000. It's just plain sad.

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hot - 7/21/2021

too hot

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Beige, overheated, overpopulated. Mostly indoors. - 4/1/2021

Honestly I've lived in az cities my entire life, I'm getting very tired of it. Chandler, Tempe, Scottsdale, they are all the same! Everything is beige, there's major traffic now, and of course the heat... You ready for 88deg ground water and plowing blacktop with your tires as it melts beneath your car? I thought it was normal to fight heat stroke in sports growing up... pretty sure I have eye damage at 30 too from the bright sun. Everyone also seems angry all the time... I'm pretty sure cause the heat is cooking them. There's a major liberal wave too, so even the politic side is lost on these cities. "Don't tread on me" attitude by most, even though they seem to be liberal... hhhweird. Be sure to put a skull sticker on your mall crawler to fit in ????. Small towns are the way to go here, like Pine, Payson etc. Maricopa is not like it was growing up... The growth has really taken it over too much. It has really affected the weather and temperature levels (no more weekly summer monsoons and it feels 10 degrees hotter) Ok I have to include at least some pros: Very professional utilities. No mold in houses Sporting events all year Nice sunrises/sets? (Caused by dust polution) Straight summary, if this place didn't have AC it would have 1/30 of the population.

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Better options nearby - check out Gilbert or Tempe - 2/24/2021

Chandler is not on par with nearby suburbs. It's not the best suburban area to choose here. There are some rough areas as alluded to by other reviews. What they don't tell you is how unsafe it can be in the nice areas like the one I live in right now, Ocotillo area. I was robbed in broad daylight by a man who pulled a gun on me near a local grocery store in what is supposed to be an upscale neighborhood. I understand crime can happen anywhere, but I've been hearing troubling news about how crime continues to get worse in Chandler all over, not just the bad areas. Chandler seems to be on the decline and it's abundantly clear in zip codes like 85224-85226. It brings the whole city down based on my experience living here. It's like they tried to build a good city around a bad area. There is also a lot of hidden racism too. As a white person, I've never been on the receiving end of any of that, but I know of a lot of people who make disparaging remarks about minorities especially people of Mexican descent. There have been several instances where I was directly speaking to someone or overhearing a conversation where a person would suggest not mingling with "Mexicans" or avoiding the "barrios" and other such things.

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Clean, mostly safe suburb, great food options - 1/10/2021

I spent 4 years in Chandler, both in the central and southern (south of 202) parts. Central Chandler is the more “modest” (ghetto to some) part of the city for sure. My husband and I had just moved to central Chandler from the midwest and within one month, had a weapon pulled on us from a crazy black dude in the Fry’s parking lot one Saturday night. Great (and accurate) introduction to Phoenix in general. Once we moved to the southern part of the city, our opinion of Chandler changed for the better pretty quickly. In general, Chandler has a great food culture and a decent amount of things to do. You don’t really need to leave Chandler for all your needs unless you want to venture out a bit. The mall is nice, housing is reasonable but getting higher because of Californians moving here in droves. But overall, it’s a nice, reasonably safe city if you avoid the questionable areas. Downtown is fun at night and great food options, granted you don’t stray too much off the beaten path into the barrio nearby. The buildings and homes were built within the last 20-30 years for the most part, and landscaping is obviously important to the city, so it’s pretty clean too. Just too crowded for my tastes anymore. If I had to move back to the Phoenix area again, I’d head back to Chandler or even Gilbert.

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Amazing city Innovation Community & Opportunity - 9/4/2020

We have lived here for 20 years and love it

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Not a place that has a long shelf life - 4/10/2020

There are better options in the Valley. Chandler is turning into a ghetto area day by day. It reminds me of how Mesa used to be about thirty to forty years ago before the decline started to happen. Just go spend some time there. The mall is dead and the ghetto areas started spreading further out from the older neighborhoods. The same is happening in Chandler, but most people are too lazy or inconsiderate of the long term to concern themselves with that. People here don't really care about the community. They are usually 30 something or 40 something year olds who just need an affordable place to raise their children and then who cares what happens to this city after 40 years. At that point the housing stock becomes old and outdated and respectable people stop residing in them. Part of this decline is perpetuated by the city's negligence. The first thing that points to this is the limited funding that Chandler has started to implement in the older neighborhoods north of the 202 freeway, without informing the public. They sneakily pass these measures and I've been witness to this for a few decades now. If you carefully look over the recent budget proposals, the city has already implemented cost cutting measures in the neighborhoods in places like Ray Road and Cooper, which are not even that old. The reason for this is that the city has a funding problem, despite the sterling AAA rating they keep touting (keep in mind that AAA companies were defaulting on loans back in 2008...). They have expanded the city limits so far out from where the city originally started and they do not have enough funds to fund projects in North Chandler on a normal basis. The only effective solution is to then cut funding to provide necessary funds for the growing southern area. As a long time resident of Chandler, I saw this same stupidity lead to the decline of the downtown area and the housing areas near it. The downtown area has gotten a bit better on Arizona Avenue, but just a short walk in any direction off of the main gentrified area, and you can see the ramifications of the city's poor management and leadership. It's a shame that very few people have brought this up or has called the city out for this gross misappropriation of funds. While cities like Tempe, Mesa, and Scottsdale have learned from seeing aging neighborhoods and implemented measures like maintenance projects and urban renewal initiatives in those neighborhoods, Chandler has done nothing other than some minor improvements in the downtown core. Like I said earlier, a simple walk or drive away from those small improved areas, and you will see how bad the areas still are and more importantly, how public utilities and roads are in bad shape. It's a shame because better leadership and proactive focus on keeping things in good order from the beginning, would have prevented many of the problems that you see now.

