Kingman AZ? Is it really that horrible? (house, crime)

[sierraAZ]

Originally Posted by FunkyPioneer

You couldn't pay me enough to live in Kingman,

C'mon now, everybody's got a price. If somebody pays me enough to travel half of the time, I'm moving to Kingman!

[kdog]

Greetings from Kingman. By way of some background, we previously lived in Rockland County, NY for three years. Prior to that, we were in Silicon Valley for 20 years. I actually grew up outside of Boston, MA. Suffice to say, we've been around. So far, we absolutely love living in Kingman!

The good:
* Gorgeous scenery and geography. Can't get enough of it.
* Great weather. Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect.
* Cost of living. We're laughing all the way to the bank on the low cost of living here.
* People. We really like the folks we've met here. A lot of them are transplants like us, but others were born here. Goes to show you there are great people everywhere.
* No Traffic. It's great to be able to drive across town and not get stuck in traffic.

The bad:
* Shopping, or the lack of it. We have to travel 90 minutes to Vegas to get to a good shopping mall, or 40 minutes to Laughlin. Actually, that's not that different than Stony Point, NY where we used to live!
* Restaurants, of the lack of them. Actually, there are a few good ones, and both the shopping and food situations are getting better all the time. There's a lot of recent growth, both in housing, and the services to support them. Plus there's Home Depot and Walmart, Staples, Kmart (ugh), so you can always get the bare necessities. Thanks heaven's for Amazon.com!

Some other tidbits.
Schools:
We have young kids in elementary school, and we picked our neighborhood to be in the best school district (Hualapai.) The school is very good. However, we understand the city high school isn't that good. Fortunately, there are other alternatives if we decide to stay here when the kids get that old. Extracurricular activities are here as well. The dance and gymnastics academy blows the one we had in NY out of the water. We've tried two different summer camps for the kids here and they love them both.

Drugs and bad neighborhoods. Show me a town that doesn't have a bad neighborhood and drugs, and I'll show you somebody with a serious case of denial. Try east Palo Alto, CA. Crack houses and shootings within a mile of multi-million dollar homes and Stanford University. East Oakland, East San Jose. (Why's it always the east side that's messed up?) Even worse, move to any big city in America. Kingman is no worse than anywhere else.

Drugs? How's one to know? Nobody's offering me any. Honestly, I don't see it. I see a lot of hard working folks, both blue collar and white collar, living side by side. Of course we may be sheltered from the seedier side of Kingman because we bought in a new neighborhood. I guess if you move into a trailer park, your experience might be different. Again, how is that different than anywhere else? For anybody that says there are too many crack addicts, I say quit hanging out at Walmart at night! LOL!

City Government. Well, they just fired Paul Beecher, the good-old-boy city manager, so things are looking up! The people spoke, the government listened. How cool is that.

Kingman rocks. I'm new to the forum, but I'll be sticking around to answer any questions.

Cheers,
Kdog

[sheena]

Originally Posted by kdog

Greetings from Kingman. By way of some background, we previously lived in Rockland County, NY for three years. Prior to that, we were in Silicon Valley for 20 years. I actually grew up outside of Boston, MA. Suffice to say, we've been around. So far, we absolutely love living in Kingman!

The good:
* Gorgeous scenery and geography. Can't get enough of it.
* Great weather. Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect.
* Cost of living. We're laughing all the way to the bank on the low cost of living here.
* People. We really like the folks we've met here. A lot of them are transplants like us, but others were born here. Goes to show you there are great people everywhere.
* No Traffic. It's great to be able to drive across town and not get stuck in traffic.

The bad:
* Shopping, or the lack of it. We have to travel 90 minutes to Vegas to get to a good shopping mall, or 40 minutes to Laughlin. Actually, that's not that different than Stony Point, NY where we used to live!
* Restaurants, of the lack of them. Actually, there are a few good ones, and both the shopping and food situations are getting better all the time. There's a lot of recent growth, both in housing, and the services to support them. Plus there's Home Depot and Walmart, Staples, Kmart (ugh), so you can always get the bare necessities. Thanks heaven's for Amazon.com!

