Is Tucson Really That Bad?? (Phoenix, Nogales: buying, theatre, college)

[bwdbluesman]

amen. I have been here 9 yrs and it is one of those cities you get trapped in because you dont make enough to get out. I keep seeing oro valley as nice, sure. but it is north of the main city area and mostly upper middle class $150k- $200k homes. There is minimal employment because Tucson is in existence because of retirees and construction. And right now there isnt much construction at all. Also, traffic is absolutely HORRIBLE, and if you do not speak decent spanish you are the minority.

[bwdbluesman]

I couldn't have said it any better. I have been here 9 yrs and it has absolutely nothing to offer other than go to work and go home! You can drive the hour or so to phoenix for concerts, the only sporting events are UofA relatedModerator cut: snip

[ExNooYawk]

Originally Posted by RickTucsonHomes

Academy Village will put you closer to all the wineries down in Sonoita and Elgin. Makes for a nice day trip.
Sonoita / Elgin Wineries

Wow, thanks Rick. Who knew there were so many wineries near Tucson? This will be definitely make a fun day trip.

[chet_kinkaid]

i lived in both phoenix and tucson..and to be frank for a city of 4 million phoenix has little in the way of cultural superiority to tucson..

[robabeatle]

If you are an outdoors person, there is plenty in Tucson. Frankly it is a gem of a city for hiking in that you can get on one of many trails in less than 30 minutes from in the city. Bring plenty of water though!

[cheesecurd]

Originally Posted by bwdbluesman

I couldn't have said it any better. I have been here 9 yrs and it has absolutely nothing to offer other than go to work and go home! You can drive the hour or so to phoenix for concerts, the only sporting events are UofA relatedModerator cut: snip

Just think of all the money you will save just going to work then to home!.

[RickTucsonHomes]

Originally Posted by ExNooYawk

Wow, thanks Rick. Who knew there were so many wineries near Tucson? This will be definitely make a fun day trip.

And if you want to do an overnight wine excursion there are a bunch more up around Oak Creek Canyon area. Wine Trail Map- Sedona, Cottonwood, Jerome
It's about a 4 hour drive each way. Not sure if you are familiar with the Oak Creek/Sedona area but here is a link. http://www.visitsedona.com/

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by Roli

Tucson is a quirky place. A lot of the original people have a slightly altered view of what they need in life, like basically they get by with a little.

I think this is a good point. There's always a tricky balance between wanting nice things and letting your desire for those nice things consume you. At the same time, extreme simplicity isn't always a healthy thing, either, as it can breed low expectations which then lead to a low quality of life in terms of health and general well being. IMO, Tucson veers too far into the direction of "just barely getting by"/lack of ambition.

My biggest example of the "just getting by" mindset: People who didn't put any kind of landscaping in their front yards, and instead had bare dirt or ugy gray gravel (often with the car/truck parked in the front yard instead of in the driveway.) They would often call this the "natural desert". The natural desert is a lot greener than many Tucson yards.

I'm sure others will disagree, though.

[Gumpo]

Tucson sucks. I live in the city itself, not the Foothills, not Oro Valley...in Tucson city limits. I've had wild cat dumping in the alley behind my house numerous times. And no, that does not mean a lynx or bobcat decided to use the alley as a kitty litter box. It means lazy people dumped furniture and junk behind my house and drove off. Numerous times. I've had people, just the last 2 weeks, cut in front of me in line. 2 different stores, 2 different occasions, 2 different idiots. How does this happen? [mod]snip[/mod]

[Prodigal Native]

Let me put it this way, just before I moved here from Denver I had a coworker that moved to Tucson and back within 6 weeks. His report to me was, "It's a hole, don't move there".

I shoulda listened.

Tucson is slowly getting (slightly) better, but its biggest problem is that it still thinks it is and wants to be a small town. It isn't. On the other hand, it isn't as big as some of it's proponents want everyone to think it is. You will frequently hear that Tucson is, "a metro area of nearly a million people", it simply isn't.

Pima County is just under a million and Tucson proper is a little over 520,000 (2010 census, so I assume this does not include the seasonally variations brought on by the snow-birds and students).

The city is wildly mismanaged (see the Modern Street Car, Rio Nuevo, Spring Training, etc...), the citizens will not vote to improve the the infrastructure with the possible exception of RTA which is really only going to improve things to where they should have been 10 years ago (it would be an additional 5-10 years behind the times if the housing bubble hadn't burst), there is no cross-town highway AND we have a state legislature that likes to bring down their iron first on Tucson any time we do something they don't approve of.

I don't know if it's "that bad", but it sure ain't great.