A town with amazing potential but wasted
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10/18/2013
First I should explain that the town of Prescott, AZ is approximately 10 miles to the west. There is a local snarking at each other as to which town is the best (likely by insecure inhabitants) because there is not much differences between the two. Prescott valley as the name implies is built on a valley between foothills starting in earnest in the 1960's and is relatively flat. It's the homes of upper and lower middle class families. Prescott is located in the foothills which established in 1870's and is home to the retired rich and the impoverished. The end result is that each town has it's balance.
Being high desert Prescott Valley has a wonderful 4 season climate, hot summers in the 80-90's with low humidity but not nearly as hot as the lower altitudes such as Phoenix. Spring and fall are paradise and winter is the occasional light dusting of snow that melts by noon. Kids love it when we get the rarer 1 inch of snow but they have to get out in it before 10AM. Having lived the Chicago area it is a delight to see the crystalline snow covered trees in the morning and equally a delight to drive to work with the windshield and roads melted off. For gardeners there is frustration with the hard pack clay soil and rock, plan on major amendments or hauling in garden soil but zone 7b makes for a wide selection of plants just plan on an irrigation system ahead of time.
Housing is an adequate selection but definitely over priced for the economy. Most homes are site built stick on pads, costs of basements are prohibitive due to the soil/rock. The few with basements are on the side of hills or site built and back filled. Utility costs are moderate due to mild seasons, biggest cost is summer air conditioning. Water and natural gas costs more here than in the Midwest/East. Biggest pay off is that you can live out on your patio April to October, and mosquitos in heavy rain years only in August if you or your neighbors don't dump any water catches in their yard. If you find a home or have money to buy into solar you can utilize our biggest free assest- sunshine.
Prescott Valley continues to grow which I feel is double edged sword. Housing is now sprawling which displaced the beautiful herds of antelope that grazed and played on the edge of town. What was once a 20 minutes trip from one side to the other can now be 45 minutes. The town government shows lack luster leadership as divides its goals between the desire to placate citizens as "small town" but be progressive and bring in business/jobs. The city as managed to develop an Entertainment District which is growing slowly but is growing and the shopping is getting better. The city made a total coup by pulling in and building an event center that stages Sundogs hockey, professional music (some pretty good names in rock and country have come through), and entertainment venues. The town lacks the "mom and pop" stores that lend charm to small towns, but then again this town incorporated in the 60's so does not have a long history. What this town completely lacks is recreation for the very people who make up most of it's population- working middle class. Frustratingly, most activities are geared to the elderly and small children, if your older than 5 but younger than 65 your entertainment will limited and purchased such as shopping and movies. And opportunities to take city or community college classes on pottery, wood working, library classes etc. will all have ended before you get off work on the week days. I will note that this year, 2013, the college had a handful of one day classes on Saturday, in my opinion it's pitiful and a slight to the very people to support this town. The city maintains several parks, some quite nice and some are ridiculous plots of land.
Most of the schools are recently built and I feel the class sizes are bigger than was this web site states. But if solid children's education is what your are looking for then Arizona is not the place, our national ranking is humiliating. One caveat is that the schools are safe and bullying/behaviors are taken seriously and they continue to get stronger on that theme every year. Prescott has a community college with a satellite campus in Prescott Valley, I feel the teaching level is above average and credit costs are a value.
Job opportunities in Prescott Valley are sorely lacking and many people have commented that non degreed women have much more options than men. It seems the professional job market is very small and fluctuates with the economy. The job market as whole presents the biggest challenge and I honestly don't know how people can afford to purchase and maintain homes given the juxtaposed problems of costly housing and lack of jobs.
The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Prescott Valley. The city and state will waste (in my opinion) millions of dollars to put in a 6 lane road (Glassford Hill Road) with a decorative median and then set the speed limit at 35 and that's our fast in town road. The highway 69 which cuts through the town is a blistering 45 MPH and all other roads are 25 or less. The reduced speed combined with the building sprawl takes what feels like forever to get you where you are going. There are few sidewalks in this town, mostly in front of new business buildings and I can only think of one residential street with a sidewalk at this writing. Lack of sidewalks makes the town look shoddy and with the August rains comes the weeds in the driveways and ditches that very few will cut. The town then takes on it own special hillbilly charm that makes your stomach turn when you think that your making mortgage payments on $250,000 home. And that $250,000 home (which is the national equivalent of an $80,000 home) has that special August/September look of a $30,000 home. Heaven help you if you are disabled and in a wheelchair because your "driving" your wheelchair on the road, yes it does happen frequently. The citizens are for the most part law abiding, keep to yourself kind who rarely make fuss or come together to protest discontent and that explains a lot. If there are clichés I haven't seen them, been here 10 years now. They can be judgmental about the oddest things- race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, those topics they could care less about. But whether you are native or a transplant and conservative or liberal will get you far more stares. And the town council will continue to run on "small town ideals" and forgo progressive ideas never seeing that those two can be married and raise this town out of it gangly teenage hood into a mature family oriented hometown.
Looking for Paradise | Prescott Valley, AZ