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Phoenix isn't depressing, I've been to depressing places. Maybe a little suburban bland, but depressing no. But in terms of freeway planning, upscale shopping malls and lifestyle centers, blond bimbos with fake boobs, and everyone financing their lifestyle. The similarities abound. I stand by my choice, we always used to joke that it was the place people moved when when they couldn't afford LA.
If you take the worst attributes of LA and none of the good ones, you get Phoenix. We passed through last year on our way from LA to Sedona and man...what a depressing place.
I'm guessing you just took the 10 to the 17 and then continued North. If that's true I can maybe see why one could have that impression. If that's all you saw of the Phoenix area you didn't see anything approaching the best areas.
LA doesn't look like the newer suburban developments that you see in Phoenix, though. It's very much post-WWII suburban style development. Single detached Craftsman houses built very close together along a very straight street grid. The commercial boulevards in LA themselves also look vastly different than the newer commercial boulevards you see in newer suburbs.
From that list, Denver fits the bill for me in terms of the built environment. Both LA and Denver were built around the streetcar, and because of that, share similar styles.
San Jose, Phoenix, and even San Diego lack the cultural amenities and big-city feel of LA...other than layout and geography, there really aren't many similarities between those cities and LA. Miami has a similar layout to LA, but also the big-city feel, the diversity, the cultural amenities, and the laid-back beachy lifestyle that resonates most with LA out of any of these cities.
I'm guessing you just took the 10 to the 17 and then continued North. If that's true I can maybe see why one could have that impression. If that's all you saw of the Phoenix area you didn't see anything approaching the best areas.
I've only ever spent a weekend in Phoenix and we stayed in Scottsdale and drove further east and north. You are right in that the more interesting looking stuff is past those freeways. Scottsdale was very new and very suburban but wasn't depressing - sort of like a more-urban Santa Clarita.
However we did drive into Central Phoenix a bit and what it reminded me of was a big-city version of downtown Palm Springs. I didn't see much in Phoenix that reminds me of Los Angeles, only its further-flung exurbs.
I voted for Denver because it has some architectural similarities and like LA grew into a large city during the streetcar era. However I didn't see Miami, which is definitely a better fit in my opinion, especially if we are comparing metro area to metro area. Houston has a few similarities in its multiple high-rise areas and complicated freeway network, but other than that they are not very similar in my opinion - and even in those areas they have differences (Houston's hub-and-spoke freeways vs. LA's grid network and LA's street-oriented high-rise districts vs. Houston's highway-oriented highrise districts).
LA doesn't look like the newer suburban developments that you see in Phoenix, though. It's very much post-WWII suburban style development. Single detached Craftsman houses built very close together along a very straight street grid. The commercial boulevards in LA themselves also look vastly different than the newer commercial boulevards you see in newer suburbs.
From that list, Denver fits the bill for me in terms of the built environment. Both LA and Denver were built around the streetcar, and because of that, share similar styles.
There are neighborhoods right by Reed University in DEN that have the same kind of Craftsman bunaglows that a lot of LA has. It was interesting to see.
I'm guessing you just took the 10 to the 17 and then continued North. If that's true I can maybe see why one could have that impression. If that's all you saw of the Phoenix area you didn't see anything approaching the best areas.
Yes, those are the roads we took. We did stay overnight at a hotel in downtown Phoenix though, and wound up eating at some nearby British pub (it was the only thing open, it being Thanksgiving.) I don't know, the downtown just seemed really small and empty and petered out into suburban style housing and big box centers really quickly. I did notice some cool mid-century modern buildings though. And I will say that it was very clean. Spotless really, compared to LA.
I was told later that Scottsdale is the place to go. Is that true?
Yes, those are the roads we took. We did stay overnight at a hotel in downtown Phoenix though, and wound up eating at some nearby British pub (it was the only thing open, it being Thanksgiving.) I don't know, the downtown just seemed really small and empty and petered out into suburban style housing and big box centers really quickly. I did notice some cool mid-century modern buildings though.
I was told later that Scottsdale is the place to go. Is that true?
Phoenix's downtown is definitely lacking for a city of it's size. Usually unless there's a sporting event it is like a ghost town. Efforts are being made to improve that though. ASU has a downtown campus now and there are some nice hotels and restaurants opening there. In some of the older central neighborhoods you see some signs of gentrification too. It has a long way to go but it's slowly improving. Right now though most people would say that Scottsdale and Tempe still blow downtown Phoenix out of the water when it comes to night life, restaurants, things to do etc.
Yes, those are the roads we took. We did stay overnight at a hotel in downtown Phoenix though, and wound up eating at some nearby British pub (it was the only thing open, it being Thanksgiving.) I don't know, the downtown just seemed really small and empty and petered out into suburban style housing and big box centers really quickly. I did notice some cool mid-century modern buildings though.
I was told later that Scottsdale is the place to go. Is that true?
I've heard Scottsdale is known as the "Miami of the West" due to its vibrant shopping, nightlife, dining, and fashion scene.
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