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I've been wanting to move to Phoenix for a few years now, and I think my parents want to come too. But Las Vegas is a city I'm considering too. A couple of things they have over Phoenix are:
* A closer drive to LA
* A slightly better climate. It seems to me if one likes a dry climate LV has perfect weather. They're about a thousand feet higher than Phoenix, and get cooler and drier weather. I happen to like a cold and dry winter weather, and LV got down to 30 degrees the other night! Their summers don't seem to dip too much into the hundreds which isn't bad.
* I also like the fact LV is not a southwestern city. I like more of a west coast flavor.
My only concern with Las Vegas is employment opportunities. I'll be finishing up a degree in accounting and Phoenix has a large number of finance and accounting jobs, LV not nearly as many. Of course all I need is one job.
LV is a much smaller metropolitan area than Phoenix, but is more dense. Does it feel at all like a bustling city compared to Phoenix? I do like the freeway system in Phoenix.
Phoenix is a magnet for people form the Midwest, an estimate, when I lived there, 60% come from the Midwest, some 400,000 had roots in Chicago, which led some people to call Phoenix the New Chicago! And, once a week, in the Phoenix newspaper, there'd be a page of news items, under the categories of Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, the Dakota's, Michigan, etc. Is this one reason they continually re-elect the "toughest" sheriff in America?
Amazingly, my immediate neighbors in an historic district of Phoenix had roots in the Midwest, it was almost like I never left Minnesota!
And what type of people does Las Vegas magnetize? Not surprisingly, New Yorkers, East Coasters, 1 out of 3 from California, not that there's not great numbers of Californian's having moved to Arizona.
But don't let looks, reputations deceive you! The liberalness of this city went out with the Mob, and once you get even a short distance from the Las Vegas Strip, lots of surprises/shocks await you and you may find yourself in a noncoastal San Diego!
Ehhh, to be honest I like both cities. Albeit neither of them are high up there for me, they're always possibilities- ones that I most probably wouldn't be disappointed with in the least. Of the 25 cities in America I could live in, these two are both in.
For living I'll have to go with Phoenix, not saying Las Vegas is a bad city- personally I'm quite attracted to desert scenery & I have some emotional ties to desert scenery in general. I really love it. I'll go with Phoenix because it's a larger city, it has professional sports (the Cardinals & Seahawks are my favorite NFL teams), it's close to interesting historical sites like Montezuma's Castle. It's near some awesome small towns (and this coming from someone that hates small towns) like Sedona and Flagstaff. Close to that wondrous place the Grand Canyon. It's close to one of my all time absolute favorite cities- Tucson. Not far away from another personal favorite of mine- San Diego and is one state over from yet another one of my fascinations- Denver.
I do like Las Vegas though, I've never been there (I have been to Phoenix, twice and have distant cousins that live there- they moved from Austin 10 years ago) but it's high up on my list of places to visit. It's first now that I'm going to see Seattle for the first time. I could probably live there, really "living" somewhere isn't a problem for me so long as I find things that interest me. Being the desert, both places qualify automatically.
I moved to Phoenix from Orlando, Fl because I personally love the state of Arizona. It's big and spacious and have some of the most beautiful sceneries in the nation. Phoenix itself is your typical modern city; traffic, sprawling, major league sports, a downtown in "renovation" mode, etc. I personally like it because being a big city there is so much to do and so many restaurants!!!! Good priced communities too and good engineering jobs! I have only been to the tourist part of Vegas, and I truly dislike it! But I don't know anything about the suburbs or other ammenities.
I moved to Phoenix from Orlando, Fl because I personally love the state of Arizona. It's big and spacious and have some of the most beautiful sceneries in the nation. Phoenix itself is your typical modern city; traffic, sprawling, major league sports, a downtown in "renovation" mode, etc. I personally like it because being a big city there is so much to do and so many restaurants!!!! Good priced communities too and good engineering jobs! I have only been to the tourist part of Vegas, and I truly dislike it! But I don't know anything about the suburbs or other ammenities.
What do you mean renovation mode? I'm very interested in Arizona
Well, Ivoc, i thank you very much for your balanced info on both towns. I thank everyone else here who gave their opinions and provided insight...i hope you'll all accept a "blanket" note of thanks. This move will probably be our last as we head into the homestretch of living. Both of us have disabilities which are sever enough to make us wonder if we're being a bit crazy in this undertaking to begin with! Climate and convenience are high on our priorities list since it's mainly the ice, snow and bone-aching cold of winter along with summer's stifling humidity that are pretty much driving us out of Western New York. We're done with both work and excitement in our lives, so maybe we should move somewhere midway between PHX and LV! Thanks again.
Last edited by madnomad; 01-07-2013 at 10:16 AM..
Reason: just spell-checking
I've been wanting to move to Phoenix for a few years now, and I think my parents want to come too. But Las Vegas is a city I'm considering too. A couple of things they have over Phoenix are:
* A closer drive to LA
* A slightly better climate. It seems to me if one likes a dry climate LV has perfect weather. They're about a thousand feet higher than Phoenix, and get cooler and drier weather. I happen to like a cold and dry winter weather, and LV got down to 30 degrees the other night! Their summers don't seem to dip too much into the hundreds which isn't bad.
* I also like the fact LV is not a southwestern city. I like more of a west coast flavor.
My only concern with Las Vegas is employment opportunities. I'll be finishing up a degree in accounting and Phoenix has a large number of finance and accounting jobs, LV not nearly as many. Of course all I need is one job.
LV is a much smaller metropolitan area than Phoenix, but is more dense. Does it feel at all like a bustling city compared to Phoenix? I do like the freeway system in Phoenix.
I like both cities. I think they have many similarities. I think Phoenix does have more of a west coast flavor than southwest flavor. I think Phoenix fits right in culturally and geographically with the west coast just like Vegas does. I think you can say Tucson fits more in with Albuquerque and El Paso but Phoenix fits more in with SoCal and Vegas.
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