Rancho Vistoso, will we "fit in"? Things to look for? (Tucson: middle-class, sale)

[moving...again]

We are moving from the Midwest. What are things about the Rancho Vistoso area that a Real Estate agent won't tell us? What common problems do homes have there ( black mold is a huge issue here)? We are a 30ish couple with and 8 year old. Will she have children her age in the neighborhood or will it be all retirees? We are CLUELESS about Tucson. Would like to have a pool, but what concerns should we have about water, is it expensive??? (our water here is about $50 a month)

[RickTucsonHomes]

You will fit in very well. Rancho Vistoso is a huge master planned community. Yes there are retirees that live outside of the Sun City Vistoso area, but the majority there are families just like yours. One of Oro Valleys 3 grade schools is located right in Rancho Vistoso. Painted Sky Elementary. There are some smaller communites in RV that are gated and somewhat limit interaction, the vast majority of RV are large free flowing neighborhoods, something for everybody depending on which you prefer. Water is exspenisve here, you could figure about double what you are used to. Black mold is not an issue here unless there has been a plumbing leak. The main nuance to be aware of here is homes with Polybutylene plumbing. If you are looking at homes built in 1995 or before that can be an issue. If you buy a newer home it's not a problem. To re-pipe a polybutylene home will be roughly 5-8K repair depending on size of home. So not a small thing. Doesn's mean it's a deal breaker, but personally I would not buy a PB piped home without having the re-pipe negotiated into the sale so that it new plumbing when I moved in.

Also originally from the midwest, I have lived in Oro Valley for 25 years, not in Rancho Vistoso, but close by. If you like the suburban lifestyle versus the city life it is a great place to live. With Innovation Park as hub for employment there are lots of young professional families in the area. For me it was a great place to raise my kids, and am still here after they have moved out. There are great areas to live all over the Tucson metro area, the vibes of the areas are all different. NW Tucson (Oro Vally area) is different from the NE area, Tanque Verde/Sabino Canyon etc. is different from Vail, is different than Marana and so on.

Bloomberg: Best Place to Raise Kids in AZ.

[johnny12]

Rick,

Would you mind giving a quick run down on the different "vibes" of these areas? Thanks!

[carlcockatoo]

Do not move to Rancho Vistoso.

You will be in one of the safest neighbourhoods in the state and probably the country. That is a pretty good perk. But you will lose your soul in the process.

I have many posts elaborating on this if you want to know more.

[corydon]

As for a swimmingpool, they can run pretty expensive. There is the pool, the water, a pump that sucks electricity, and heating in the spring. few 100 a month for a decent pool.
We wanted one........

[carlcockatoo]

Swimming pools are a tremendous waste of money for something you'll probably end up rarely using. They're basically just a status symbol for the wealthy, which is what is so disgusting about them.

[moving...again]

Carlcockatoo, since you feel so strongly about Oro Valley, what area do you suggest??

[carlcockatoo]

For the people looking at Oro Valley I typically suggest the west central side. Most of the east side should work too. Both are a mix of suburban and urban areas depending on which specific neighbourhood, but aren't as segregated, distanced, and exclusionary as Oro Valley.

The biggest problem with Oro Valley (outside of its design and the story behind its existence) is that it attracts almost exclusively one type of demographic. Almost everyone is over 45 and below 10 years old. So yes, your daughter may fit in on paper for some time, but by the time she is a teenager she will likely be bored and will certainly be immersed in a very wealthy, 'prep' culture where almost everyone is the same and you are expected to match a very specific image. The culture here is just not one I'm fond of, and I think even for the beneficiaries of it it is still sad in its own way. Your daughter might end up liking it I guess but Oro Valley kids tend to be very condescending with little outside exposure towards anything else, and as a result everything (not just the houses) is monotonous and just really strange.

And this is just the dumb rant; I haven't even gone into the things that are truly bad about it.

[Keenanjc]

I've lived in Tucson my entire life. I'm 27, married, currently working part-time while I finish up college. I plan on moving out of the Tucson area myself; I'm kind of tired of it here for the lack of better terms. However, if plans change and it turns out we're staying put, I'd move into the Oro Valley area. I've always lived on the NW side of town, and I honestly wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Rancho is great, you'll fit in. I live in the Marana/Continental Ranch area at the moment, and I enjoy it over there. I've recently moved out of the Dove Mountain neighborhood, which I regret doing now. Dove Mountain, like Rancho, is also located of off Tangerine Rd, but maybe 7 miles or so west of Rancho. Also a great area to consider if you're looking around for a solid community; just lacking in amenities that Rancho has already established. All of this being said, both my family and my wife's family live in Oro Valley, some actually live in the Rancho Vistoso community. The relatives we have that live in Rancho Vistoso are in their early 30s with two kids. There may be more people out there that are bit older than younger, but there is certainly no shortage of younger folks out there. I'm in the neighborhood on a near weekly basis and I always see kids that look to be about 8ish running around. There is a close park with a playground, baseball field, and basketball courts. Heck, there is an elementary school smack dab in the middle of Rancho Vistoso (Painted Sky Elementary School); they didn't build it there for old folks. And no, your kids won't be turned into snooty brats... come on. Oro Valley is clean, low crime, great public and private schools, and by no means comprised of stuck up rich folks that look down on outsiders. Rancho is located down the street from an awesome shopping center called Oro Valley Marketplace - Movie theater, Walmart, Dick's Sporting Goods, Big Lots, a few great restaurants... Rancho also has it's own shopping plaza with a Safeway grocery store, gas station, B of A, an Indian style bistro, and some other assorted businesses.

