East Coast cities vs. Suburban Sprawl (Phoenix, Scottsdale: skyscrapers, real estate, condos)

[nickluva]

Originally Posted by Greatday

Many non native Phoenicans fail to realize the impact of migration patterns of the increasing population - many (certainly not all) come from hi density populated areas - and the one thing they DO NOT WANT is to live in "hi density populated areas" such as they had "back home" - hence the demand to spread OUT rather than UP -

First off the majority of people who move to Arizona DON'T move here because they want to get away from high density areas. They come here because it's AFFORDABLE and it has some decent paying jobs. They either come here because it's either cheaper than most big cities or it's more out here for them than back in their small hometown. So why not build up instead of build out? Building out destroys the beauty of the place and it will look no better than "back home" as you put it. What do you want Phoenix to stretch out all the way to the Grand Canyon or Mexico??? Really how much room do you wanna take up???

[Greatday]

Originally Posted by nickluva

First off the majority of people who move to Arizona DON'T move here because they want to get away from high density areas. They come here because it's AFFORDABLE and it has some decent paying jobs. They either come here because it's either cheaper than most big cities or it's more out here for them than back in their small hometown. So why not build up instead of build out? Building out destroys the beauty of the place and it will look no better than "back home" as you put it. What do you want Phoenix to stretch out all the way to the Grand Canyon or Mexico??? Really how much room do you wanna take up???

It was generally accepted years ago that Phoenix and Tucson would "touch" - that a new Airport, near Eloy, would be built and that Sky Harbor would be a satellite.

That the eastern boundaries of the valley would be Florence and Gila Bend would become a "bedroom" community

Those predictions (made around 1950) are coming to be - albeit sooner than some believed they would -

The valley will take up as much room as it needs. There will continue to be resistence to becoming a hi-rise city ala NYC/Chicago/LA - that is not to say there will not be hi rises built (there is, and has been a proposal to build a 100+ story building at Central and Indian School for some time) -

But, to have the high density residential like the cities mentioned (and others) is not on the books - and will not be for the foreseeable future IMO

[londonbarcelona]

Originally Posted by nickluva

First off the majority of people who move to Arizona DON'T move here because they want to get away from high density areas. They come here because it's AFFORDABLE and it has some decent paying jobs. They either come here because it's either cheaper than most big cities or it's more out here for them than back in their small hometown. So why not build up instead of build out? Building out destroys the beauty of the place and it will look no better than "back home" as you put it. What do you want Phoenix to stretch out all the way to the Grand Canyon or Mexico??? Really how much room do you wanna take up???

I think that eventually they will be forced to build UP because most of Arizona land is owned by the Indians. Unless they start to sell the land-- which seems to me to be unlikely.

[cevett]

No, population density makes a city feel big.. Not high rises.. L.A. is a perfect example.. It's a spread out mess with no growth boundaries.. It's a giant suburb, sprawling on and on and on..

And you're wrong about population growth. NYC is still the largest growing city in the United states in raw numbers. Over 200,000 people have been moving to New York a year.

[cevett]

