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Mountains: huh....yeah i see them. And they are as boring as they were in Colorado. And whats worse.... driving around the metro reminds me of driving around IOWA... with mountains. Flat farmland. Now before you jump all over me about how beautiful the mountains are.... make sure you are talking about the same hills that you drive by every day to and from work not the beautiful red rocks out in Sedona. The hills are dry, crumbling rock, a few scattered shrubs, and not very appealing.
Okay to sum up... you think mountains - even the mountains of Colorado, which pretty much epitomize mountain beauty - are boring. You also think Iowa, with no mountains and instead blue skies on the horizon, is boring.
You know, that's pretty much it. You either get mountains or you get no mountains. If you dislike both categories (mountains and no mountains) then you're pretty much out of luck. It's not the fault of the universe that there's nothing but either mountains or no mountains.
Sounds like you Phoenix dwellers dodged a bullet!
I love it out there...went camping in the Superstitions a few yrs ago and was in awe of the mountains, sunsets, night sky, etc. Can't wait to get back!
I spent 17 years in North Phx. The area is stunning. The beauty of AZ is outside. Go on some local hikes and you would see natural beauty you have never seen before. Also I always felt people were way more friendly and polite when compared to the Midwest. But call it like it is- its our weather that is the attraction for most. When you spend 8 months hoping for that perfect day in MN- they enjoy the perfect day pretty much everyday for eight months. No, its not perfect- nothing is. I lived in Chicago, Phx and now Southern CA. If I had my choice I would still be in PHX. I had to laugh about your comments restaurants because coming from Chicago- I actually thought PHX kind of sucks for good restaurant choices. I don't care for Gilbert or Chandler- but I can see why some love it. I hate scorpions and snakes too... But I loved driving up to Telluride 2-3 times a year for some of the best skiing in the country. Anyway- glad you decided it was not going to work for you. MN has some great things about it that might just be a better fit for you and your family.....now I have to go back to looking for an overpriced shack in CA to live in....lol. Best of luck to you.
VERY OPINIONATED POST - DON'T READ IF YOU OFFEND EASILY OR CANT TAKE CRITICISM PLEASE!
Soooooo we thought we decided on moving to the Phoenix area. But in the 11th hour i had a bad feeling about some things there. We have visited in the past and liked i, but something was unsettling with me. So my wife and I took a long weekend trip down there spur of the moment to really do some scouting.
US:
Family of 4. White married husband and wife with 2 sons 12 and 18(graduating) wife would work Downtown Phoenix and I work all over. We were comfortable with input from hundreds of people that we cant go wrong in Chandler or Gilbert. SO that is where we scouted heavily along with parts of Mesa and a little in Scottsdale for the heck of it.
Here are my thoughts:
Mountains: huh....yeah i see them. And they are as boring as they were in Colorado. And whats worse.... driving around the metro reminds me of driving around IOWA... with mountains. Flat farmland. Now before you jump all over me about how beautiful the mountains are.... make sure you are talking about the same hills that you drive by every day to and from work not the beautiful red rocks out in Sedona. The hills are dry, crumbling rock, a few scattered shrubs, and not very appealing.
Congestion: Driving through Chandler and Gilbert reminded me a lot of driving through Fairfax VA only without the pretty scenery. IT was stoplight after stoplight, red light after red light, and what felt like a million cars on the road. Took me 44 minutes to get off 60 at Gilbert road, drive south to Warner road, then east to val vista, then back north to get on 60.... at 2:30 pm. Insane. Then driving back to the airport right after that took me another 40 minutes on 60/i10. i17 was at a dead stop in both directions with no accidents. Keep in mind this was 2:30-3:30 on a Tuesday. Weekend traffic seemed light though.
Neighborhoods: OK so this is purely my opinion.... Stucco.... Yucco! everything is tan and tile. 20 shades of tan as far as you can see. I know why but really? gross. We struggled to find large communities. Almost all of them are just little track home sections with another name. 20-30 homes per section. Very Generic, very sterile feeling. Not a single soul was outside either except two kids at a park. Very disappointing. I dont see the family feel that everyone preaches.
Restaurants: OK NOW WE ARE TALKING! I'll give it to you.... this is the best place to get fat other than DFW. WE did eat at some pretty good places around the area. Social Box, 13 North, Serranos, etc. And if you use groupon you can get some decent deals. Food was all quality. I can not say that i had any bad experience in that field. Very pleased and wish I could have tried more. Kudos
Airport: Well this is simple... no really, its simple. Easiest Airport Ive been to. Friendly people, and easy to navigate. Clean too. Kudos again
Hospitality: well golly gee, every one i met was so pleasant, how can i complain. Especially the front desk guy at the dump we stayed at. Seriously, I have never seen someone take the initiative to move rooms and make things more accommodating without me even asking. I wish I would have gotten his name because he deserves a raise or a promotion or something. (Ramada Mesa off Dobson Road former Dobson Road Inn) Kind of a dumpy place but super nice staff. Overall good experiences with staff at restaurants and shopping centers too. Nothing to complain about.
Infrastructure: Pretty simple overall. Reminds me of Denver. Like a true North-South / East-West grid system. hard to ever get lost.
