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I just recently moved out of Colorado to Arizona, it became too left wing for me and the cost of living rose too high. Now we got another person wanting to transform another red state? Why not assimilate instead of making it like your former area?
I am visiting my older relatives in Sun City West. They are wonderful, warm, generous people who've lived lives of honest hard work and loving values. But--let's face it: they listen to Fox News all day and aren't very well-informed. They believe America is in serious decline and that liberals are going to ruin it with gay marriage, "foreigners" and iphones.
Over time, of course, younger people will replace the people who now live in Sun City West, and they will indeed bring a new outlook. I am wondering how to predict what kind of changes are in store. Sun City West is an amazing place with great potential, and homes are not expensive. I am thinking of buying a house there, and would like to hear what people think about the following:
1. Will new residents want to live more sustainably? There are a few solar panels on rooftops, but in general Sun City residents don't feel the same way younger people do about the need to manage water and power wisely.
2. Will Arizona gradually transition from being a red state to a blue state, the way Colorado has? It seems certain to me that the kind of people who have moved into Colorado over the past 20 years will eventually want retirement living at a place like Sun City West.
3. Is the Southwest viable at all? Does the lack of water combined with the huge inflow of population mean states like Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Southern California are on a collision course with nature? Will climate change bring summers so hot the Phoenix area will not be habitable at all?
I could easily be wrong: there may be enough young people with right-wing values to replace the older people who grew up in the 1950's, the air conditioners may continue to run on oil and coal, and Sun City West may remain exactly as it is now.
What do you think?
I think you made it political enough this belongs in a different forum.
There sure are a lot of experts about SCW that don't live in SCW! LOL!
As someone who lives here, I can tell you that yes, it is very conservative. But at the same time, most of us have activities and clubs we participate in that keep us busy enough not to spend a lot of time thinking about politics. Most people here also respect other's opinions so politics rarely comes up in conversation. I have two neighbors who are political - one is conservative, one is liberal - but neither one rarely talks about it and when they do, I change the subject, since neither one of them is going to change my opinions and vice versa.
It is my opinion that a lot of people tend to become more conservative as they get older, so I suspect SCW will stay right of center for quite some time. If a liberal bend is important to you in the community you want to live in, then I would suggest looking elsewhere. I love SCW, but politics is at the very bottom of my priority list. I cannot understand people who let that dominate their lives, but whatever. To each their own.
Yes, many retirees are on fixed incomes. However, there are many homes that have been extensively remodeled - mine included. In order to invest in something like solar, it has to make economic sense. I ran the numbers on solar when I moved here and the payback was going to be over 20 years. Not practical. As for water, I keep hearing conflicting stories. Everything from we are going to run out of water next week, to we will never run out no matter how many people move here. Unfortunately, politics comes into play in this issue too. Whenever politics are involved, the issue becomes polarized and exaggerated. So the real answer is something in between the two extremes.
Politics may not be a factor for you, but it does impact the daily lives of some people and can be an important issue to consider in a housing decision. Imagine a gay couple that buys a house in a conservative area where most of the people voted for candidates that support bans on gay marriage and discriminatory "religious freedom" laws or a Latino couple living in an area heavily populated by Trump fans that don't even want them to live anywhere in the US much less right next door.
Politics may not be a factor for you, but it does impact the daily lives of some people and can be an important issue to consider in a housing decision. Imagine a gay couple that buys a house in a conservative area where most of the people voted for candidates that support bans on gay marriage and discriminatory "religious freedom" laws or a Latino couple living in an area heavily populated by Trump fans that don't even want them to live anywhere in the US much less right next door.
I have never heard anyone say anything about a Latino that was here legally. Not Trump or anyone else.
Thank you for the valuable responses--each one so helpful. I asked the question in a somewhat confrontational way so that I could find out what people think. I don't like to talk about politics myself, and agree with the posters who said it is "way down the list of priorities." But I do worry about growing populations and scarcer/more expensive water and power.
That said, I think Sun City West looks like a fantastic investment. I'm coming from California, and my close friends (who are also looking in SCW) are coming from Colorado. To all of us, the Phoenix area looks extremely cheap for what you get. I was also wonderfully pleased with the people my Aunt and Uncle introduced me to.
I do not agree that people my age will eventually think like the people now in their 80's. Those people grew up in the 1950's before the many social movements of the 1960's and 70's, and there has been a real "sea change" in people since then. The people my age (50's and 60's) are more aware of shrinking resources--whatever their politics.
And I know many people in their 20's, 30's, and 40's who have grown up with the internet, and who are vastly more informed and worldly than we (usually) are. I have absolutely no doubt that things will change for the better in the US from here on out because these young people are so much more engaged.
Hopefully there are others who can add something. Thanks again.