Originally Posted by heatwaveaz

So a city is large by the number of high rises it has...talk about insanity. Is LA small too because it's downtown is small? LA is more desirable than any city on the east coast including NY as evidence by the growth rate and cost of living. So your argument is shot down by that fact. I mean it only happens to be the second biggest city in the country but I'm sure you will argue it feels smaller than Philadelphia too. High rises don't make a city by any means. If Phoenix took all the offices and corporations it has spread out throught its suburbs and concentrated them in downtown, our downtown would dwarf yours. Philadelphia is a dump of city. New York is a real city. Philadelphia is old. Who cares if it has high rises if they are old, abandoned and ugly. There is absoutely nothing to do in Philadelphia and the nightlife and bar scene is better in the valley than the city of Philadelphia. I went to the best Philly had to offer and it paled in comparison to old town Scottsdale. Everyone in Philly wants to take the train to NYC because Philly's downtown is awful. Trust me, I will take some of the chain restaurants we have over the ghetto crack houses and shanty crime ridden holes you call restaurants in your city. The food is terrible there aside from the cheesesteaks. The bars are tiny. The women are pasty and fat. Philadelphia's downtown looks a lot smaller than San Franscisco, Seattle and Boston so it's hard to believe it has the third largest downtown. I can tell you for a fact that it doesn't look bigger than those cities and no one outside of Philadelphia would believe your downtown appears larger than SF, Boston and Seattle. And our suburbs are not like your suburbs. Our suburbs actually offer nice restaurants, shopping and recreational activities. And you can have the Liberty Bell, I'll take the Phoenician spa and resort. Our suburbs have companies. Your suburbs are nothing but tracks of houses with gas stations in between. You rely upon your downtown for everything. In cities like LA and Phoenix, we have a downtown but our suburbs are self containing as well. The sad thing is our downtown is now being developed as well so we will have the best of both worlds while Philly's downtown continues to erode. Why do you think so many people from Philly move to Phoenix? Oh yeah, I've been to Portland and I honestly think Oklahoma City feels bigger than Portland. Portland feels tiny. I can't believe they even have an NBA franchise because it feels so tiny

The east coast is dying with the exception of New York! Face it, your cities are old. Your crime is high. Your weather stinks. Your people are rude and difficult to deal with. Anything that is innovative and cutting edge starts in the west and moves east whether you are talking about trends or technology. This is nothing more than jealousy and bitterness by the fact that everything is moving west and that the east coast is dying. There is a reason Phoenix has been the first or second fastest growing city in the country while Philadelphia has been losing people. Likewise, you can't call an ugly old dump a city because it has some sky skrapers. Phoenix is a far more beautiful city than that rusted beat up city called Philadelphia. Maybe you should spread out and develop your city. There is no point keeping some of those tall crack houses and abandoned office buildings. Phoenix looks like a resort while Philadelphia looks like an industrial wasteland. You said you had fun in Phoenix but I had no fun at all in Philly. It was a dump. I was also trapped in Philly in a snow storm and the taxi cab companies were shut down as well. You couldn't get out of that pit.

That's hilarious.. When I say the 3rd largeset downtown, I mean the highest populated.. Not the amount of high rises.. And yes, it is larger than Seattle's, Boston's or San Francisco's downtowns.. Only Chicago and New York have more people living downtown.. I've spent a lot of time in Seattle and I don't think their 550,000 residence quite stack up to Philly's city population..

Metro Philadelphia has nearly twice the population of the Phoenix metro area. You could add Tucson and it's metro area and still be smaller..

Phoenix has a whopping 3,000 people per square mile.. Los Angeles has about 9,000 people per square mile.. Manhattan has 66,000 people per square mile. There are cities in New Jersey with 45,000 people per square mile.

Philadelphia is 16,000 people per square mile. That's five times as many people walking around the streets of Philadelphia in any given area than in Phoenix. What do you think is going to feel like the bigger city with more energy and things to do? I have the amount of choices and ammeneties within a 10 minute walk of my house than Phoenix residence have in their 45 minute drive on a freeway from one side to the other as they count Best Buys and Walmarts.

Your "jealousy" theory or people saying I'm a "long distance basher" may stack up if I was someone who had never lived in Phoenix or didn't spend most of my life on the West Coast. I chose to leave Phoenix exactly for these reasons and that was only a few months ago.

I had lived in Phoenix for three going on four years and everyone I know shares that opinion of Phoenix after a year or two.. When I was thinking of moving there, I had friends who previously lived there and moved back to Portland, talking about how it was just a sprawling mess of strip malls and fast food chains. I didn't believe them.. I didn't think a city that size could really lack in central location or activity. I've never lived anywhere where I had to go to a suburb (Scottsdale) to go out.. Which is the only place in in the entire 500 square miles of Phoenix you can bar hop aside from Mill avenue.. One street in Tempe..

