Sacramento vs. Phoenix

[markeg]

I am nearing retirement so I like to keep all options open.
I currently live in Phoenix. As far as a city goes, it has great amenities, great restaurants, and some transportation with the light rail.
I live in Midtown, Phoenix where I can walk to a limited amount of restaurants, and the Phoenix Theatre, the Art Museum, The Heard Museum. The light rail is convenient and goes to the Airport as well as other nearby towns, but it does bring some homeless people to the area. Crime can be a concern too, but that is everywhere.
The summer's relentless heat from May to September really took a toll on me this year. You have no choice but to walk your dogs at 5 a.m. because it's already in the 90's. That's not fun! The rest of the year the weather is great.

[tstieber]

Originally Posted by markeg

I am nearing retirement so I like to keep all options open.
I currently live in Phoenix. As far as a city goes, it has great amenities, great restaurants, and some transportation with the light rail.
I live in Midtown, Phoenix where I can walk to a limited amount of restaurants, and the Phoenix Theatre, the Art Museum, The Heard Museum. The light rail is convenient and goes to the Airport as well as other nearby towns, but it does bring some homeless people to the area. Crime can be a concern too, but that is everywhere.
The summer's relentless heat from May to September really took a toll on me this year. You have no choice but to walk your dogs at 5 a.m. because it's already in the 90's. That's not fun! The rest of the year the weather is great.

The "rest of the year" is only about half of the year though... lol

[Dean W.]

Sorry to be late the party; but, I just spotted your post. I've lived in both places; and think that if one is heat-sensitive, Phoenix is a very stressful choice; also, though Sacramento is not as hot of a place to reside, the region does have a few stretches of 107-degree days (sometimes a degree or two warmer), every summer.

Now, one of the key-points, regarding both locations, is the cost of running an A/C:

In Sacramento, SMUD-serviced areas (one of the two, main utility companies in the region) charges rates that are workable for those earning a middle-class income; but, if one lives in a PG&E-area, those rates are high, and will only go up, as the company just petitioned the PUC to significantly raise rates on households.

Now, in Phoenix, one has APS, or SRP; and the costs come out high with either utility, because of how many days per year one has run their A/C.

Also, regarding Phoenix, if you like it 'cool' (72-75 degrees), current (as well as past) building-codes haven't mandated much insulation, and standard-install A/Cs aren't powerful enough to do the job, so it's not possible to achieve that level of coolness – and that's even if one's A/C is kept running 24/7 (which, I can tell you from personal experience, can be hard on one's budget).

Other posters have gone into detail regarding the respective climates; but, I'd wanted to bring-up utility-costs, as summers are getting hotter in both locales.

Best of luck, whatever you decide!

[littletraveller]

My pick would be Phoenix. It gets hot, but there's plenty of entertainment and things to keep me busy.

Sacramento is very vanilla and not my thing at all. It's the last place I would want to be in California.

[markeg]

There’s a lot to be said about infrastructure. Phoenix has theatre, museums, concerts. There’s usually something going on to keep you entertained.
This is important because, if I moved to a place that didn’t offer these amenities, I would be bored.
Not every place is perfect. You just have to weigh out which things are more important to you in the stage of life you’re in.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by markeg

There’s a lot to be said about infrastructure. Phoenix has theatre, museums, concerts. There’s usually something going on to keep you entertained.
This is important because, if I moved to a place that didn’t offer these amenities, I would be bored.
Not every place is perfect. You just have to weigh out which things are more important to you in the stage of life you’re in.

Sacramento has theatre, museums, concerts, and other things going on to keep one entertained. Now, Phoenix is a larger city with a larger metro, so they may have more of each, but claiming that they don't exist in Sacramento is simply incorrect. There's always something happening in town every weekend and plenty of weekdays, and anyone who's bored here has made the conscious decision to be bored. And while we don't quite have Phoenix's urban amenities, Phoenix doesn't have the Bay Area's amenities 2 hours away--an effect that both limits Sacramento's amenities (many touring concerts have contract restrictions against playing shows less than 100 miles apart, and Sacramento to San Francisco is 90 miles) but also means it's easy for Sacramentans to enjoy them on a day trip. This also works in reverse, as many Bay Area folks visit the Sacramento metro (which runs up to Lake Tahoe) to ski and otherwise do outdoor things. For outdoor enthusiasts, Sacramento is about 2 hours from the coast, or mountains with a lot of ski resorts--Phoenix has a far narrower range of terrain and climate in close proximity.

