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Location: Sunny Phoenix Arizona...wishing for a beach.
4,300 posts, read 14,958,068 times
Reputation: 813
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AzSue
Queen Creek is a very nice area with great shopping, restaurants, and affordable housing. My husband and I would have moved there in a second if it wasn't for the commute. We have friends who moved to Queen Creek and work with us in Scottsdale and Phoenix and their commute rules their life. If you work nearby, then by all means, look at Queen Creek seriously.
Why is gentrification such a dirty word when it comes South Phoenix? Queen Creek has notoriously been populated by migrant and citizen farmers. Yet, there isn't the "keep the white man out" attitude that seems to pervade the gentrification of South Phoenix. Damming gentrification is easy because it points fingers at the Anglo population, a historically easy target. As it was, South Phoenix is a highly self-segregated neighborhood and could use a little cultural mixing. This mixing does not mean that Anglos or "outsiders" need to move in and just accept the area for what it is. For cultures to actually mix there needs to be a little give and take.
Sure, I sleep in a gated community and there is a great diversity of people living within these gates. Yet, I live outside of our little community and I really like what I see, especially the burgeoning small businesses. Sure, there are downsides such as the plethora of aggressive beggars at the gas station at 32 and Broadway and all night Banda parties (great if you're at the party, not great if you have to get up at 5am). Yet, neighborhoods such as mine where people have lived here since it was built as opposed to an investment, the wine bar and restaurant at 16th at Baseline, good old Los Dos Molinos, Spokes on Central, U Nails at 32 and Baseline (the best nail place EVER), the friendly people at Fry's at 24th and Baseline, not to mention a city council that actually cares about the area all have convinced my husband and I that South Phoenix is a great place to live. As we move up our own corporate ladders, we will continue to live in South Phoenix, just maybe in a bigger house.
Why would you want to live in a gated community and segregate yourself from the po folks? It's nice you get out from time to time to and slum around with the beggars on 32 and Broadway.
Here's all the insight you need.........Stay away from there
Stick with Ahwatukee or south Tempe, better to have an older home in a decent neighborhood than a new one in that place.
Sheena, maybe you were sarcastic in your reply to me and I'm just not able to read that between the lines. But, you seem to be directly contradicting one of your previous statements about South Phoenix as seen above.
I don't fancy myself an elitist if that is what is being implied. As said before, I don't live my life behind gates (which rarely function); I merely sleep there. Your summary of my comment definitely misses the crux of the argument. New housing is not evil. As long as we are going to keep breeding, new housing will be necessary. That new housing will take new forms and not likely follow the patterns of those found in existing neighborhoods. They are affordable for young couples and new families because they are churned out; the drawback being that they look alike.
A stance opposing new homes is a far more elitist stance. As someone living in a cookie cutter home in South Phoenix, I can attest to the fact that I didn't purchase a cookie cutter home because it fit my "snobbish" sensibilities. Rather, it is what we could afford on my new teacher salary and my husband's first rung of the ladder position. Pointing fingers at new home buyers is not the answer.
Assuming that new home buyers are "ignorant" as they add to urban sprawl and, God forbid, gentrification, as ASUArch pointed out, is simply a refusal to look within oneself. How many times have you been judged by a complete stranger? Do you own a Che Guevara tee shirt Arch? See what I mean about judgment? Classifying new home buyers as naive, glassy-eyed, idiots while putting yourself in this higher position of judgment over them is elitist. Listen, we are all just trying to get by. Part of getting by is acquiring affordable housing. That just so happens to be in South Phoenix.
As said before, we bought in South Phoenix because I was teaching there. Really, I could only take so much of my ass being grabbed by students, the tales of after school gang rape, and the weapons in backpacks. There is only so much inspiration to be drawn from the movie Stand and Deliver. I worked with a great group of teachers and we tried really hard to change their self-perceptions, but their home life didn't support that change. I saw some new build kids come into the school. They quickly adapted to the life style, their grades plummeted, their first petty crimes were committed, and they were taken out of the school before the end of the year. That being said, I taught at a fairly ritzy school, and the problems were the same. So, there really is no hiding from it these days. I'll just keep popping that birth control pill until things turn around or I age out.
Ever see Idiocracy? Good movie.
I stand by my previous statements about the gas station at 32 and Broadway.
P.S. Sorry for the long note. I read through it a few times and there are some rude spots. Please read it with sarcasm, and not actual anger or ridicule. --AZSue
Location: Sunny Phoenix Arizona...wishing for a beach.
4,300 posts, read 14,958,068 times
Reputation: 813
Quote:
Originally Posted by AzSue
Sheena, maybe you were sarcastic in your reply to me and I'm just not able to read that between the lines. But, you seem to be directly contradicting one of your previous statements about South Phoenix as seen above.
I don't fancy myself an elitist if that is what is being implied. As said before, I don't live my life behind gates (which rarely function); I merely sleep there. Your summary of my comment definitely misses the crux of the argument. New housing is not evil. As long as we are going to keep breeding, new housing will be necessary. That new housing will take new forms and not likely follow the patterns of those found in existing neighborhoods. They are affordable for young couples and new families because they are churned out; the drawback being that they look alike.