Some other tidbits.
Schools:
We have young kids in elementary school, and we picked our neighborhood to be in the best school district (Hualapai.) The school is very good. However, we understand the city high school isn't that good. Fortunately, there are other alternatives if we decide to stay here when the kids get that old. Extracurricular activities are here as well. The dance and gymnastics academy blows the one we had in NY out of the water. We've tried two different summer camps for the kids here and they love them both.

Drugs and bad neighborhoods. Show me a town that doesn't have a bad neighborhood and drugs, and I'll show you somebody with a serious case of denial. Try east Palo Alto, CA. Crack houses and shootings within a mile of multi-million dollar homes and Stanford University. East Oakland, East San Jose. (Why's it always the east side that's messed up?) Even worse, move to any big city in America. Kingman is no worse than anywhere else.

Drugs? How's one to know? Nobody's offering me any. Honestly, I don't see it. I see a lot of hard working folks, both blue collar and white collar, living side by side. Of course we may be sheltered from the seedier side of Kingman because we bought in a new neighborhood. I guess if you move into a trailer park, your experience might be different. Again, how is that different than anywhere else? For anybody that says there are too many crack addicts, I say quit hanging out at Walmart at night! LOL!

City Government. Well, they just fired Paul Beecher, the good-old-boy city manager, so things are looking up! The people spoke, the government listened. How cool is that.

Kingman rocks. I'm new to the forum, but I'll be sticking around to answer any questions.

Cheers,
Kdog

It's those cons like shopping that are just not a match for me. I'm sure my husband wouldn't mind. I can see where you are enjoying the lack of traffic though.

[rambrush]

Welcome aboard KDOG!
another great post on Kingman.
Yep city hall is improving now to get rid of the rest of the good ol boy newtwork team.
We just won't tell anyone about how it cools down at night so quick and the great sunsets.

[ArizonaBear]

Originally Posted by rambrush

Welcome aboard KDOG!
another great post on Kingman.
Yep city hall is improving now to get rid of the rest of the good ol boy newtwork team.
We just won't tell anyone about how it cools down at night so quick and the great sunsets.

To be honest; my biggest gripe against Kingman weather is that it is windy a lot---------which admittedly keeps the air clean.

Both sides of the same coin.

[rambrush]

Hey whats not to love, 6 months the wind blows out of the north the other 6 it comes out of the south west.

[kdog]

Originally Posted by rambrush

Welcome aboard KDOG!
another great post on Kingman.
Yep city hall is improving now to get rid of the rest of the good ol boy newtwork team.
We just won't tell anyone about how it cools down at night so quick and the great sunsets.

Hey, thanks Rambrush! You're right about the amazing sunsets. I'm out on the back porch almost every night with a glass of wine, just watching the sun go down over the Cerbat mountains. Then you get silhouette of the mountain range against the orange glow of the retreating sun for the next hour. Just wonderful.

And yeah, it IS windy out here. Ain't that the truth. You pretty much need to invest in cast iron lawn chairs so they don't blow away!

[SummersEve]

Welcome KDog!

That wa sa great post! You and Rambrush and Arizona Bear are honest and I can tell you 3 really love the area and hate when people bash it for no reason. That's great for people like me who are trying to get to the bottom of it.

Also, I met Gemmy1 who has been great helping me with honest answers,etc.

Good luck to you and thanks for joing this discussion and bringing your honesty to the table



It looks pretty and I am hoping to get out there for a closer look in Sept/Oct.

[sierraAZ]

Originally Posted by SummersEve

Welcome KDog!

That wa sa great post! You and Rambrush and Arizona Bear are honest and I can tell you 3 really love the area and hate when people bash it for no reason.

And what makes you believe and particularly be sure that people bash an area for no reason...? What exactly is their vested interest in it? It certainly eludes me.

[Trump]

Quoting the from the Kingman Daily Miner; "... hope when Beecher leaves, he takes these dang flies with him. They're just vicious this year." This is the first I heard of a fly problem in Kingman. What gives?