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I really wouldn't call Mesa "dense" at all. It's pretty much 100% suburban. No real core. Single family tract homes and big suburban apartment complexes. And then there's a massive chunk of East Mesa that's all trailer parks. Largest concentration of trailer parks in the nation, if I'm not mistaken.
Mesa fills out it's political boundaries better than Phoenix does, making the numbers look better on paper, but more dense than central Phoenix? No way.
If Phoenix were just central Phoenix, and not covering the other 400 sq mi people would have a completely different opinion of it altogether. I'm not saying Mesa is dense but by comparison it's not the poster child for waste either.
Kingman feels like something out of a David Lynch movie, whereas Bullhead City, being home to all the Laughlin casinos workers, has more of a dime-a-dozen, depressed working class feel to it.
It's hard to say which is worse.
Yikes!
As a huge David Lynch fan, I'm not so sure about that. Maybe one of Lynch's nightmare landscapes, like Big Tuna in "Wild At Heart", but my main problem with Kingman lies in the context of your first paragraph. It's a concentration of uneducated, backwards, hostile xenophobes that only seems to exist as a low-cost, dead-end gathering of people who broke down on their way to either L.A. or Vegas, and just gave up on life and stayed. Lots of methed-out biker hillbillies missing teeth. I know that's a popular stereotype for any small, impoverished town in America, but in Kingman it actually applies. We're talking about Timothy McVeigh's hometown here.
Bullhead is definitely no paradise, but it's still a couple of notches up from Kingman.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mjlo
If Phoenix were just central Phoenix, and not covering the other 400 sq mi people would have a completely different opinion of it altogether. I'm not saying Mesa is dense but by comparison it's not the poster child for waste either.
Right, but it still has no core. At least Phoenix sort of has an inner city. Mesa doesn't.
Right, but it still has no core. At least Phoenix sort of has an inner city. Mesa doesn't.
There is an identifiable downtown core in Mesa, it's centered around Main St. Between Alma School and Stapley. It has actual mid-rises and institutional buildings along with some hotels. It feels even slightly urban It is also the eastern end of the light rail line. As cities in the Valley go, it has by far the weakest core, but a core none the less.
There is an identifiable downtown core in Mesa, it's centered around Main St. Between Alma School and Stapley. It has actual mid-rises and institutional buildings along with some hotels. It feels even slightly urban It is also the eastern end of the light rail line. As cities in the Valley go, it has by far the weakest core, but a core none the less.
Yeah, I've been to downtown Mesa many times. I worked at the Nile for a while. Sorry, but it's not even slightly "urban". It's nice, but not a trace of urbanity. The only... and I mean ONLY places in AZ I found to have even a modicum of urbanity was the area just North of downtown Phoenix, along Roosevelt between 7th Ave and 7th St, and bits and pieces along Central Ave North to Camelback. Other than that, maybe 4th Ave near downtown Tucson. That's really about it. Even Tempe approximates something closer to "urban" than Mesa does.
Sorry, I'm really not trying to be insulting here. Just telling the truth.
Ohio - Youngstown, occasionally Toledo and Akron
Indiana - Gary
California - Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, Bakersfield, and to a lesser extent, Sacramento. Essentially, the Central Valley.
I'd say Erie for Pennsylvania because I don't think it gets much attention or thought about much in other parts of the state, it was founded and settled by New England and Upstate New Yorkers not people from the Mid-Atlantic, and it is a Great Lakes city. Erie wasn't even originally part of PA until 1792 I believe when it was give to the state from New York so we could have a shore and port along Lake Erie.
I heard about the Mormons, but they didn't bother me (nor did I see them) when I was there this summer. They weren't even conspicuous by their absence.
Also, I'm not sure why anybody would be bothered by trailer parks (I spent much of my time there in one, it was fairly deserted, as most of its residents are Canadian snowbirds, per my guest) or lack of urbanity. Mesa is a suburban city, why expect it to be urban? Culturally, the entire Phoenix area reminded me a lot of my native Inland Empire (LA/OC's punching bag).
I heard about the Mormons, but they didn't bother me (nor did I see them) when I was there this summer. They weren't even conspicuous by their absence.
Also, I'm not sure why anybody would be bothered by trailer parks (I spent much of my time there in one, it was fairly deserted, as most of its residents are Canadian snowbirds, per my guest) or lack of urbanity. Mesa is a suburban city, why expect it to be urban? Culturally, the entire Phoenix area reminded me a lot of my native Inland Empire (LA/OC's punching bag).
I know I never said anything about being "bothered" by trailer parks, even though if you were to ask me what my opinion of them is, I'd tell you I'm not particularly fond of them. I only brought it up to illustrate a point, which is that Mesa really isn't a dense or urban city. Call me crazy, but I don't equate RV parks with urbanity.
Española is a very interesting town though. It is majority Hispanic but contrary to most places in America where you have a lot of recent immigrants, people in Española have been there for several generations, they are Hispanic but also very American.
I hear that they family feuds going back several generations. The town has a lot of history if you look beyond the surface but it is very seedy.
It seems like a lot of people have been stuck there for generations but never leave, it is a poor town but it has an interesting history, the lowrider capital of the world
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It is also the eastern end of the light rail line. As cities in the Valley go, it has by far the weakest core, but a core none the less.
