Help!! Ticky-tacky houses all in a row! (Phoenix, Apache Junction: apartment, neighborhoods)

[ready2go]

I need some help. Recently took a second trip down to Phoenix area with the thought of relocating and did a home($185-$275k) search. My realtor was fantastic and drove me around for an entire day looking at homes from Apache Junction, Queen Creek and Maricopa. Terrific guy.

At the end of it I was pretty depressed. House after house built in endless rows as far as the eye could see on tiny little walled-in lots with little to no vegetation. These are "developments", not neighborhoods!! I wanted to move out west for some clean air, some elbow-room and views... not to see 20 roofs and the top 20 feet of the Superstition Mountains from my back yard.

Is there any place around the Phoenix area within allowable commuting distance that doesn't feature this graveyard development style? For less than a million bucks? I love the area but not this rampant, soulless development. Where is the old west?

[Ponderosa]

It's pretty naive to expect to find the "wild west" in a city of 3-4 million people. The consolation is that the wild west is just outside the urban boundaries in the form of national forests, and BLM and state lands.

[sablebaby]

You're not going to find it here, I'm sorry to say. With our growth, it's crazy to think you're going to find it. We have to fit a lot of people in a certain size area. If you didn't have to commute for work, you could find what you want, however probably NOT in your price range.

The old west has been gone for YEARS! We are a BIG ever-growing city!!!

[irwin]

Originally Posted by ready2go

I need some help. Recently took a second trip down to Phoenix area with the thought of relocating and did a home($185-$275k) search. My realtor was fantastic and drove me around for an entire day looking at homes from Apache Junction, Queen Creek and Maricopa. Terrific guy.

At the end of it I was pretty depressed. House after house built in endless rows as far as the eye could see on tiny little walled-in lots with little to no vegetation. These are "developments", not neighborhoods!! I wanted to move out west for some clean air, some elbow-room and views... not to see 20 roofs and the top 20 feet of the Superstition Mountains from my back yard.

Is there any place around the Phoenix area within allowable commuting distance that doesn't feature this graveyard development style? For less than a million bucks? I love the area but not this rampant, soulless development. Where is the old west?

Arizona is all track housing. There are no real neighborhoods out here.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by irwin

Arizona is all track housing. There are no real neighborhoods out here.

The word is "tract" not "track". And Arizona is NOT all tract housing we've got mobiles and even some mud hogans. The cities have many tract developments as do all growing cities today. Big deal.

[ready2go]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

It's pretty naive to expect to find the "wild west" in a city of 3-4 million people. The consolation is that the wild west is just outside the urban boundaries in the form of national forests, and BLM and state lands.

Not looking for the Ponderosa(-; just a small house on a lot that doesn't abut my neighbors living room. Perhaps it is naive to believe that a county or city would seek to preserve the very qualities that made it beautiful and livable. Seems like government and city fathers are more interested in money and revenue than quality of life. Sad commentary on our future.

I guess I'll start looking elsewhere.

[ibarrio]

Find a home on a corner lot in which the first owner paid for a premium lot(larger).

[jlhct]

Originally Posted by ready2go

Not looking for the Ponderosa(-; just a small house on a lot that doesn't abut my neighbors living room. Perhaps it is naive to believe that a county or city would seek to preserve the very qualities that made it beautiful and livable. Seems like government and city fathers are more interested in money and revenue than quality of life. Sad commentary on our future.

I guess I'll start looking elsewhere.

What about the older parts of Phoenix where the houses were built in the 60-70's? their lots seem to be bigger than a lot of the new housing

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by ready2go

Not looking for the Ponderosa(-; just a small house on a lot that doesn't abut my neighbors living room. Perhaps it is naive to believe that a county or city would seek to preserve the very qualities that made it beautiful and livable. Seems like government and city fathers are more interested in money and revenue than quality of life. Sad commentary on our future.

I guess I'll start looking elsewhere.

Well, I know how you feel. I hate those puny lots they have today. And things are made worse by the McMansions they pack on the lots today, too.

Don't think you will have a lot of luck elsewhere though either - at least not in a big city. I am just back from a trip to Tulsa and I stopped to look at some new sub-divisions. Same builders as here, same style of houses with cosmetic changes to the outside to fit the area, and the same tiny lots. Better prices, though. In Seattle the houses are so close in the new tract areas, I don't think you could walk between some of them. I suppose if we still had 8-10K tract lots like 25 years ago, the sprawl would be halfway to LA instead of where it is.

Bad as it is, it beats living in an apartment in my book.

[vegaspilgrim]

Originally Posted by ready2go

I wanted to move out west for some clean air, some elbow-room and views... not to see 20 roofs and the top 20 feet of the Superstition Mountains from my back yard.

That's a persistant, age-old myth about the American west. Yes, there is amazing natural scenery (rock formations, mainly) here, and we do have CLEARer skies than the eastern US-- but not CLEANer. Some of the worst air quality in the nation is in this region: Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, etc all have bad pollution-- especially in the winter. It's not just a recent thing that can be blamed on urban sprawl and cars. I've seen pictures of LA covered in smog that were taken in the 1910s. This is an extremely dry, dusty, fragile region to begin with... most of those cities I mentioned are shaped like giant dust bowls. It doesn't take much to screw up the natural landscape.