Is Phoenix too suburban? (Scottsdale, Tempe: apartments, condos, house)

[cactusland]

Well, surburban sprawl is kind of nice sometimes.

I don't have a neighbor above or below me. I have a backyard I can do anything with - put in a pool, own animals, put in a yard, hang out, put in a garden whatever. Park my boat, etc. Not many large cities you can do this in!

I'm just close enough to them yet far enough away I have my privacy and I don't feel they are ontop of me.

But I am also in a large city, that has things happening fairly frequently if I actually look around. There are things to do here, but yes, you need a car to do so. I don't think walkable is something this area was designed with in mind. I think public transit is improving with extended light rail plans, however this will always be a car city.

[RenW]

I've primarily lived in the Midwest with many years in California (SF Bay Area). I've traveled to the vast majority of U.S. states and been to a lot of cities and I can honestly say that Phoenix is very unlike any other major metro area I've been to. But I don't necessarily view that as a bad thing. Any city that was established and/or boomed sooner than Phoenix is going to have a denser downtown or central core. Transportation was slower and more primitive during their boom years. The most public transit / walkable city I am familiar with is San Francisco. That is largely a byproduct of limited land mass (it is nearly on an island after all!) Owning a car in SF is very expensive and frustrating with limited parking.

Many cities have a very dense area at the core gradually tapering off in density the further out into the suburbs. In contrast the Phoenix metro has pockets of density of businesses and services. Including downtown, there are many different places in the Valley where one could live with walkable access to restaurants, businesses, and services. Housing near the expanding light rail affords easy access to even more businesses. Along with that, owning a car is a lot less expensive than other metro areas with decreased residential and business parking, car insurance, and car registration expense. In many metro areas car ownership is prohibitively expensive.

For me I prefer the mostly suburban feel of Phoenix. Even my most favorite cities in other regions I've never wanted to live directly in because of the added expense, congestion, and automobile expense. My ideal has always been a suburb of a major city with access to the amenities of a large metro area without the negatives of being in a city core. For me the Phoenix area is the best of both worlds. There is enough diversity in the Phoenix area as a whole for most people to find a place ideally suited to them or at the least one that meets their specific needs.

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by bgibs

Would you say that Phoenix is in the same vein as Vegas? Vegas is pretty suburban outside the Strip. Vegas and Phoenix are both desert cities. Vegas doesn't get picked apart for suburban sprawl like Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston do on City-Data. I understand not every city on the West Coast is going to have the urbanity of SF or LA. It just seems that Phoenix and Vegas are the two least urban major cities in the West Coast even more so than Denver, Sacramento, and San Diego. Phoenix has good growth like most Sunbelt cities but I never hear of anyone having a desire to move to Phoenix like they would Atlanta. Most people move to Phoenix for jobs. Phoenix is Arizona's largest city but I feel Scottsdale gets more praise and shine.

I'm thinking that Las Vegas may not get picked apart as much for suburban sprawl because it's still quite a bit smaller than Phoenix. Also, Vegas has the Strip, which anymore resembles Times Square, and attracts lots of crowds during all times of the year. Vegas has the casinos, club scene, nightlife, and general decadence which cities like Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston don't have. So while Vegas may be sprawl happy, it easily offsets that by having lots of things to see & do along and near the Strip. That alone prevents it from having the reputation of a car dependent, sprawled out metro area.

I would say that San Diego is also highly suburban, probably just as much as Phoenix is. The only truly urban area of San Diego is downtown, which I'll have to admit is quite impressive compared to how it used to be. I've even heard people say that L.A. is still too suburban for as large as it is. The fact of the matter is that most cities in the western U.S. grew heavily after WWII when the suburban craze was becoming popular, so that's why Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, and many CA cities still have that sprawled out suburban look & feel. It's going to be difficult to reverse all that, but it is reversing somewhat as more people want a more centralized location for living & working.

