Sunshine and Warm Weather
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4/9/2009
Moved to Phoenix 3 years ago because I absolutely love the climate. Sunshine is my thing, and I can take the heat, no problem. If that's your thing, you will probably like it too. I came from a really rainy, damp climate (Seattle), which while culturally, socially, economically environmentally and in every other way vastly superior to Phoenix, I decided to make the desert my home. Phoenix in general in comparison is lacking in refinement, intelligence, civility, economic development, all the jobs pay horribly low wages (think call center), the houses are cheap and ugly, and virtually worthless, for the most part, although there are some decent neighborhoods. It's generally flat, brown and dusty everywhere, but there are cool locations not too far away if you want to get out of town. I'm just comparing this to what I know (Seattle and San Francisco) where I've lived before. If you come from like Detroit or some other type of city, you will probably think Phoenix is kind of cool.
The central and downtown areas area under development and it's one area where they get the idea, that you build upon historical buildings and maintain culture, whereas most of Phoenix has the mindset of everything is disposable, and you tear down a building if it is 10 years old and build another disposable cheap building. There are some neat urban developments happening in the central corridor. There's a lot of sprawl in Phoenix metro area, that's of course because the desert expands forever, and people built out and out, for cheap land/housing when the boom was big, with no restraint or nothing to reel it in, realizing that reining in development would help control property values from falling too much. Oh well. I think Phoenix has a great future, and in 20 or 30 years, it will be a cool city. For now it's a great place to get some sun. Or a low paying job or a cheap house.
Barnaby | Indianapolis, IN