[markeg]

Originally Posted by wburg

Sacramento has theatre, museums, concerts, and other things going on to keep one entertained. Now, Phoenix is a larger city with a larger metro, so they may have more of each, but claiming that they don't exist in Sacramento is simply incorrect. There's always something happening in town every weekend and plenty of weekdays, and anyone who's bored here has made the conscious decision to be bored. And while we don't quite have Phoenix's urban amenities, Phoenix doesn't have the Bay Area's amenities 2 hours away--an effect that both limits Sacramento's amenities (many touring concerts have contract restrictions against playing shows less than 100 miles apart, and Sacramento to San Francisco is 90 miles) but also means it's easy for Sacramentans to enjoy them on a day trip. This also works in reverse, as many Bay Area folks visit the Sacramento metro (which runs up to Lake Tahoe) to ski and otherwise do outdoor things. For outdoor enthusiasts, Sacramento is about 2 hours from the coast, or mountains with a lot of ski resorts--Phoenix has a far narrower range of terrain and climate in close proximity.

You may have misunderstood me. I didn't say that Sacramento was boring, I said that amenities were important to me wherever I lived. I have no idea of what amenities Sacramento has because I have never been there. I currently live in Phoenix. Sac does seem to be a nice place to live, the weather seems better, because you get the Delta breeze in the evenings which cools things down, whereas in the summer months in Phoenix, it's still in the 100s in the evening. The only time to walk your dogs is very early in the morning or late in the evening.
Other things that are important are healthcare, transportation (somewhat walkable would be great!), and lower crime (this is subjective considering that Phoenix has high crime in some areas).

[wburg]

Thank you for clarifying, didn't mean to get so ruffled in my response. Healthcare in Sacramento is pretty good from what I understand, we've got a very highly rated medical school/trauma center close to downtown and a sprinkling of regional hospitals. Walkability depends highly on the neighborhood: it's quite good in Downtown & Midtown, OK in the neighborhoods immediately outside of Downtown & Midtown, and "meh" to terrible everywhere else. Our transit system, while far from perfect (light rail doesn't go to the airport, but a couple buses do), has ridership that is comparable per capita to Phoenix (pre-COVID it was higher.) Similarly, crime rates in the two cities appear to be similar. A lot of it comes down to climate and terrain, and to a certain extent, employment sector. Sacramento has a lot more public employment, because California is a much larger, wealthier, and more populous state, and certainly not exactly easy to govern, but it looks like the number of state employees per capita in each state is fairly similar (61-62 public employees per 10,000 people)--they just stand out in a city of half a million.

[PhoenixSomeday]

Originally Posted by Dean W.

Now, one of the key-points, regarding both locations, is the cost of running an A/C:

In Sacramento, SMUD-serviced areas (one of the two, main utility companies in the region) charges rates that are workable for those earning a middle-class income; but, if one lives in a PG&E-area, those rates are high, and will only go up, as the company just petitioned the PUC to significantly raise rates on households.

Now, in Phoenix, one has APS, or SRP; and the costs come out high with either utility, because of how many days per year one has run their A/C.

Yep. Looking at their rate charts, PG&E is literally twice as much as SMUD or Roseville. My power bill this month and last month was $640 here in the Sacramento region in a PG&E area (4/2.5, 2 level, 2200 sq.ft.). AC set to the same temp (80) in both Sacramento and Phoenix, but it runs a LOT less than where I was in the Phoenix area. A LOT less. One house built in 2005, the other in 2004. PG&E is pretty horrific. I told my wife "NOT a PG&E area. That's Lincoln, Rocklin, and a few others." Yet, here we are.

I didn't feel much of a difference between SRP and APS. Was in SRP territory for 6 years and APS for 3.

[markeg]

Our highest bill in Phoenix for a 1710 sq ft condo was $246. It can be as low as $75 in the winter. I can’t complain about APS in Phoenix.