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I constantly refer to Florida as the swamp and so does my family who lives there. I’ve also heard many Texans and Louisianans refer to Houston and New Orleans as the swamp.
And that's my point. Calling New Orleans, Houston, or Miami a swamp might be truthful to some degree, but it's derogatory and doesn't present a very positive image to any of those cities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prickly Pear
Lots of places in the South are also referred to the Piedmont (Atlanta), or the Appalachians, Seattle is often referred as the Puget Sound. It’s not uncommon for people to refer areas by their GEOGRAPHY. I’ve heard Portland being part of the Columbia Gorge Basin. Denver as the Front Range.
Those names are specific to the areas you mentioned, but they're still referred to most of the time by their true city name, or city nickname ("Mile High City", "Emerald City", etc.). "The desert" is not special to the Phoenix area because Las Vegas, Tucson, El Paso, and Albuquerque are also cities in desert regions. But do you ever hear those places being called "the desert"? Maybe every now and then, but Vegas is most often referred to as "Sin City". Phoenix really has no special nickname other than "Valley of the Sun".
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Originally Posted by Prickly Pear
You are forgetting that the original “valley” is San Fernando in LOS ANGELES. Pretty big metro if you ask me which has a “big city” mentality, even in the original “valley”.
Correct, but Los Angeles doesn't refer to the entire city or metro area as "the valley", even though the entire region is technically located in a valley. "The valley" is pretty generic, and it could easily refer to San Fernando, San Joaquin, Silicon, Monument, Shenandoah, or many others.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prickly Pear
You seem to have a negative connotation with living in a desert. Maybe you need to get over that. But you live in a desert, a city in a desert. It’s not wrong to say we live in a desert, it’s factually true.
Much like calling certain southern cities "the swamp", referring to Phoenix as "the desert" is somewhat negative because it tends to give us the image of a vast, hot forbidden land. We have an image problem here, and this certainly doesn't help matters.
We moved here in July 2015 from northern MN. I personally love the heat so I have no complaints. The rest of the family would rather be cold. Weather aside, one aspect that didn’t really bother me until my second year here is the lack of space. Most houses here (for the typical middle class family) don’t have basements and the garages are small along with the driveway. Lots are small and if you live in an HOA community, you can’t have a camper/trailer in your yard. You can’t park on the street at night (at least in my HOA) so if you have more than two drivers in your household, you’ll have to shuffle vehicles.
I was spoiled in MN having acreage and no HOA. For those looking to move here that are used to space, it can be a challenge to adjust, especially for the kids. Plus staring out your window and seeing a block wall gets old after a while. I live in Gilbert and with the ridiculous housing prices (everywhere), you pay a lot for a postage stamp sized lot. Who knows what the future holds for me. Wife doesn’t like the heat so maybe after the kids are done with school, we’ll leave AZ. Until then, I’m going to enjoy what AZ has to offer.
We moved here in July 2015 from northern MN. I personally love the heat so I have no complaints. The rest of the family would rather be cold. Weather aside, one aspect that didn’t really bother me until my second year here is the lack of space. Most houses here (for the typical middle class family) don’t have basements and the garages are small along with the driveway. Lots are small and if you live in an HOA community, you can’t have a camper/trailer in your yard. You can’t park on the street at night (at least in my HOA) so if you have more than two drivers in your household, you’ll have to shuffle vehicles.
I was spoiled in MN having acreage and no HOA. For those looking to move here that are used to space, it can be a challenge to adjust, especially for the kids. Plus staring out your window and seeing a block wall gets old after a while. I live in Gilbert and with the ridiculous housing prices (everywhere), you pay a lot for a postage stamp sized lot. Who knows what the future holds for me. Wife doesn’t like the heat so maybe after the kids are done with school, we’ll leave AZ. Until then, I’m going to enjoy what AZ has to offer.
With due respect, it sounds like you simply chose a home that doesn’t meet your needs. That’s not specific to Phoenix, although we do have lots of cramped tract housing. If someone wants space and no HOA, they can find that here.
We moved here in July 2015 from northern MN. I personally love the heat so I have no complaints. The rest of the family would rather be cold. Weather aside, one aspect that didn’t really bother me until my second year here is the lack of space. Most houses here (for the typical middle class family) don’t have basements and the garages are small along with the driveway. Lots are small and if you live in an HOA community, you can’t have a camper/trailer in your yard. You can’t park on the street at night (at least in my HOA) so if you have more than two drivers in your household, you’ll have to shuffle vehicles.