[Bondurant]

Originally Posted by bgibs

One of the most common complaints I hear about Phoenix is that a majority of the city is suburban sprawl. Is Phoenix too suburban even by Sunbelt city standards? Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston are more walkable than Phoenix. Is Downtown Phoenix even walkable? What is holding Phoenix from becoming more walkable? What can be done to make it more walkable?

I live downtown.

I walk to the light rail.

I walk to restaurants.

I walk to the ballpark.

I walk to the library.

I walk to the movie theater.

I walk to bars.

I walk just to walk.

[Juram]

Originally Posted by bgibs

What is holding Phoenix from becoming more walkable? ?

110+ degrees in the summer.

[Colt AZ]

Originally Posted by bgibs

One of the most common complaints I hear about Phoenix is that a majority of the city is suburban sprawl. Is Phoenix too suburban even by Sunbelt city standards? Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston are more walkable than Phoenix. Is Downtown Phoenix even walkable? What is holding Phoenix from becoming more walkable? What can be done to make it more walkable?

Originally Posted by Bondurant

I live downtown.

I walk to the light rail.

I walk to restaurants.

I walk to the ballpark.

I walk to the library.

I walk to the movie theater.

I walk to bars.

I walk just to walk.

Climb out & off of that internal combustion-engined vehicle (or whatever), and WALK!

[New Horizons]

You all ever been on the "city versus city" forum. Some people rag on Phoenix and Las Vegas with anger. Insulting the city, insulting the people, then I take the bait and try to defend the place. I try to explain the benefits of suburban living and how dry heat is actually more tolerable but they don't want any of it. They'll redefine what a heat index is But they could be kids on the other end, they took a couple sociology courses in college, and concluded that Little Havana, Miami is what we all should be striving for.

[Leaving Arizona]

Short answer to OP's question: yes.

TL;DR answer:
As stated previously, the city of Phoenix doesn't really have the dense core and never did, that core those larger cities have, those old cities that were built before the car, and before urban sprawl became common. Then, there's no magnetic pull of major employers - downtown is basically state and city government, some law firms (many of whom, by the by, have fled downtown with light rail impeding access to their buildings), some other white collar places, and a few headquarters of very specialized fields (Freeport-McMoRan, etc), but that's about it. No HQs for huge international corporations, no big financial HQs, so no big pull for employees to live downtown (when they do come to Arizona, they don't come to downtown Phoenix; see Intel, Dial, etc). Add to that this that Phoenix itself has never really cultivated fine arts as it has been elsewhere, and so that part of the allure just isn't there.

Spoilered for length:

Spoiler

Yeah, sure, downtown Phoenix has the Heard, and the Herberger - very fine places that attract good events; been to both many times. There are a couple of other cultural venues, and the downtown sports scene is hanging in there. But compared to San Diego? Austin? Chicago? Boston? Seattle? San Francisco? DC? No comparison (side note, imo: you cannot compare other cities to L.A. and NYC, their walkability or their cultural excellence - not fair, not comparable). Phoenix has too short of a history, not enough density, not enough money, and thereby just a patina of culture in comparison.

Every ten to fifteen years, the city powers and their connections try to gentrify DT Phx and pass it off as the New York (or whatever city they aim for) of the West, and it never works. Certain areas are fine if you're single, or DINKs, or empty-nesters, you work downtown, and don't need a store or school nearby. But if you need these things, in a safe area, near your place of work... nope.

Downtown Phoenix was probably great to live in or near up to sometime in the 1960s, or maybe the early 1970s when it was still the power core, and lots of nice normal people lived there. Then came the siren call of suburbia - game over. It left downtown Phoenix a shell.

You see the evidence in all those old lovely houses between 7th and 7th (you could even stretch it to 16th St to 19th Av - especially the old area around the Coliseum - that once lovely and vibrant area makes me so sad now), now struggling, trashed or condemned... or already bulldozed. Yes, yes, there are islands of resurgence, but it never really catches on. It's a shame.