[carlcockatoo]

This is just a personal opinion but I can't see why anyone want to live in the NW side of town other than to segregate themselves from every other part of the city. In doing so you separate yourself not only from everything that is bad, but everything is good and ultimately creates a soulless culture that is only taken seriously by itself.

You are probably a nice person, but even your post shows hints of the upper-class attitude in Oro Valley. Especially this sentence: "Oro Valley is clean, low crime, great public and private schools, and by no means comprised of stuck up rich folks that look down on outsiders." You just named everything associated with rich people in a post that suggests that you think that the OV is superior to the rest of the city, and then claim that there is no classism. Now, when I say 'outsiders' I'm not talking geographic outsiders, I'm talking demographic outsiders. Something like 70% of OV (don't remember the exact statistic) is from another state, myself included, but it's not about that. If you don't have the "OV" world-view, you don't fit in. It's essentially a good-old boys club for primarily white, upper-class people who like to hang out at the country club. Yes, Oro Valley is "clean" (more like dull IMO- I've never considered Tucson to be an especially "dirty" city. The main difference is that Oro Valley has perfectly smooth roads and fake grass everywhere), has an incredibly low crime rate, and has "great public schools" (I went from a 2/10 school to a 9/10 school lol) but that's not because Oro Valley is just full of these really nice "normal people". Oro Valley's entire existence revolves around de facto segregation. Let's not pretend that a suburb founded forty years ago, consists of an absurd amount of status symbols (overpriced stucco homes and backyard swimming pools), a large number of gated communities (including one with million dollar homes and a private airpark), the highest rated schools (that are also overfunded), extremely heterogeneous, and based around an antisocial lifestyle is just this "normal" middle class place. I honestly have more respect for the Catalina Foothills because they are at least self-aware, unlike people in Oro Valley who pose as "normal" middle class people so they can absolve themselves of any social conscious. Even the safety isn't because we're just these great people who commit no crime and have an overfunded and overencouraged police force- it's because by denying worse-off areas the resources to fight crime, the suburbs have managed to help cause the crime to begin with and then talk down on those areas for having it.

People in OV are typically polite, but that doesn't mean they'll like you. At the high school I spent my last two years (where everyone gets a luxury car on their 16th birthday), I got along with people fine on the surface, but I was never taken seriously by anyone outside of superficial situations. They laughed at my dumb jokes in class, but once class was out do you think anyone wanted near me? At this same school, people accused me of being "poor" because I took the bus to school as a senior (lmao I live in Rancho Vistoso in a semi-mansion I'm not poor), heard things like "I hate Sunnyside because it's full of Hispanics" (people at my school also thought that Mountain View is ghetto lol how stupid. And don't even get me going on all the "casual" racism in OV), and laughed in my face for going to community college. It's weird coming from a middle-class place where most students don't even go to university (CC was common but that was it), and then ending up in a place where most are going to expensive out-of-state schools and call you stupid if you don't do the same.

Those are all petty, small, complaints (I have more specific examples but nobody gaf) but are representative of the subtle but far reaching classism in OV. Due to these attitudes and the general lack of any community, I spend most of my time (when I'm not at home) in the city with people from the west side, south side, and from the amphi/flowing wells area (which is where I may go later tbh). According to OV kids I shouldn't talk to those people or I'll get shot (was actually told this lol). There is a community in OV, but you have to be "in" to make any real personal connections. They are nice to each other because they are almost all the same. There is no 'street scene' of any sort in OV aside from people in spandex jogging/biking, and everything happens behind closed doors, largely within gated areas. Just the nature of the area makes it difficult to socialise or do anything without having to commute somewhere else. And when the best thing you can say about a place is its shopping centre (a more spread out version of every other shopping centre ever) and segregated country clubs, and it's safety created under negative circumstances, there's really nothing to brag about.

I know you don't want my life story but every perspective should be taken into account, even if it doesn't affect your opinion on moving here. There are people who break the stereotype too; I'm not saying that everyone is bad.

Speaking of which if Rancho Vistoso is master planned why is it so stupidly designed?