I was spoiled in MN having acreage and no HOA. For those looking to move here that are used to space, it can be a challenge to adjust, especially for the kids. Plus staring out your window and seeing a block wall gets old after a while. I live in Gilbert and with the ridiculous housing prices (everywhere), you pay a lot for a postage stamp sized lot. Who knows what the future holds for me. Wife doesn’t like the heat so maybe after the kids are done with school, we’ll leave AZ. Until then, I’m going to enjoy what AZ has to offer.
I'm glad to hear you like the heat. I don't hear that too often. You're right, the lot sizes (at least for subdivision homes) can be small and you can get a basement but it will cost you!! I agree with you on the HOA prohibition on overnight street parking. It's a pain in the neck. Also, the block walls can take away some of the ambiances of a neighborhood.
And that's my point. Calling New Orleans, Houston, or Miami a swamp might be truthful to some degree, but it's derogatory and doesn't present a very positive image to any of those cities.
Those names are specific to the areas you mentioned, but they're still referred to most of the time by their true city name, or city nickname ("Mile High City", "Emerald City", etc.). "The desert" is not special to the Phoenix area because Las Vegas, Tucson, El Paso, and Albuquerque are also cities in desert regions. But do you ever hear those places being called "the desert"? Maybe every now and then, but Vegas is most often referred to as "Sin City". Phoenix really has no special nickname other than "Valley of the Sun".
Correct, but Los Angeles doesn't refer to the entire city or metro area as "the valley", even though the entire region is technically located in a valley. "The valley" is pretty generic, and it could easily refer to San Fernando, San Joaquin, Silicon, Monument, Shenandoah, or many others.
Much like calling certain southern cities "the swamp", referring to Phoenix as "the desert" is somewhat negative because it tends to give us the image of a vast, hot forbidden land. We have an image problem here, and this certainly doesn't help matters.
This is a city:
This is a desert:
See the difference?
Let's try this; Phoenix is a city located in the Sonoran desert.
Let's try this; Phoenix is a city located in the Sonoran desert.
But that’s not good enough, because apparently cities can’t exist in any environment other than man-made. To say that it does is wrong. And to say it’s in the Sonoran Desert still implies that it’s in a desert, which is unacceptable.
Only someone who thinks negatively to certain environments would think “swamp” or “desert” is derogatory. Flagstaff is a forest city, is that a problem? Denver is a plains city, is that a problem? What about jungle cities, are those a problem?
Anyone with more than two brain cells knows that a desert is more than a vast and hot forbidden place. Especially since cold and polar deserts exist. If that’s what someone thinks when someone says “desert city”, it’s on them not the person saying it.
I can get more technical on why people say “city in a desert” or “swamp city” or “mountain town” but I’m not trying to hijack this thread too much. Valley Native can start their own thread regarding this topic, which I’ll be happy to have a to and fro with.
We moved here in July 2015 from northern MN. I personally love the heat so I have no complaints. The rest of the family would rather be cold. Weather aside, one aspect that didn’t really bother me until my second year here is the lack of space. Most houses here (for the typical middle class family) don’t have basements and the garages are small along with the driveway. Lots are small and if you live in an HOA community, you can’t have a camper/trailer in your yard. You can’t park on the street at night (at least in my HOA) so if you have more than two drivers in your household, you’ll have to shuffle vehicles.
I was spoiled in MN having acreage and no HOA. For those looking to move here that are used to space, it can be a challenge to adjust, especially for the kids. Plus staring out your window and seeing a block wall gets old after a while. I live in Gilbert and with the ridiculous housing prices (everywhere), you pay a lot for a postage stamp sized lot. Who knows what the future holds for me. Wife doesn’t like the heat so maybe after the kids are done with school, we’ll leave AZ. Until then, I’m going to enjoy what AZ has to offer.
Yes I was surprised by the size of the garages here and see now why so many park their cars outside. We lucked out and found a house with no Hoa , and a cracking view of the south mountain in Ahwatukee.
Yes I was surprised by the size of the garages here and see now why so many park their cars outside. We lucked out and found a house with no Hoa , and a cracking view of the south mountain in Ahwatukee.
Here's what surprised me about homes: Outside of a master 10 x 10 or 11 x 11 seem to be the standard bedroom size. A property 1300 sq ft or one 2400 sq ft ---the bedrooms are the same.
About garages: one reason people leave their garbage bins outside behind a side gate instead of in the garage is because there's not much room. Esp. if you plan to park two (compact) size cars. The properties I own all (but one) have a fairly large backyard. My guess is a big backyard is important (which is understandable) and affects the size of the house.