Location: Escaped SoCal for Freedom in AZ!!!! LOVE IT!
394 posts, read 344,754 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by phxone
Politics may not be a factor for you, but it does impact the daily lives of some people and can be an important issue to consider in a housing decision. Imagine a gay couple that buys a house in a conservative area where most of the people voted for candidates that support bans on gay marriage and discriminatory "religious freedom" laws or a Latino couple living in an area heavily populated by Trump fans that don't even want them to live anywhere in the US much less right next door.
It impacts the lives of everyone... And to ignore it with head buried in sand results in big problems.
I have never heard anyone say anything about a Latino that was here legally. Not Trump or anyone else.
No Latino that I know would ever feel comfortable living next to the person with a Trump sign in their front yard. Some members of my family would take it as a personal insult and they are all natural born US citizens.
Location: Escaped SoCal for Freedom in AZ!!!! LOVE IT!
394 posts, read 344,754 times
Reputation: 502
Quote:
Originally Posted by phxone
No Latino that I know would ever feel comfortable living next to the person with a Trump sign in their front yard. Some members of my family would take it as a personal insult and they are all natural born US citizens.
And that is part of the problem in this country... People chastising others for their views.
I hope you admit a Trump sign is better than another country's flag.
I just recently moved out of Colorado to Arizona, it became too left wing for me and the cost of living rose too high. Now we got another person wanting to transform another red state? Why not assimilate instead of making it like your former area?
People have the right to live where they please. If a liberal wants to be in Phoenix than so be it, saying you can't live here because you're too left-wing is incredibly un-American, and vice versa is also un-American.
I have been living in Arizona my whole life. I have more of a right to Arizona than you do in this account. If I don't want to see my state stay GOP *and* I want to live in the same city as my family I have every right to. Maybe you should stay where you were and fought against the transplants instead of being a transplant here and keeping Arizona in its regressive state. Why should I be forced to leave where I have been living for the past couple decades and my family since the Great Depression because you think you have more of a "right" to an area because you like the current dominant regressive politics of the area? States are dynamic and change over time, we don't need to live in a gridlock because one state *should* be red and the other blue. In fact gridlocks like that without an influx of new thinking and ideas is what ruins this country.
Arizona will turn blue in due time. Probably sooner than later as Millennials are currently 1 out of every 4 Americans. People are moving away from religion and Arizona has been irreligious as a whole. Soon people are no longer going to want the old white man fundamentalist Christian mindset that the GOP has adopted as the law of the land in their eyes. Maybe if you didn't want this issue you should've moved to Mississippi where the GOP has practically targeted their favorite demographic along with the rest of the conservative South. You should know that Arizona has a large amount of Hispanics, and with Trump being where he is more and more Hispanics will not want to vote GOP. In fact I believe 2010-present was the first generation across the whole nation that is minority-majority. Times are changing...
Anywho, OP, I'm sure you know that both Sun Cities are age-restricted. The Sun Cities don't appeal to me but then again I'm not nearly close to that age. However it is in a good area, as I used to live right next to it and it's close to a lot of good recreational areas and it is safe. It's popular for a reason.
As far as climate and sustainability goes, a growing UHI will play an impact on temperatures here. If you have been here in the summer time I'm sure you have tried cooking eggs on the sidewalk. That's how hot the ground gets... You can also bake cookies on your car's dash. This will increase with more development that is needed for a growing city. I did a test actually and found that DT Phoenix was usually a couple degrees hotter or so in the summer than an exurb, like Surprise. This is solely due to the UHI. With more cars, more flights, more congestion, more asphalt, it will increase but not drastically. However with the heat increase it will mostly affect precipitation which is much more important.
On the topic of water sustainability, our biggest issue is with the CAP. California has been f*cking up bad on their water policy which is ruining it for the rest of us in the lower basin (Nevada and Arizona). California has been threatened by the Department of the Interior many times to get their act together but I don't know if California will be able to. So our water future will depend on interstates' rights to the Colorado River. We need a revision which will have to be done on the federal level and can take an awful long time.
Our water policy, if a dire shortage ever happens, will favor giving water to the inner suburbs over the exurbs. These suburbs are Phoenix, Glendale, Scottsdale, and Tempe. Now I encourage you to look at the city boundaries of these, all of them except Tempe are quite large. Glendale goes from Arrowhead Ranch area (fairly close to Sun City Grand, a few miles or so away) down to DT Glendale all the way past Luke to the White Tanks making a backwards L. Phoenix also heavily extends into West Valley all the way to the 101 I believe. If you are looking at an investment here and water is important I suggest one of these four cities in the metro. I should also note that out of the whole state the Phoenix metro is in the best position for a dire shortage, more so than Yuma, Tucson, Flagstaff, or anywhere else.
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Why not assimilate instead of making it like your former area?
