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My kids live there and I did for years. In my recent visits I can say the part of Florence that was always Florence has not changed and you will not find things different than they were in 2007. But there is a new part over by Coolidge that should have been Coolidge but Florence annexed it first. It is in the City of Florence, but actually miles from the old City.
A commute from Florence is going to be double what your husband does now.
I won't go off topic on homeschooling and "online school" (for primary grades?) for kids that are at least six years away, but if you are convinced that you want to drive everywhere, then go with Florence. But don't be surprised if that newer home isn't just as close to the neighbors as you would be somewhere else.
Once a month for groceries? Well, that works for everything but dairy and produce, as you can freeze other perishables. That said, there is a grocery store out in that newer north part of Florence, so you don't have to drive that far every time you leave the house.
It sounds like it might be a good compramise between me and my husband. We will definitely check it out when we come to visit.
As for once a month grocery shopping, it just takes a little planning. We enjoy it more than going multiple times. We get a nice array of produce and use the stuff that goes bad first and save the produce that lasts longer, for the second half of the month.
For example, we will eat tomatoes, berries, spinach etc the first two weeks and then apples, broccoli, cauliflower etc the second half of the month.
My kids live there and I did for years. In my recent visits I can say the part of Florence that was always Florence has not changed and you will not find things different than they were in 2007. But there is a new part over by Coolidge that should have been Coolidge but Florence annexed it first. It is in the City of Florence, but actually miles from the old City.
A commute from Florence is going to be double what your husband does now.
How are the people there? Are they friendly? Are there younger families out mostly older?
You said you wanted a larger yard and space between neighbors, so I'll chime in here.
We wanted the same thing when we moved here 1.5 yrs ago. Coming from the Midwest, the small lots felt suffocating and I didn't like having someone's back windows looking down over my back yard. We thought that people who lived like that were crazy. We ended up finding an awesome house with a beautiful green one acre lot (grass is probably about 1/4 acre) and we felt so lucky.
After living here for 1.5 years, now I know....WE are the crazy ones!
The upkeep on this yard is ridiculous! We're constantly watering, mowing, weeding, trimming bushes, repairing the watering system, etc. The weeds grow like crazy here! Unlike the midwest, where the winter gives a reprieve, there's no break. If you don't want to do this stuff yourself, you can hire a gardener. For us, the quote was $250 a month. Our water bill is crazy- around $175 in the winter (low water) months. Last month I paid $225. When we first moved here, we tried to do a garden (which was a miserable failure for these experienced veggie growers- it's not easy like the Midwest) and the water bill that month was around $300.
We are over it. We just put our beautiful house up for sale and are looking longingly at the tiny 7-9k sq ft lots. I'll just buy my organic veggies from Sprouts.
I don't want to sound overly negative, but I think you should have a realistic idea of what having a bigger yard entails. There is a reason so many houses here are on tiny lots with desert landscaping....it's because they KNOW.
You said you wanted a larger yard and space between neighbors, so I'll chime in here.
We wanted the same thing when we moved here 1.5 yrs ago. Coming from the Midwest, the small lots felt suffocating and I didn't like having someone's back windows looking down over my back yard. We thought that people who lived like that were crazy. We ended up finding an awesome house with a beautiful green one acre lot (grass is probably about 1/4 acre) and we felt so lucky.
After living here for 1.5 years, now I know....WE are the crazy ones!
The upkeep on this yard is ridiculous! We're constantly watering, mowing, weeding, trimming bushes, repairing the watering system, etc. The weeds grow like crazy here! Unlike the midwest, where the winter gives a reprieve, there's no break. If you don't want to do this stuff yourself, you can hire a gardener. For us, the quote was $250 a month. Our water bill is crazy- around $175 in the winter (low water) months. Last month I paid $225. When we first moved here, we tried to do a garden (which was a miserable failure for these experienced veggie growers- it's not easy like the Midwest) and the water bill that month was around $300.
We are over it. We just put our beautiful house up for sale and are looking longingly at the tiny 7-9k sq ft lots. I'll just buy my organic veggies from Sprouts.
I don't want to sound overly negative, but I think you should have a realistic idea of what having a bigger yard entails. There is a reason so many houses here are on tiny lots with desert landscaping....it's because they KNOW.
Good luck with whatever you decide!
We are looking for 7-9k sq lots...To us that is a good size yard. Thats the size I want, nothing bigger haha. Its what we have currently and its perfect. It was hard to find in vegas though...most houses are like 2 feet apart with a 10x10 ft backyard. Looking in gilbert, we can only find 3-4k sq ft lots and the houses are very close together.
I should have clarified what our idea of big is. We are looking for 7-9k sq ft lots and around 25- 20ft between houses in a safe neighborhood. The only houses we have found like that in gilbert queen creek are out of our price range.
We are looking for 7-9k sq lots...To us that is a good size yard. Thats the size I want, nothing bigger haha. Its what we have currently and its perfect. It was hard to find in vegas though...most houses are like 2 feet apart with a 10x10 ft backyard. Looking in gilbert, we can only find 3-4k sq ft lots and the houses are very close together.
I should have clarified what our idea of big is. We are looking for 7-9k sq ft lots and around 25- 20ft between houses in a safe neighborhood. The only houses we have found like that in gilbert queen creek are out of our price range.
7 - 9 sq ft lots are plentiful all over the valley. So not to be nosy, but to be realistic and helpful, what is your price range? That would certainly help us to give you more accurate recommendations.