On the other hand many of the newer builds I see in Chandler are lined up right next to each other. The lot size can't be much over 3000 sq ft.
I also find it strange the HOA requires all the windows on my property to have sun screens when there's almost no direct sunlight. The homes are side by side. Putting up sunscreens on the living room windows makes the room feel like...like a cave.
I know I haven't RECENTLY moved here (will be 34 years in 2022) but my .02
Really the biggest problem is the size of garages. If you are in a house pre-2000, most of the garages were sized to fit a standard vehicle. Even with everything out of the way, I can't park a full size truck/SUV in our garage. We gave up trying. Post-2000s, you had the options for extended garages, 2.5 garages and sometimes bigger. The trade off is that the lot sizes are usually bigger with a pre-2000 home. The building boom had developers trying to stuff as many houses into a neighborhood as they could. Sure you can still find a decent sized lot now but you are going to pay more for it.
The basement thing has been talked about as well. You get basements in other areas due to the builder having to get below the frostline for the foundation. We don't have a frostline in Phoenix, so unless you specifically are looking for a basement, you won't get one. Personally I think it would have been a good idea to build basements as they tend to be well insulated and would be more energy efficient but...it is what it is I guess. Course I also think that all new builds should have had solar panels by default but again...not my call.
I read somewhere about basements being less of a thing here, that there is crazy super solid rock not so far down, you'd almost have to blast through it to put a basement in, in a lot of parts of Phoenix. Anyone know if that's true? Like they can dig in deep enough to get a pool in, but going further than about 5 feet or so can be a problem... ?
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Originally Posted by goolsbyjazz
Sonic_Spork, let us know how your friend-finding expeditions go! The thing about living in the desert is you either like it or you don't. Having friendships can certainly help make your stay better while you're here. You are among a growing number of people who are now working from home I think that trend will continue even after the pandemic has passed.
If your heart is truly to move back to Colorado (a beautiful state) then you can view your time here as a time to explore a new place and enjoy what AZ has to offer. I understand your ambivalence with moving "back east" due to changes both in life there and yourself. I am in a similar situation and family is the only reason we are even considering it. We like lots of things about living in the southwest/west, especially the lack of humidity and lack of brutal winter weather. (We are originally from Massachusetts) We also enjoy the landscape of the west although traveling from state to state takes longer by car and there are fewer travel options.
Hopefully, by the time your stay here is done, you will have greater clarity on your next destination. Until then, welcome to Arizona, and get out there and explore!
I got out a couple of times and met up with some folks and it was pretty fun. I wanted to establish contact with a particular club so as to attend a NYE party, mainly. We met up at Fez Restaurant at Roosevelt Square. Good food!
Weather...meh. Doesn't matter that much to me. I can adapt. I got used to Washington state in time, when I lived there. That was some weird weather, the constant drizzly rain, but I eventually fell slightly in love with the moody gloom of the forests. I loved having moss in the yard instead of grass, at least in the front...we had a perpetual battle with blackberries in the backyard that was frankly a bit of a nightmare. We should have rented a goat! lol
Colorado Springs winters weren't bad. Like they do get the snow, but there would often be a good week of sunshine and mild temps in between snow events and it would melt off pretty fast. I actually kind of miss the humidity, especially in the summers, because sticky air and the sound of cicadas is what I remember from growing up in Virginia. I was happy to hear cicadas when we got here in August. The heat didn't bug me that much. About the only climate I would actively avoid now, is the grey chill of Ohio or the extreme winters of Iowa (just in terms of places I've lived before.)
I would personally rather be hot than cold, even if we're talking about extremes. So I'll be more OK here than I would be in the northeast or north central parts of the country.
In terms of what I'm not enthusiastic about, for housing, is what I see of a tendency for so much of it to be variations on a theme. I know there's good reason for these choices, but I'm just not the biggest fan of the beige stucco and red tile roofs. It's not my style. If I go back to Colorado I'll first try and see if I can find a well maintained older Victorian to buy, or even a Craftsman bungalow. But there's more variety in the look of houses, and more houses that have a bit of "character"...that's what I love.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spuggy
Yes I was surprised by the size of the garages here and see now why so many park their cars outside. We lucked out and found a house with no Hoa , and a cracking view of the south mountain in Ahwatukee.
I'm in Ahwatukee, too. In an apartment though. That's one thing I will enjoy while we're here, we've got some really nice amenities.
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