What are some ways Phoenix could develop to stand out from the crowd? (school, quality of life)

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by pbenjamin

Phoenix, back before everybody from Kansas to Ohio decided to move here, was an oasis, a green spot in the desert, because of rivers and canals. The neighborhood that I live in existed when the city's population was 65,000, and we have lots of lawns and shade trees. As people pave over BFE to make room for more people, let them have their rock lawns, but don't be telling me what to do here.

Exactly! Gotta love all these transplants who come here and tell natives and long term residents how to live. They keep saying, "this is the desert, and green grass is a waste of water" ... which proves how clueless they really are because like you correctly stated, Phoenix has always been a green oasis. All the older neighborhoods are grassy and shaded with established trees. When I was young, I didn't know anybody who had a gravel or xeriscaped yard. That seemed to become more of the norm from the 1990s onward ... and doesn't it seem strange how much our temperatures have increased since then? Along with the ever expanding concrete/asphalt jungle, these rock yards contribute to the heat island effect.

Anyway, I'm tired of these transplants acting like know it alls, and I'm really fed up with them acting like dictators (telling property owners what they should or shouldn't have in their own yards). They keep telling us to move if we like greenery so much, but I think they are the ones who should move ... possibly to North Korea if they like being dictators so much. They and Kim Jong Un would work well together over there!

[BIG CATS]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

Exactly! Gotta love all these transplants who come here and tell natives and long term residents how to live. They keep saying, "this is the desert, and green grass is a waste of water" ... which proves how clueless they really are because like you correctly stated, Phoenix has always been a green oasis. All the older neighborhoods are grassy and shaded with established trees. When I was young, I didn't know anybody who had a gravel or xeriscaped yard. That seemed to become more of the norm from the 1990s onward ... and doesn't it seem strange how much our temperatures have increased since then? Along with the ever expanding concrete/asphalt jungle, these rock yards contribute to the heat island effect.

Anyway, I'm tired of these transplants acting like know it alls, and I'm really fed up with them acting like dictators (telling property owners what they should or shouldn't have in their own yards). They keep telling us to move if we like greenery so much, but I think they are the ones who should move ... possibly to North Korea if they like being dictators so much. They and Kim Jong Un would work well together over there!

Look at the population differences between now and then. There would be a HUGE water problem if every home and business in the Valley had grass. You can actually THANK US for wanting to preserve water. Its not some joke. Without it we will cease to exist. And as our population keeps soaring, water strain will get worse and worse and worse.


I just gotta ask you... do you really believe PHX was a grassy, tree-lined oasis before mankind arrived? I mean, really? If so, please show me areas NOT along a river that are naturally grassy and full of shade-providing trees. After all, you insist PHX was a grassy oasis before everyone started arriving here.

[pbenjamin]

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

Ummm, statistically and factually speaking, OH and specifically KS don't send many people here. You would have to look to NY and CA for the biggest influx of people. But thanks for playing.

"from Kansas to Ohio" was a reference to the midwest, which includes your precious "Chicagoland".

[JGMotorsport64]

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

I just gotta ask you... do you really believe PHX was a grassy, tree-lined oasis before mankind arrived? I mean, really? If so, please show me areas NOT along a river that are naturally grassy and full of shade-providing trees. After all, you insist PHX was a grassy oasis before everyone started arriving here.

The river is why it was an oasis. Frequent flooding in the valley floor allowed for a riparian habitat like what you see in Rio Rico or along the San Pedro.

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

The entire Valley floor was not a lush riparian oasis. If it was, we would see evidence of that in all the untouched natural areas in the Valley. The areas right along the rivers would naturally be more lush, but the outer fringes would definitely be rock and cacti, just as its been for thousands of years.

Entire, no. Large areas? Yes. Unfortunately we dammed the rivers and turned the land to agriculture and to supply aforementioned people from an unspecified region of the country, hence why we don't see it anymore. But there are a few areas where some of that lushness still exists along the Gila River near Buckeye.

And quit picking on Midwesterners. If it wasn't for us, AZ would be just another dried out, lazy, uneducated state. Kinda like NM. You could kiss places like State Farm, Caterpillar, Cummins, Detroit Diesel, Ford, GM, and even your beloved Cardinals goodbye. We brought cultivation, law, business, and jobs here. Midwesterners have contributed so much to AZ, to insult them would be to insult a big portion of AZ's story. You wouldn't even have a city named Peoria.