I loved it at first because the weather and it was just so much different than where I was from.

People don't live in Phoenix because they're looking for exciting city life. It's a haven for retirees. They live there for the weather and a low cost of living (PEOPLE ESCAPING LOS ANGELES) , but most people find on top of these other reasons that the desert and having no seasons gets very old..

New York is older than Philadelphia, so is Boston and so is Newark. Old is where history and fame come from..

European cities are much, much older than anywhere in the United States and they are far cooler as well.. Because they are old they have better architecture, a lot more culture and a more concentrated, energetic way of life and are much more fun and interesting to visit. The East Coast cities and European cities have an "identity".. Which the West Coast lacks tremendously.. That comes from being young.

80% of everything that comes into this country comes through the East Coast.. Nearly all of what the rest of the country and much of the entire world relies on is developed and produced on the East coast. A huge majority of business is done on the East Coast. The Eastern United States population Dwarfs the western population.. New York's high cost of living is a result of 200,000 people moving there a year and it's desireability.

New Jersey has the highest salaries in the country.. Compare Los Angeles or Phoenix cost of living compared to what you make in both places and you are far better off in New jersey.

[silverbear]

Originally Posted by cevett

Your "jealousy" theory or people saying I'm a "long distance basher" may stack up if I was someone who had never lived in Phoenix or didn't spend most of my life on the West Coast. I chose to leave Phoenix exactly for these reasons and that was only a few months ago.

Actually, "long distance bashers" (a phrase I am proud to have coined) on this board are usually former residents. In general, LDPBs make a good decision to leave a city they don't like, but they then follow it up with an amazingly bad decision to hang around on a board devoted to Phoenix issues and share their lingering misery, which should have been eliminated by the move to another place, with everyone else. It seems to be a sort of therapy.

[londonbarcelona]

Originally Posted by cevett

That's hilarious.. Metro Philadelphia has nearly twice the population of the Phoenix metro area. You could add Tucson and it's metro area and still be smaller..

Phoenix has a whopping 3,000 people per square mile.. Los Angeles has about 9,000 people per square mile.. Manhattan has 66,000 people per square mile. There are cities in New Jersey with 45,000 people per square mile.

Philadelphia is 16,000 people per square mile. That's five times as many people walking around the streets of Philadelphia in any given area than in Phoenix. What do you think is going to feel like the bigger city with more energy and things to do? I have the amount of choices and ammeneties within a 10 minute walk of my house than Phoenix residence have in their 45 minute drive on a freeway from one side to the other as they count Best Buys and Walmarts.

Your "jealousy" theory or people saying I'm a "long distance basher" may stack up if I was someone who had never lived in Phoenix or didn't spend most of my life on the West Coast. I chose to leave Phoenix exactly for these reasons and that was only a few months ago.

I had lived in Phoenix for three going on four years and everyone I know shares that opinion of Phoenix after a year or two.. When I was thinking of moving there, I had friends who previously lived there and moved back to Portland, talking about how it was just a sprawling mess of strip malls and fast food chains. I didn't believe them.. I didn't think a city that size could really lack in central location or activity. I've never lived anywhere where I had to go to a suburb (Scottsdale) to go out.. Which is the only place in in the entire 500 square miles of Phoenix you can bar hop aside from Mill avenue.. One street in Tempe..

I loved it at first because the weather and it was just so much different than where I was from.

People don't live in Phoenix because they're looking for exciting city life. It's a haven for retirees. They live there for the weather and a low cost of living (PEOPLE ESCAPING LOS ANGELES) , but most people find on top of these other reasons that the desert and having no seasons gets very old..

New York is older than Philadelphia, so is Boston and so is Newark. Old is where history and fame come from..

European cities are much, much older than anywhere in the United States and they are far cooler as well.. Because they are old they have better architecture, a lot more culture and a more concentrated, energetic way of life and are much more fun and interesting to visit. The East Coast cities and European cities have an "identity".. Which the West Coast lacks tremendously.. That comes from being young.

