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Using your experiences in what way is Phoenix different and similar to cities like ATLANTA, NYC, MIAMI, LA, SAN FRANCISCO, DALLAS, AUSTIN, jersey city, newark???
Isn't this just the polar opposite of your polar opposite thread? Are you doing a research project or do you actually have something specific that you'd like to know?
Just want a picture of what it's like. My Polar post is more of a personal experiences thing. This post is in general what you all think of Phoenix area and I know that Maricopa is an extremely vast County.
Yes Arizona as well as California and other western states have relatively large counties. A few of our counties are larger than states such as Connecticut, Rhode Island, etc. I mean besides Phoenix being a desert city and geographically very different from most of the U.S. it's still "Everywhere USA" and really not all that different from anywhere else. Most people call Phoenix "LA without the beach" or "Inland Empire East" and for the most part that's correct. It's a west coast city in the desert basically. Phoenix is not at all comparable to East Coast cities like NY but it's more comparable to sprawled out sunbelt cities such as Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, etc.
Phoenix is most like L.A. If you cut L.A.'s population and skyscrapers in half and place that in the Sonoran desert, you now have Phoenix.
Like L.A., Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, and Austin, Phoenix is known for it's mild winter weather.
I can't think of a single way that Phoenix is similar to Newark, JC, NYC, or San Francisco, but Phoenix is very similar to Philadelphia in terms of population and metro area, both have about a million and a half people in the city proper and 4 million in the metro area.
I was kinda unnerved when I spent a week in Phoenix this spring. It felt like much of the metro area is on these huge 1mile by 1 mile blocks of 6-lane roads and then subdivisions and large apartment complexes hidden away by large walls/soundproofing within the 1-mile blocks with big strip malls and stores where the blocks meet. I spent the whole time going "where the hell is the CITY!?".
Honestly it was kinda depressing, much of the city felt purposefully isolated from itself. The bright areas though were Tempe which I liked, although it's such a small part of the metro, and then at least downtown Scottsdale had some urban fabric to it and was pretty, not just 6-lane roads of walls and then strip malls huddled together every mile. My friends I grew up with in Iowa who moved down there came to Chicago to party and hang out this summer and I talked to them about it. They basically said "yeah, the city itself totally sucks ass, but at least it's warm in winter and cheap". They definitely said Chicago was the anti-Phoenix.
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