Don't know if you ever moved but this is certainly a better area than anywhere in CA. We moved from SoCal and other than it being windy and a little hotter than where we were in Moorpark, CA it is better than all the craziness going on over there. I would not recommend Chino Valley but it seems Prescott & Prescott Valley are better for business. We see some homeless people in Prescott but doesn't seem any worse than anywhere else these days. Just went to Lake Tahoe & it is 20 times worse there. Our only problem is the wind. Winters are fabulous here. Good luck in your search.
Patricia | Chino Valley, AZ | Report Abuse

Have you ever actually thought about what causes that "homeless problem"? In Prescott, we rustics have a different term for it: people. Their plight is caused in great part by economic inequality. Long-time Prescott folks (working people lucky to make $25,000 a year; blue-collar retirees who've never heard of a "portfolio;" vets out of the big VA hospital) become homeless when housing and cost-of-living costs go *obscenely* out of control. In Prescott, this is largely due to people migrating from what are the essentially foreign economies of California, New York, and select parts of the Midwest to supersize their disposable incomes and demand bigger, better, newer housing (just like on HGTV!). As one realtor put it, "[Californians moving to AZ] go from coach to business class." And Prescottonians who used to fly biz class? Can no longer even afford to fly. (Ridin' the pooch. Apt metaphor for what's happened to life in Prescott.) Economically unequal migrants to the Prescott area have destroyed affordable housing, sent the cost of living skyrocketing, expect top-tier public services *without paying the requisite taxes*, and are rapidly annihilating the "small-town culture" those realtors love to blog about. As for the unique, once-splendid environment: already gone. SoCal migration in particular transfers the worst development patterns ever conceived onto our delicate ecosystems and vulnerable habitats. Combine all the physical roads and sprawl and light pollution with the "lifestyle" Prescott migrants demand (e.g., pathological consumerism) and in less than a decade you'll find yourself in your Land Rover/Mercedes/Porsche stuck in traffic on a multi-lane superhighway (at a slightly uncomfortable distance from that homeless Prescott College professor begging for change), churning out more pollutants as you stare glassy-eyed at yet another strip of identical crap-filled big-box stores where The Granite Dells used to be. Huh, you'll wonder, how'd Prescott get to be Sacramento? Must've been an act of God. Couldn't have been something I did. Not me. No way. And we're running out of freaking water, whatever your real estate "professional" tells you.
Sharlott | Chino Valley, AZ | Report Abuse

It's Prescott that needs Help!
Sharlott | Chino Valley, AZ | Report Abuse