Scenery: Like I state above. withing the metro area, it looks just like Denver or parts of California. Dry and dull. The only cool thing was that a lot of streets are lined with orange trees dropping fruit like crazy right now. No hungry people in Chandler! Fountain Hills area is absolutely amazing to drive around. Other than that I found myself disgusted. Especially on the West metro. Glendale, Goodyear, Avondale..... boring boring boring.... Malls ad Car Dealers and dont look to deep because it gets run down.
Downtown areas of Chandler and Gilbert:
Gilbert: Very cool little Hallmark Movie type town. But all it is is food and bars. I was hoping for a few shops, genera store, library type stuff too. Obviously geared toward 20-30 yearolds that like to drink and eat. The traffic through town (although short) is heavy too People everywhere. And whats up with that coffee shop? the line always backs out into the street with cars and holds up traffic. If youre driving north through Gilbert, stay in the left lane!
Chandler: More modern than Gilbert. More of a cross streets style downtown versus one strip. Mostly restaurants, but a few little shops. There was a festival while we were there with love music on a Saturday night. not sure f this is a regular thing, but it gave a great atmosphere. Very fun for all ages and in my opinion it was very neat. Easy and free to park at night, people were considerate (except the smokers for some reason felt because they have to smoke outside that they actually own the outside) The air was filled with the smell of food... smoked BBQ or possibly just smoke, not sure. BUt still a cool little town.
Overall Impression:
For singles, I can see how this would be a cool place to live and have a million activities at your disposal....outside the metro. For families, you will find yourself driving endlessly form activity to shopping to eating just to turn around and do it again. Ask yourself, how much time do you really have to go enjoy things that will take you over an hour to get to. Then try to see if you and your spouse and kids all happen to have the same days off to be able to do those things often; Our answer was NO. Two working parents, a working teenager, and a 122 year old in activities.... doesn't sound like we will be spending every weekend in the mountains, Sedona, Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Vegas, San Diego, or any other of the hundreds of places people preach about. In reality, a family like us may get out once every 5-6 weeks to do something fun. Those longer trips? maybe 2 times a year if we are lucky. So we would need to be content and happy living every day inside our town of XYZ and doing the simple things like eating, movies, shopping or whatever the Mills Mall has. Possibly a day out at Castles and Coasters or something similar when the weather permits. Maybe I have stronger opinions because we have been fortunate to live in several places. Maybe to some, this is the first move so its exciting. Not trying to burst any bubbles. You should really go spend 4-5 days like we did and just drive around, go out to eat, shop at the malls, go see the schools, hang out downtown in each town, take lots of pictures. etc. Form a solid opinion. DO NOT just take a vacation and do all the tourism items and think it is paradise. Needless to say it was not a very good impression for us and we really thought we were set.
Decision: NO - We will not be moving to the Phoenix area. We just do not see the value of living in a neutral area where everything is the same color and seems so lifeless overall. When people are kind enough to be honest on here, take it and look into those things more if it bothers you. Some of us are just opinionated. Some of us actually went out, spent $1500 on flights and hotel and 5 days of our tie t get the answers, and some are just liars. But you have to judge for yourself. For us, Phoenix is a nice place to visit but would be a very boring life to live.
I am soo so glad you did not move here we do not need whiney people in AZ, we need freedom loving patriots in our wild west cities.
Please let us know where you move to so that we can point out everything we think is negative about where you will be living and say shame on you for moving to a such crap hole of a place.
Last edited by autism360; 02-25-2017 at 03:08 PM..
Okay to sum up... you think mountains - even the mountains of Colorado, which pretty much epitomize mountain beauty - are boring. You also think Iowa, with no mountains and instead blue skies on the horizon, is boring.
You know, that's pretty much it. You either get mountains or you get no mountains. If you dislike both categories (mountains and no mountains) then you're pretty much out of luck. It's not the fault of the universe that there's nothing but either mountains or no mountains.
How does that philosophical saying go, "Wherever you go, there you are." or "Wherever you go, you still have to put up with yourself!"
You know, OP, I had an Arizona mountain town all picked out, was practically packed and ready to move. Read comments about it on this forum for YEARS. It sounded ideal and I had been there.
Visited it one more time and guess what? It really isn't for us after all. There were some aspects I hadn't considered. That's not a slam on that very nice mountain town, the people who live there or the folks that posted about it here. Everyone's different. We just didn't want to be located 100 miles away from things that are important to us, so that town is out.
As I've just demonstrated, it's possible to indicate one's disappointment without attacking people.
This.
It seems to me "thanks for all the advice, we visited and decided the area isn't for us" would have been sufficient. And polite.
OP hasn't been to Fairfax lately. Although in spring/summer/fall it is pretty the architecture is awful. I just moved from the DC area to AZ. The PHX mountains are not as pretty as Tucson but who can get a decent job in Tucson? The Superstitions are AMAZING and a jaunt past Canyon Lake would wow anyone.
It sounds like OP hing out on 60...which is old and kind of dumpy. The fact the Serrano's knocked his socks of food wise is proof he didn't "get" the Valley of the Sun"...and I say all this as an AZ native who does want to move back to the DC area.
The OP visits a desert and does not like the few areas in the Valley he/she visits and trolls a forum stating we should be ashamed of ourselves over his/her displeasure. Logic is clearly not running in the veins of the OP.
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