80% of everything that comes into this country comes through the East Coast.. Nearly all of what the rest of the country and much of the entire world relies on is developed and produced on the East coast. A huge majority of business is done on the East Coast. The Eastern United States population Dwarfs the western population.. New York's high cost of living is a result of 200,000 people moving there a year and it's desireability.

New Jersey has the highest salaries in the country.. Compare Los Angeles or Phoenix cost of living compared to what you make in both places and you are far better off in New jersey.

Wow, that was a really well thought out post. Fortunately/unfortunately I happen to agree with everything you said. I remember how much I loved it here when we first moved here. Sucks that unless you have family here, it grows sour so quickly. I think it's because there are so few people who actually HAVE families here that were born here. People are really, really distant here. I'll bet everyone is pretty nice too, but for some reason, unless you are very young, it's very difficult to feel comfortable here. I would guess that in a generation or so, Phoenix will have the same "feel" that the east coast cities have. There is just no sense of community when you are a newbie here.

[silverbear]

Originally Posted by cevett

Metro Philadelphia has nearly twice the population of the Phoenix metro area. You could add Tucson and it's metro area and still be smaller..

Actually, the Philadelphia Metro Area has a population of 5,826,742. The Phoenix Metro Area has a population of 4,039,182. Certainly, PHL is larger than PHX -- but not twice as large.

[blisterpeanuts]

Originally Posted by cevett

That's hilarious.. When I say the 3rd largeset downtown, I mean the highest populated.. Not high rises.. And yes, it is larger than Seattle's.. I've spent a lot of time there. Seattle's high rises are about is about 3 blocks deep.. It's spread out wide when you're looking from over the water, but it's not very deep.. Philly's goes forever..

[long rant deleted]

Phoenix is a good city for families. The Eastern cities which you praise so highly have become prohibitively expensive for a young couple (or any age couple for that matter) to afford a home of any sort, let alone a family-sized house with two car garage and spacious yard. The bottom line is affordability. New York City, Philly, Boston, and Jersey are not favored destinations for young couples starting families. Two bedroom condos in the Boston area start at about $300K and you're lucky to get one garage space--get used to scraping and shoveling out your car every morning!

I would say young single people should spend time in a big city with a concentrated nightlife and a lot of history, like NYC, Boston, San Francisco. But to settle down and raise a family, come to Arizona.

Every place has its pluses and minuses. Clearly Phoenix has enough pluses to be attracting thousands of newcomers every month. Instead of gloating over how much "bigger" one city is than another, why not discuss something interesting. This poster seems to like dense, high rise-filled cities. Well, Shanghai today has twice as many skyscrapers as New York City, believe it or not. It's got huge population density and a high rate of growth. So move there and you'll be very happy!

EDIT: to the person who feels lonely--you've got to get involved in something, be it church, civic association, sports, bowling league--find something you enjoy and pretty soon you'll have friends galore. My wife has taken the kid to a few mom's groups and suddenly we're running into people she knows in the darndest places. Yesterday it was at the Ikea in Tempe. Phoenix in many ways feels like a small town to me despite its geographical size.

[cevett]

And I used to live in Old town off of Earl and Scottsdale road... What do you have? About 20 bars worth going to there including Dives? Any major city blows that away.. Even portland has about 100 Bars you can WALK to downtown..

You have 5th ave and civic center.. Axis Radius, next, six, ***** cat and about 10-15 others in that area.... Then a few in north scottsdale and a few in Downtown Phoenix and a few in Tempe.. That's pathetic.. I first moved to Phoenix and literally could not find a bar to go to.. I found that I had to drive a half hour to Tempe or Scottsdale to go anywhere even remotely fun..

So, I had to leave the biggest city in the are to a suburb to find anywhere to go out.. That's the saddest city I've ever lived in or seen for that matter as far as nightlife.