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Its an awful broad question you ask? So much depends upon your situation. Each of these cities is different in nature with the sole thing in common being they are all outside suburbs of the Phoenix Metro area.
Beyond that....
AZ City is by far the smallest of them all...large lots with VERY inexpensive houses, but you have to go into Casa Grande for ANYTHING you need as there is not even a supermarket in town. Im not saying this is bad, some people like the rural nature etc., just this is what AZ City is. Its about an hour drive into Pheonix from AZ City.
Queen Creek (or the Pinal County portion which just changed its name to San Tan Village or something) has the most population right now at about 70K+, but the infrastructure is still far behind what it needs to be for that size and with the housing slump and accompanying drop in revenues to the county govt, it might be slower than hoped to get it completed. Also, SOME (not me personally) worry that with all the foreclosures here (there are TONS of em) that the "class" of people that live there may be slightly less desirable, a la many of the homes being bought by investors and rented out, and the people who do buy to live in are lower income. Since there are no good roads (yet) to get out of this area, its about 45 mins to downtown Phx. This area right now is really just one big mass of huge subdivisions, but eventually will catch up with itself.
Maricopa is the closest drive of the three to Phoenix. Its about 35 mins with good traffic, although some would complain that there is only one major road in and out and if there is a crash, things get ugly quickly traffic wise. As with QC this area is just now getting developed and shopping and infrastructure is behind, (Population in 2000 was 5000 people and is 35K now!), although the new WalMart did just open up and there are some other projects in the works. Lots of very inexpensive houses here.
I compared all three of these cities (as well as Florence) last year when I was looking to buy, and although the situation is a little different now economy wise etc, the basic factors were the same then as now. In the end, I bought in Casa Grande. For me drive was not a factor (I work from home), and Casa Grande was the most developed with the full service New Mall already here, the hospital already built, all the big box stores and most of the restaraunts already here, and close freeway access to both I 10 and I 8. Its about 10% more expensive here than those other places, but still about 20% less than up in the Phx metro. Of course I had some family here and that is what put me over the top, but I still probably would chosen CG even if that wasnt the case.
There are LOTS of threads on C-D about all of these cities. Just search for the city name and you ll get alot of information. Again, so much depends on what YOU are looking for.
Hope this helps.
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AZ City, QC or Maricopa
Moved from Tucson to the AZ section...
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