I don't think anyone should move to Florence without seriously investigating some of the very controversial activities there involving local politics and the office of the sheriff of Pinal County. Florence is known far and wide as a city of law enforcement. An extraordinary percentage of the population is employed in some phase of law enforcement, whether it's for the Florence Police Department, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, Arizona State Prison Complex located in Florence, the Pinal County attorney's office or other offices of the court system, or for the controversial Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which while it has no official place in the state's justice system (other than service provider) plays a major role in political decisions made in in Florence and Casa Grande.
I'm not telling you what position to take on these many news events, which range from the CCA used in drug sweeps of public schools ... to controversy in the Pinal County Attorney’s Office chosen as the top 2013 story in western Pinal County... to Florence police being accused of purposefully botching investigations of a child's slaying and teen's rape ... to police detective whistle-blowers being dismissed from the force suing for wrongful termination ... to multiple other stories that seem to crop up almost monthly. But I am telling you that if you are thinking of raising a bi-racial family there you should inform yourself of the environment.
These controversies date back to the late 1980s when Police Chief Tom Rankin was accused of covering up serious crimes committed by Florence police officers by arranging for them to plead guilty to lesser charges that would not involve them losing their jobs. That morphed into the next decade when the tabloid TV news show Inside Edition came to town to investigate personal allegations against Rankin, who refers to himself as a "cowboy cop." About 40 minority residents of Florence told the news show that "Rankin was a prejudiced bigot who harasses their children and spews racial slurs while acting as police chief," (as summarized not by me, but by the Casa Grande Dispatch newspaper). A police officer married to an African-American woman charged that he had been discriminated against by the sheriff. When a Dispatch reporter questioned Rankin about his alleged use of the N word, his explanation was, "That is a word [blacks] use to antagonize and get things started whenever they have a confrontation with law enforcement."
Nobody has to worry about Rankin being police chief anymore. He was fired by the town manager for many charges including insubordinate behavior, refusal to comply with performance standards, having officers engage in harassing conduct, allowing the department to fall below state standards, etc.
So what does Tom Rankin do now that he's no longer police chief? He's the mayor.
I'm not even telling you WHAT to read. I'll just say to Google "Florence Arizona law enforcement controversies," "Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu CNN," "Florence AZ Mayor Tom Rankin," or "Sale of Johnson Utilities to the Town ofFlorence" for the latest county-wide argument. Then read a few articles. If you still decide Florence is the place for your family, at least you'll have some history to bolster your decision.
7 - 9 sq ft lots are plentiful all over the valley. So not to be nosy, but to be realistic and helpful, what is your price range? That would certainly help us to give you more accurate recommendations.
As of now, around $150,000.. Depending on jobs, we might be able to get up to $175k.
I have had no luck finding much in our price range (obviously we are low end). We want to try to stay east and we want to be in a low crime area. We also would love to have a house that has rv parking for when my dad visits, but it looks like most hoa's won't allow them.
I don't think anyone should move to Florence without seriously investigating some of the very controversial activities there involving local politics and the office of the sheriff of Pinal County. Florence is known far and wide as a city of law enforcement. An extraordinary percentage of the population is employed in some phase of law enforcement, whether it's for the Florence Police Department, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, Arizona State Prison Complex located in Florence, the Pinal County attorney's office or other offices of the court system, or for the controversial Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which while it has no official place in the state's justice system (other than service provider) plays a major role in political decisions made in in Florence and Casa Grande.
I'm not telling you what position to take on these many news events, which range from the CCA used in drug sweeps of public schools ... to controversy in the Pinal County Attorney’s Office chosen as the top 2013 story in western Pinal County... to Florence police being accused of purposefully botching investigations of a child's slaying and teen's rape ... to police detective whistle-blowers being dismissed from the force suing for wrongful termination ... to multiple other stories that seem to crop up almost monthly. But I am telling you that if you are thinking of raising a bi-racial family there you should inform yourself of the environment.
These controversies date back to the late 1980s when Police Chief Tom Rankin was accused of covering up serious crimes committed by Florence police officers by arranging for them to plead guilty to lesser charges that would not involve them losing their jobs. That morphed into the next decade when the tabloid TV news show Inside Edition came to town to investigate personal allegations against Rankin, who refers to himself as a "cowboy cop." About 40 minority residents of Florence told the news show that "Rankin was a prejudiced bigot who harasses their children and spews racial slurs while acting as police chief," (as summarized not by me, but by the Casa Grande Dispatch newspaper). A police officer married to an African-American woman charged that he had been discriminated against by the sheriff. When a Dispatch reporter questioned Rankin about his alleged use of the N word, his explanation was, "That is a word [blacks] use to antagonize and get things started whenever they have a confrontation with law enforcement."
Nobody has to worry about Rankin being police chief anymore. He was fired by the town manager for many charges including insubordinate behavior, refusal to comply with performance standards, having officers engage in harassing conduct, allowing the department to fall below state standards, etc.
So what does Tom Rankin do now that he's no longer police chief? He's the mayor.
I'm not even telling you WHAT to read. I'll just say to Google "Florence Arizona law enforcement controversies," "Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu CNN," "Florence AZ Mayor Tom Rankin," or "Sale of Johnson Utilities to the Town ofFlorence" for the latest county-wide argument. Then read a few articles. If you still decide Florence is the place for your family, at least you'll have some history to bolster your decision.
I'll look some stuff up. Never thought to look up that type of thing.
The reality is that picking a place to live, sight unseen, based on information from the Internet, is a recipe for disaster. In the case of Florence, it's a flat, barren, undistinguished town with no redeeming qualities. You deserve better for your hard-earned money.
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