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OhioTim
I've lived in Tucson for 4 years and can't wait to leave. I've had my car broken into several times, identity theft (highest in the nation), embezzled, and two of our dogs have developed cancer. Not saying AZ caused it but I have seen a big decline in their health as well as mine since we've moved here. I've never had allergies in my life until last year. It's very dusty and dirty here. Friendly people??? the only friendly peope I've met were very far and few. Most are gold diggers and back stabbers. Which I realize is everywhere. I've lived in several places and would never come back here. I'm looking forward to the day I say "GOOD BYE!!!!!!"
OhioTim
I've lived in Tucson for 4 years and can't wait to leave. I've had my car broken into several times, identity theft (highest in the nation), embezzled, and two of our dogs have developed cancer. Not saying AZ caused it but I have seen a big decline in their health as well as mine since we've moved here. I've never had allergies in my life until last year. It's very dusty and dirty here. Friendly people??? the only friendly peope I've met were very far and few. Most are gold diggers and back stabbers. Which I realize is everywhere. I've lived in several places and would never come back here. I'm looking forward to the day I say "GOOD BYE!!!!!!"
This is a letter I sent to the city one evening. It felt good to get some things off my chest. Hopefull this will help you. We've lived in Tucson since 2002. I-10 is the only major hwy in Tucson. It travels through the state. All the Tucson city off ramps east and west bound will be closed all at once for 3 years for a widening project.
Perhaps you should move here in about 5-10 years after the dust settles:
"Dear city of Tucson: help me to fall in love with Tucson again.
We moved here 5 yrs ago for my husband to finish his degree at the U of A. I got a job with a national company and he is now graduated and working as well. We just settled into a new home and our youngest has 3 more years to go 'till she goes away to college. The beauty of the area was starting to grow on us, and we were feeling better about calling Tucson our new home, even though we both left our families to move here. …And then some retard has decided to close down a major section on both sides of THE ONLY HWY in Tucson for THREE unbelievably long years!! Don’t buy up land and build the west/east hwy the working class needs, or build a real public transit system... oh no... This city seems to only cater to the retired population and independently wealthy!!
We had to move to the NW because we couldn’t "afford" to live anywhere else- afford to live in one area because our lives would be in danger due to high crime or couldn’t live in another because you've allowed the housing market to be so out of control regular middle class folks like us cant live/wont live in the city. Together we make a little over $75k a year! Why can’t we live in town?? Why wont we live in town? Tucson’s crime rates have been going up the same years the national crime rates have been going down. Who wants to live by that--- only people who don’t care or vote that’s who.
Our commute use to be 20-30 min into town from Cont. Ranch, now it is 1 hr. We think during the winter and fall when school is in session our commute could jump to 90 min. ---3 hrs of our life in a car a day. This is worst than my old commute from Port Orchard WA into Seattle everyday- check in out on a map. I took 2 ferries and a bus to get to work. And now I’ll have a 90 min commute traveling from Gladden Farms to Kolb! 30 miles!! We moved here to avoid all that!!! Now I can’t tell you how angry I am!! Everything is looking ugly to us now: we hate the horrible bus system, the trash all over town, the drivers, 'smokey' medium size work trucks that drive all over town, the gang graffiti, the street people in the parks, the red lights EVEY BLOCK so it take 30 min to go 15 dang miles, and now... I-10 will be closed for and unbelievable amount of time!!! But because Tucson is full of people that don’t care about important things like good schools, roads and jobs… they don’t vote and yahoos in government get to do whatever they want. Natives just say “You don’t like it then move”. Well I USE to like Tucson! We made plans to stay here. How about instead of telling people to leave, everyone works hard to make Tucson a better city?
We drove by an accident in an intersection yesterday- with more horrible drivers on the surface streets, more accidents will happen! Everyone I talk with especially those who were born/raised here say if this was Phx. I-10 would only be closed for less than one year. Many times I'll see cones up but no workers??!! They are too lazy to put them down before they go home.
If you can attract more middle class people to the city of Tucson- I bet the crime rate would go down, there would be less gang activity and trash, and traffic would be better.
