A Decent Mid-Sized City with Plenty of Sunshine
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11/9/2021
I have lived in Tucson for 15 years, and my parents have lived here since 1985, so I've seen Tucson double in size over that 35-year period. I think many of the reviews I have read on this site are exaggerations that contain some truth but are too extreme. The growth has had positive and negative effects.
Tucson is a decent mid-sized city with a large public research university, a very affordable and extensive community college, several large hospitals, an Air Force base, and a very large military contractor. After that, you have many small businesses, retail centers, and warehouses. Tucson is considered an inland port city. If you are in health care or work in a field that caters to wealthy senior citizens, there are many jobs here. Tucson is a college town, a military town, and a retirement community. It's a place full of contradictions. It has a thriving multi-cultural scene (Western America, Native America, and Mexican) of writers, visual artists, and musicians. We have wonderful resorts, a lot of public tennis courts and both public and private golf courses, and many hiking trails through the beautiful Sonoran Desert. If you love horses, you will be among many like-minded people. If you like guns, you will be among a lot of like-minded people. The downtown has many restaurants and bars, along with a decent convention center, several hotels, several theaters, live music venues, a few museums, and a music hall that features a world-class symphony. I would be remiss if I did not mention that Tucson has active drug-related gang violence on the city's southeast quadrant, and crime is a growing concern here throughout the metro area.
Tucson sits at about 2,300 feet above sea level, but you can drive to Summerhaven in the Catalina Mountains in about 30 minutes (from the base of the mountains) and you'll be above 8,000 feet and temperatures will be 25 to 30 degrees cooler. If you go, don't forget your sunglasses, a hat, plenty of water, and sunscreen. The sun is very intense here, especially at that elevation. The mountains and the desert are very beautiful and colorful here. An abundance of wildlife and a great variety of plants thrive in this desert. The summers are terribly hot; we experience 100-degree-plus days from May through September. Autumn and Spring seem to last about two weeks each, and the Winters are usually pleasant during the days (highs around 65-70) and quite cool at night, sometimes going below freezing. The sun shines 360 days here. We go weeks here without seeing a cloud at times. Sunsets are breathtaking. Half our rain usually falls during the annual monsoon, which is basically July and August. June is the hottest and probably the dryest month (think single-digit relative humidity). Those summer storms can be dramatic and intense, with hundreds of lightning strikes, heavy winds, and downpours that can cause the many washes (usually dry river or creek beds) to overflow, and flooding is common in lower-lying neighborhoods.
In summary, this is a beautiful place to live, but if you are accustomed to forests and grass, you will need to adjust to the surroundings. Unless you are a professor, a research scientist, an educational administrator, or a physician, you will probably have a difficult time finding a job that pays more than $15 to $20 an hour, and many people work in retail, restaurants, bars, nursing homes, a large Amazon warehouse, and at numerous large call centers for less.
I work as an adjunct faculty member for the community college, and my wife is a teacher at a local elementary school. We do OK here, but housing, groceries, and health care are getting more expensive. Like many places in America, the growing disparity between the wealthy and the working poor is depressing and worsening year after year. Tucson is a wonderful place to visit, probably a great place to retire if you can handle the heat, and a pretty average place to find work or have a career. Coming here from working in Washington, D.C., was an eye-opener. But I was tired of the big city that was growing even bigger.
We don't have natural disasters for the most part, although the threat of wildfires is real, and anyone who plans to live here for the next few decades will need to be concerned about water. Water is expensive here, and the Colorado River is drying up. Running your air conditioning nearly continuously from May through September gets expensive too unless you have a small house. You must have an automobile here unless you live in the city center where sideways, bike lanes and buses are available.
It's not horrible here for most people, but it's not paradise either. It's a decent mid-sized city with abundant cultural opportunities, limited career options, excellent restaurants, lots of live music, and a car-dependent transportation situation.
Mark | Tanque Verde, AZ