A stance opposing new homes is a far more elitist stance. As someone living in a cookie cutter home in South Phoenix, I can attest to the fact that I didn't purchase a cookie cutter home because it fit my "snobbish" sensibilities. Rather, it is what we could afford on my new teacher salary and my husband's first rung of the ladder position. Pointing fingers at new home buyers is not the answer.
Assuming that new home buyers are "ignorant" as they add to urban sprawl and, God forbid, gentrification, as ASUArch pointed out, is simply a refusal to look within oneself. How many times have you been judged by a complete stranger? Do you own a Che Guevara tee shirt Arch? See what I mean about judgment? Classifying new home buyers as naive, glassy-eyed, idiots while putting yourself in this higher position of judgment over them is elitist. Listen, we are all just trying to get by. Part of getting by is acquiring affordable housing. That just so happens to be in South Phoenix.
As said before, we bought in South Phoenix because I was teaching there. Really, I could only take so much of my ass being grabbed by students, the tales of after school gang rape, and the weapons in backpacks. There is only so much inspiration to be drawn from the movie Stand and Deliver. I worked with a great group of teachers and we tried really hard to change their self-perceptions, but their home life didn't support that change. I saw some new build kids come into the school. They quickly adapted to the life style, their grades plummeted, their first petty crimes were committed, and they were taken out of the school before the end of the year. That being said, I taught at a fairly ritzy school, and the problems were the same. So, there really is no hiding from it these days. I'll just keep popping that birth control pill until things turn around or I age out.
Ever see Idiocracy? Good movie.
I stand by my previous statements about the gas station at 32 and Broadway.
P.S. Sorry for the long note. I read through it a few times and there are some rude spots. Please read it with sarcasm, and not actual anger or ridicule. --AZSue
No my stance on South Phoenix is the same. I wouldn't live there, gated or not and I wouldn't subject my kids to going to school in that area. This is a relocation forum and I would hate for people to waste their time looking into that area and finding and then they find out it's dangerous. Most people on this forum are looking for a decent area to raise their kids.
I do understand that point of view. It is a less than ideal place to raise kids. That being said, I don't have kids...yet. Crime is viral and kids will fall into this lifestyle just to fit in. Like I said previously, I was teaching high school in this area. Kids with clean records and very caring families would fall into crime because they needed to fit in. As good as the family was, kids would fall into the crime in order to assert themselves as the top of the pile in order to not get jumped after school. The easiest way for them to assert themselves and get out of the school violence was to get arrested.
I know that my husband and I would try as hard as we could to raise a child well in the school system here in South Phoenix, but they would have to stray from how they were raised just to survive in school. To a kid, there is nothing as horrible and depressing as being at the bottom of the pile in school.
That also being said, we do plan on starting our family here in South Phoenix. The Awakening Seed School is award winning as is the Equine and Agriculture High School at 18th and Baseline. If those don't work out, there are some private schools near both of our workplaces to which we would take our child. I do not plan on using our child in some social experiment to see how they do in the local schools. If it doesn’t immediately work out, they’ll be snatched out of there in an instant.
Our neighborhood is perfect for raising kids as well. There is a great little park and kids in the neighborhood seem to go out of their way to meet and play with each other (just like the good old days). Being a gated community, they can't activate the gates with their bikes to get out, and it reduces the amount of predators who can get in. So, you have a good idea of how far they could wander. Our entire neighborhood is very, very friendly and would be a great place for kids to grow up. I grew up in South Tempe and this area is beginning to have the same friendly feel to it where I can really see the benefits of raising a family.
AZ Sue, I write articles about family friendly neighborhoods in Phoenix. I have many clients who work downtown, are thinking of starting families and have wanted to know of family friendly communities in South Phoenix. Yours sounds really like just the thing others are looking for. If you would feel comfortable, would you email me so I might reply with some questions about your community for other families? I would really appreciate it. infoatelenathurston.com
My brother in Law lives in South Phoenix (Mountain) Area. Up by a Golf Course and West of the Boy Scout Camp. I cannot remember the name of the Gated community. Just recently there was a shootout right behind his house...and I mean right behind. Obviously they want out of the Area and have for some time. However the real estate person told them the are stuck for now as they owe more on the house then what it is worth in the current market. Before they moved into this home (nice home by the way) I told them they needed to read up on the area...told them it was rough. They didn't listen.
Location: Sunny Phoenix Arizona...wishing for a beach.
4,300 posts, read 14,958,068 times
Reputation: 813
Quote:
Originally Posted by ibarrio
My brother in Law lives in South Phoenix (Mountain) Area. Up by a Golf Course and West of the Boy Scout Camp. I cannot remember the name of the Gated community. Just recently there was a shootout right behind his house...and I mean right behind. Obviously they want out of the Area and have for some time. However the real estate person told them the are stuck for now as they owe more on the house then what it is worth in the current market. Before they moved into this home (nice home by the way) I told them they needed to read up on the area...told them it was rough. They didn't listen.
Was that the shoot out on Friday night? I think it was on Baseline and 7th or was that another one?
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But, you seem to be directly contradicting one of your previous statements about South Phoenix as seen above.
Why?
