Used to be the ideal AZ City, now it's a wasteland
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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.
Ray | Mesa, AZ