Do You Prefer Phoenix Or Tucson? (Scottsdale, Chandler: landscaping, jobs, campus)

[sunshinecities]

For those who have experienced both Tucson and Phoenix - which do you prefer and why?

[Ponderosa]

Phoenix. It took me a long time to be able to say that. I spent several years in Tucson and am a UofA grad. Hating Phoenix and all things Phoenix comes from something in the water there. I "had" to move to Phoenix for work after school. Over the years I have come to like Phoenix better for one reason - it is more convenient to outdoor recreation than Tucson is. I hate cities of all shapes, forms, and sizes. There are big lakes near Phoenix and the Mogollon rim is closer. Yeah, Tucson has the Catalinas, but that is mostly a drive-by mountain. All the good camping and the trout fishing and boating and hiking is north and northeast of Phoenix.

Other than that, the two have far more in common than they do in difference. Tucson residents - and I was like this when I lived there too - cling to this quaint notion that they are not "like Phoenix", but they really are. Tucson is smaller than Phoenix, but nobody lives in the whole of Phoenix if you get my drift. I haven't been to Scottsdale in years, for example. It doesn't matter how big it is really, as you never venture to many other parts. You live around your subdivision and the freeways leading to your work (Tucson has no freeways across town). In fact, that is one of the reasons some of the advice on the forum is so worthless. There are often comments about this part of town or that part of town by people who obviously haven't been in that part of town in 10 years or more.

I digress. If you are retiring, I'd pick Tucson - it's cooler there and the monsoon is much, much better. If you need a job, Phoenix.

[vegaspilgrim]

About a year ago, when I first discovered Tucson, driving down there for a day trip, I was infatuated with it. Bigger and more mountains around the city, more natural desert-like, more rugged, more unique pueblo-style architecture with beautiful prickly pear patches for landscaping, slightly cooler. I've been to Catalina State Park, Biosphere II, Kit Peak Observatory-- all awesome places. I also thought that UofA was a more attractive campus than ASU, at least for my first impression. I love the Casas Adobes shopping center on Orace and Ina-- one of the best looking strip malls I've ever seen. I thought the neon turquoise lights on the Walgreens was really cool. I've also stayed at a resort in Oro Valley, an absolutely beautiful area, when my family came out to visit. Everybody at ASU is always talking about how much Tucson sucks... I was determined to prove them wrong.

After being there a few times, and experiencing how congested the traffic is, and seeing how run down most of the neighborhoods are, especially south of River Rd, the initial infatuation has worn off. I still like Tucson, especially Oro Valley, but overall it is not better than Phoenix. They're the same formula fundamentally, other than Phoenix having more jobs and amenities simply because it is bigger, economies of scale. For Tucson, just being more scenic, in terms of desert and mountains, does not mean it is a better place to live when it comes to day to day life. Example-- in Phoenix, the area off Cave Creek Rd between Dunlap (Sunnyslope) and Thunderbird is physically rugged and scenic, winding through desert mountains, but it is also one of the most ghetto areas in town. Some of the best places to live in Arizona, like Chandler and Gilbert, are also some of the flattest and most physically boring.

So which one is better? As I once heard on a public radio program, "it all looks the same from Boston."

[jwking]

Phoenix for about 100 reasons.. If you are under 60 you will want to live in phoenix over tucson.