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Love Chandler - 6/30/2019

I moved to Chandler in 2003 from Chicago area. My quality of life went up substantially immediately. Great neighbors, community focused, excellent schools, affordable housing, low crime rates and low taxes. Great employment opportunities and I believe the City of Chandler has done a great job around infrastructure for businesses and future growth. Chandler is positioned to be a booming community for the foreseeable future. Yes, the summers are hot but if they weren't half of the country would live here. Perspective.

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Poorly maintained older areas and declining safety - 5/6/2019

Chandler is a fairly low end suburb. Central Chandler is really run down and neglected by the city. City officials have a racist attitude towards lower income Hispanics. Chandler PD illegally arrested legal citizens who appeared Hispanic if they weren’t able to present immigration papers on the spot. In addition to that, all money from neighborhoods with a significant Hispanic population has been diverted away from them and been put towards predominantly white neighborhoods. Public utilities in central Chandler outside of the downtown district are in complete disrepair. All correspondence about these issues is completely ignored by the city help line or email.

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Comfortable in the summer - 12/28/2018

The summer here in the Chandler/Phoenix area between June and September is very similar Temperature wise to the San Francisco Bay area in the Summer. Has much in common with the Northern Oregon coast during the summer months. Very low humidity and comfortable.

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AZ is a trap! - 5/29/2018

AZ will suck you in, dehydrate you and spit you out. Most people come to the land of sunshine thinking that it is going to be a great place to live because it is affordable ...and then they leave Arizona is a transient state, people come and go. I have seen so many people move from the Midwest thinking the “Valley of the Sun” will be a great place to live. Eventually, they long for their summers and falls and they’re feeling of community and long to get back home. I feel like this town is filled with angry people - miserable from the heat. Save your money and move to San Diego if you want sunshine.

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Chandler - 3/1/2016

I like my town because there's one really great coffee shop. I don't like my town because there are no drive-in theatres anywhere.

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Arizona - 3/1/2016

I love my hometown!

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New to Arizona and Absolutely LOVING IT!! - 6/23/2015

We just relocated to this beautiful area to get away from the seemingly endless winter of Cleveland. Two years there was two years too long, and two years of our missing this fantastic region of America. Sure, it's hot, but it is the kind of heat that doesn't weigh a body down, like the sweltering humidity that comes with East Coast living. The crime rate is low, the housing is very affordable (just watch the energy bill!), the people are friendly, and everything is so conveniently located...Good Lord, we should have made this move years ago!

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My Personal Opinion of Chandler - 8/11/2013

Going to try to be fair here for the benefit of people considering moving here. Something I love you may hate, and something I hate may be a plus for you. This is just one person's opinion! Some POSITIVES: Chandler is a reasonably priced place to live. Compared to other places it is a safe place to live. I can go walking around and night and not feel the slightest bit unsafe. And of course the weather never gets really cold here. In grocery stores, Wal-Mart, etc. people have good manners and are, for the most part, polite. NEGATIVES: If you have a strong reaction to visuals please ask yourself if you like the colours orange, peach, and brown. I personally do not so most of Phoenix and Chandler is an absolute eyesore to me. What most people see as a posh looking home I see as a big ugly orange thing. Nor am I keen on desert landscape or anything bronze. (You guessed it, came to Chandler due to husband not by choice.) I have lived in London, Chicago, and a small town in north Georgia... London (and all of England) is my favourite place on the planet and I appreciated Chicago as well. Chandler, or perhaps I should say Phoenix and the area in general, could not be more unlike London or Chicago. While driving around much of it feels like a "nothing" place. Big wide roads with endless identical strip malls (all brownish or orange) and they're so far off the road. There's no character, nothing interesting to see except the occasionally hideous orange or brown building, and everything is landscaped to death with this annoying peach colour rock. THE PEOPLE: Most have been polite that I've met, but compared to other places there's a huge amount of "flakey" behavior. Workers have tried to scam, people don't show up when they say they will or extremely late... I know you could find some of this anywhere but it seems more prevalent here than anywhere else I've lived. Did I mention the heat? If you don't like heat better not come here. I won't complain about that though because anyone thinking of moving here should know in advance this is desert... it gets hot. Duh! There's a positive to the heat.... weather is good most of the year. Still, it's too bright for me and I wait til the sun sets to take a walk. Also if grass, greenery and trees are important to you might not be the best area. Chandler in a nutshell: Safe place to live that's not unaffordable for most but hideous if you don't like southwest style colours and new orange and peach cookie cutter homes.

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Unsafe for people.... - 8/3/2013

Chandler has a basically racist attitude towards anyone of color, whether you are Mexican-American, African-American, or any color American and/or immigrants. Law enforcement officers will arrest anyone of color regardless if they have done nothing wrong if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Every friend/relative I know who are upstanding citizens in nearby cities have visited Chandler and either gotten a warning or been wrongly accused and arrested for some fake story or a rumored story that was done by a Caucasian-American. It is an unsafe city for anyone of color but it is okay for any Caucasian-Americans from the old days like our governor is.

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Hot Summers - 4/26/2013

The summers in Chandler are more humid, hotter, and lasting longer.

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Hi - 5/22/2012

Yes

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