That's true IDK what I would do without Peoria.

[xeric]

Originally Posted by KurtAZ

I think it is funny how everyone keeps saying "this is the desert" all the time when even the Hohokam settled the area and <<gasp>> planted crops. They survived for a couple thousand years at the confluence of the Salt and Gila rivers...agriculture has long been a part of the Valley of the Sun and I am guessing NONE of those crops were "native" to the area.

There's nothing wrong with agriculture along subtropical rivers - some of the most fertile farming areas around the world are in those types of locales. But did the Hohokam have lawns? Would they have wasted water on a useless "crop' that nobody can eat? No, this only became common only after the anglo transplants took over. Talk about newcomers from the midwest telling the real natives what to do!

[BIG CATS]

Originally Posted by pbenjamin

"from Kansas to Ohio" was a reference to the midwest, which includes your precious "Chicagoland".

Still doesn't change the fact that most people come here from CA and NY, not the Midwest. Im willing to guess that CA alone sends more people here annually than all the Midwestern states combined.

[BIG CATS]

Originally Posted by JGMotorsport64

The river is why it was an oasis. Frequent flooding in the valley floor allowed for a riparian habitat like what you see in Rio Rico or along the San Pedro.



Entire, no. Large areas? Yes. Unfortunately we dammed the rivers and turned the land to agriculture and to supply aforementioned people from an unspecified region of the country, hence why we don't see it anymore. But there are a few areas where some of that lushness still exists along the Gila River near Buckeye.




That's true IDK what I would do without Peoria.

Most areas along rivers in AZ (not just in the Valley) don't resemble that. Most are barren banks like you see along untouched portions of the San Pedro. AZ isn't lush in any sense of the word, I don't know why people keep trying to pretend it is. It might have areas that are more lush than others in the state, but its not grassy, its not triple canopy, etc. Its a few more trees and the same dusty soil that pervades the entire state for the most part. Those photos are cool, but it still doesn't change the fact that people here waste water way too much on useless grass. They say it "keeps us cooler", which it might by a degree or two, but it also adds humidity and attracts more bugs. And you also run the risk of attracting mosquitos, and other bugs that feed on the bugs that are attracted to water. Its a vicious cycle. hahaha

[pbenjamin]

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

Still doesn't change the fact that most people come here from CA and NY, not the Midwest. Im willing to guess that CA alone sends more people here annually than all the Midwestern states combined.

You guessed wrong, see the US Census figures for the most recent period, 2015, below, but that wasn't my point. It matters not where they came from, they show up, put additional pressure on resources, then criticize the people who were here before them for their usage of resources that are only scarce because of their own arrival.

CA 54,646

IL 11,017
IN 4,087
IA 3,963
KS 2,625
MI 9,069
MN 8,499
MO 4,069
NE 986
ND 1,150
OH 5,147
SD 1,582
WI 5,262
=======
57,456

[BIG CATS]

Originally Posted by pbenjamin

You guessed wrong, see the US Census figures for the most recent period, 2015, below, but that wasn't my point. It matters not where they came from, they show up, put additional pressure on resources, then criticize the people who were here before them for their usage of resources that are only scarce because of their own arrival.

CA 54,646

IL 11,017
IN 4,087
IA 3,963
KS 2,625
MI 9,069
MN 8,499
MO 4,069
NE 986
ND 1,150
OH 5,147
SD 1,582
WI 5,262
=======
57,456

I was dang close with my estimation! haha And for the record I don't count places like the Dakotas and Nebraska as Midwest, those are Plains States, which are quite different. Regardless of who came from where, would you rather people not have placed water restrictions? Imagine the strain if we didn't.

[locolife]

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

Still doesn't change the fact that most people come here from CA and NY, not the Midwest. Im willing to guess that CA alone sends more people here annually than all the Midwestern states combined.

The numbers I can find show that IL outranks NY and the Midwest might actually be higher than CA if you were to add in MI, MN, IN and IA. The top 10 alone almost has as the same % as CA coming from the Midwest.

Top 10 states people move to Arizona form:
1. California 9%
2. Illinois 4%
3. New York 3%
4. Texas 2%
5. Ohio 2%
6. NM less than 1%
7. MO less than 1%
8. UT less than 1%'
9. OK less than 1%

Top 10 States Arizona Residents Come From | Phoenix New Times