The working class people of this area --who choose to NOT LIVE IN THE CITY cant get to their jobs. THREE HORRIBLE YEARS!! Lord help us!
I’ve wanted to write this letter for a few mths now. I know I’m not retired or independently wealthy but perhaps you’ll at least consider what I am saying."
This is a letter I sent to the city one evening. It felt good to get some things off my chest. Hopefull this will help you. We've lived in Tucson since 2002. I-10 is the only major hwy in Tucson. It travels through the state. All the Tucson city off ramps east and west bound will be closed all at once for 3 years for a widening project.
Perhaps you should move here in about 5-10 years after the dust settles:
"Dear city of Tucson: help me to fall in love with Tucson again.
We moved here 5 yrs ago for my husband to finish his degree at the U of A. I got a job with a national company and he is now graduated and working as well. We just settled into a new home and our youngest has 3 more years to go 'till she goes away to college. The beauty of the area was starting to grow on us, and we were feeling better about calling Tucson our new home, even though we both left our families to move here. …And then some retard has decided to close down a major section on both sides of THE ONLY HWY in Tucson for THREE unbelievably long years!! Don’t buy up land and build the west/east hwy the working class needs, or build a real public transit system... oh no... This city seems to only cater to the retired population and independently wealthy!!
We had to move to the NW because we couldn’t "afford" to live anywhere else- afford to live in one area because our lives would be in danger due to high crime or couldn’t live in another because you've allowed the housing market to be so out of control regular middle class folks like us cant live/wont live in the city. Together we make a little over $75k a year! Why can’t we live in town?? Why wont we live in town? Tucson’s crime rates have been going up the same years the national crime rates have been going down. Who wants to live by that--- only people who don’t care or vote that’s who.
Our commute use to be 20-30 min into town from Cont. Ranch, now it is 1 hr. We think during the winter and fall when school is in session our commute could jump to 90 min. ---3 hrs of our life in a car a day. This is worst than my old commute from Port Orchard WA into Seattle everyday- check in out on a map. I took 2 ferries and a bus to get to work. And now I’ll have a 90 min commute traveling from Gladden Farms to Kolb! 30 miles!! We moved here to avoid all that!!! Now I can’t tell you how angry I am!! Everything is looking ugly to us now: we hate the horrible bus system, the trash all over town, the drivers, 'smokey' medium size work trucks that drive all over town, the gang graffiti, the street people in the parks, the red lights EVEY BLOCK so it take 30 min to go 15 dang miles, and now... I-10 will be closed for and unbelievable amount of time!!! But because Tucson is full of people that don’t care about important things like good schools, roads and jobs… they don’t vote and yahoos in government get to do whatever they want. Natives just say “You don’t like it then move”. Well I USE to like Tucson! We made plans to stay here. How about instead of telling people to leave, everyone works hard to make Tucson a better city?
We drove by an accident in an intersection yesterday- with more horrible drivers on the surface streets, more accidents will happen! Everyone I talk with especially those who were born/raised here say if this was Phx. I-10 would only be closed for less than one year. Many times I'll see cones up but no workers??!! They are too lazy to put them down before they go home.
If you can attract more middle class people to the city of Tucson- I bet the crime rate would go down, there would be less gang activity and trash, and traffic would be better.
The working class people of this area --who choose to NOT LIVE IN THE CITY cant get to their jobs. THREE HORRIBLE YEARS!! Lord help us!
I’ve wanted to write this letter for a few mths now. I know I’m not retired or independently wealthy but perhaps you’ll at least consider what I am saying."
I hope you edited that version of the letter before you sent it in to city officials. I agree with you that Tucson is suffering very heavily because it is only served by one freeway, neglecting a large part of the eastern side of town. However, many voters in Tucson have consistently rejected any proposals to construct additional freeways in the city. Too many residents are so concerned that the construction of an EXTREMELY necessary freeway would somehow deteriorate the quality of life to that of Phoenix or LA. I don't necessarily think public officials are the people to blame for the traffic crisis, I think residents are. The construction on the 10 freeway is necessary and unfortunately will prove to be an inconvenience to many for the next three years. Maybe this will cause Tucsonans to rethink their ideas that one freeway is enough to serve a metropolitan area of more than one million people.