For a core of walkability, let's keep it 7th to 7th (even though 3rd to 3rd is more realistic). Within that, there's a little island around 5th Av/Roosevelt and a couple of other new places, where you can walk to the farmer's market when it's on during good weather, or catch the light rail to the sports venues or to a museum or two, and so forth. There aren't many grocery stores, so you have to drive it or rail it northward, because decent stores are to the north. And you sure as hell don't go wandering around after six pm outside of the areas of the sports venues on game nights for the most part. Why? Because there are people and cops around those areas. Everywhere else gets a little skeevy - or a lot, depending on where you are, as my Better Half found out doing homeless outreach on the streets in the very area we're discussing.

So, for the money and inconvenience, why put up this when you can get all you want in a newer, safer, better run part of the valley?

You can make it work (my sister in law does, quite nicely actually, but I've found her situation the exception, not the rule), but it'll never be... pleasurable? is that the term I want? ...pleasurably walkable. The potential for that train left the station decades ago.

The city gets points for continuing to try, though.

[Arizona Mike]

I just came back from a long vacation that took us to cities that many would regard as the epitome of "walkable" urban cities full of culture and things to do - Washington D.C. and Philadelphia.

One of the results of a city being "walkable" is that driving is by corollary, hellish. Streets are congested, drivers honk at each other as frequently as they exhale and view driving as a zero-sum game where of you are going where you want to go, it must be at the other driver's expense, so they speed up to avoid you cutting in. Parking is hard to find, almost always parallel (twice drivers trying to fit their cars in to a too-small place rammed their bumpers right into my subcompact rental, scratching the paint), and governed by an arcane code of residential permits, short time limits, expensive meters that require you to download an app to pay for parking, expensive valet parking, and underground garages that cost a fortune.

The basic necessities of life are also downsized, so grocery stores in the downtown areas are hard to find, offer small selections, have limited selections of healthy or fresh foods, have shorter hours, and are more expensive as they lack an economy of scale. Gas stations are also fewer and farther between.

It's true that there is a lot to do in such cities, and their downtown areas are often very picturesque and have great architecture, museums, etc. If you are young enough and childless enough and wealthy enough to afford eating out many meals and can rely on mass transit, it can be a fun lifestyle. If you are powerful enough (especially in DC) to have a driver who can take you where you want to go and pick you up after you are done, it is great. If you aren't, and have to live in one of the suburbs in Virginia, expect the worst traffic on the 95 you can imagine, and I wish you luck if you miss your car pool, because they will not wait around on you.

There is a lot to be said for the ability to park your car in the big wide spots of a Scottsdale Safeway parking lot, to be able to go in and pick up some groceries if you get off work late at night, and to have a big selection of food to choose.

I also appreciate the fact that I can quickly get out of the city and go into the wild when the need possesses me without driving through endless hours of traffic - something I could not do when I lived in L.A., for instance.

Maybe Arizona's own adopted son, Paolo Soleri, had the right idea - If you remove all cars, all parking lots, all roads, all gas stations, all garages and so forth from a city, you don't need cars - you can make cities designed from the ground up and small enough that cars aren't needed. Arcosanti was supposed to be such a city, though, and you don't find many people clamoring to live there.

[ibarrio]

My neighborhood is car dependent according to walk score (34). I don't know what goes into the score but I have 2 grocery stores (Fry's and Safeway), Walgreens, Sonic, McDonalds, Rosati's, Subway, Nicks 2 Diner, Native New Yorker, A Mexican Restaurant, Joey's of Chicago, A Movie Theater, A bowling Alley (Uptown Alley), 2 Starbucks, Freddy's, A Chinese Take-out, Leslie's pools, Chase Bank, Taco Bell, A Gym, O'Reilly Auto Parts, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Bank of America, Papa Johns, Sugar and Spice (Bakery), Rocket Fizz, Cold Stone, Surprise Animal Hospital, and a few other businesses I left out. I would say Freddy's is the furthest from me and it is .6 miles away from my house. But my score is car dependent. Go figure...