Additionally, I have noticed since living in Arizona that people tend to overhype crime that takes place. I know that property crime is quite high, and I believe that has a lot to do with the city's proximity to Mexico. There are many areas in the Southwest, not only in Tucson, where property crime is an issue. Violent crime in Tucson seems to be very concentrated to South Tucson and some isolated areas around town. Going as far as to label Tucson as "dangerous" is definitely taking the issue a bit overboard.
The issues with the street people, the "smokey" trucks that you act as though only exist in Tucson, gang grafitti, surface street traffic, are all part of living in a city of more than 800,000. I love it when residents complain that these issues have worsened since they have moved to the area, completely ignoring the fact that the city is growing, so of course there will be more traffic and negative elements.
I suggest that you try to garner public support for the things you want to see changed, and something can be done. Politicians cannot do much at all without public support, which seems to be largely absent in Tucson.
Has anyone mentioned allergies? I've never had allergies this bad and I speak with many transplants to Tucson from back east, etc. and they all complain of allergies as well.
Everyone else that posted to this thread have pretty much covered it. You either like it or you don't. It was a great place to move to 10 yrs ago but I'm looking forward to getting out.
I shall leave more room in "paradise" for those folk who would trade quality of life for nice weather and expensive golf.
We have lived in Tucson for almost 12 years (in Oro Valley which is North of Tucson). We moved here from the Chicago suburbs, so love winter and even Spring and Fall - although I miss the changing of the leaves in Fall and the flowers and blooming in Spring. But we have different plants and different blooms and they are beautiful as well. But I never miss winter and that is the tradeoff for the hot summers. People joke about "dry heat" but 100 degrees here is more comfortable than 90 degrees with humidity elsewhere.
The mountains are amazing, the views are great, the sunsets are spectacular and yes, you can see the stars because you are lacking all of those city lights and pollution.
Traffic is bad as it seems roads everywhere are constantly under construction and yes we are becoming way too overpopulated, but the biggest negative I have found living here is the school system. We moved from excellent schools in IL to huge class sizes (average 26-34 students without an aide). I don't feel my children got the education they could have elsewhere, but our property taxes are less than 1/3 of what they were in IL and that's what paid for schools. I know a lot of parents that would be willing to pay more in property taxes, but we have a huge senior population in AZ and they don't want to pay for the education system.
We do not pay taxes on groceries which is a large savings, but I think most meats are more here than they were in IL. I truly miss good produce, even though a lot of if comes from next door in CA, it's not the same as midwestern tomatoes or corn on the cob!
Sure, like every other city Tucson has its drawbacks. Poor immigration control mainly (which in my opinion is the source of all its problems i.e. schooling, transportation, crime.) But for the most part Tucson is a fairly enjoyable place to reside. Tucson has all of your big city ammenities with a small university town vibe. You'll hear many pesimists rave about the intense heat, but what these folks neglect to mention is that a good eight months of the year the weather is nothing short of perfect. The other four may see a couple days in the lower 100s, but personally I prefer 110 degrees with no humidity to a midwest summer of 95 degrees and 70% humidity. If you can afford to live in the hills then Tucson is definetly your place. But ultimately dont base a big decision like moving on some silly internet blogs. Come give us a visit, and if ya like it stay.
Were looking forward to the day you leave too! FYI I am a really nice person and so are all of my aquaintences. Pretty much you get in where you fit in. Sooo if everyone you associate with is scandalous in nature than that is merley a reflection of yourself. I suggest leaving the ghetto (which in fact every city has, not just a tucson thing) and mabye coming up to the foothills. I was born in Indianapolis and have family in cincinatti, clevland, toledo, and kings. I visit ohio quite frequently and in my opinion the quality of living is far less than that of Tucson. But what it all boiles down to is that it is what you make it, and if your soooo homesick that you are to the point of internet trash talking than just go home.
I Am Looking Forward To Coming
What Ae You Yelling At Me For
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I-10 down for 3 years!
