phoenix az ?
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- emokid0
wow, almost no one likes the place. so two questions then: why are you still there (if i may ask) and what are some of the better options?
- ********0
Kinda tough to just get up & leave ya know? All my family, exept an uncle, is in Phoenix... and I got a job 6 months ago with a great boss & good money (for a graduate).
This place is just dirt & concrete. And there's no tight-knit community feeling anywhere... there's no "taking a quick walk to your favorite coffee shop", you know what I mean? Not cultured by any means.
- skelly_b0
Even if said coffee shop were in walking distance the norm here would be to drive. I started walking everywhere I can lately and the neighbors either eye me like I'm up to something or offer me a ride.
To emokid, I am looking to get out soon as my house sells. Just need to get it on the market.
- ********0
haha, that's a very good summary - "theres no such thing as a walk to your favorite coffee shop"...
Being a mad-dog type Englishman with no driving license, I would walk everywhere in Phoenix, even at 3pm on a July afternoon. People would look at me very strangely, and cops would slow down, talking into the radio, then drive back by...
Once I took an afternoon walk in Papago Park, took a drink at the water fountain then headed home...kinda went faint about 200 yds later, everything went green and orange, and 2d, so headed back to the fountain, took a drink and tried again. Same thing happened twice more till it cooled off...
- ********0
BUT you do get some fantastic dust/lightning/torrential rain storms in like August, that can come sweeping down the valley like a wall of red grit that gets in your ears and eyes, and even your closed mouth..
- studderine0
moan moan moan bitch bitch bitch. i feel a great sense of community with my friends from asu and the shops around the campus. its a big area, yes, but you need to immerse yourself in the scene if youd like to have a sense of community. id rather live in this area than nyc anyday.
- ********0
well, the only places you can "immerse yourself" like that are old-town scottsdale & tempe.
It's funny where I live... they only have sidewalks on one side of the road (5 lanes), the other side is just rocks & bushes. Horrible urban planning. Bike lanes? not a chance.
- jaylarson0
i guess i never really thought about the infrastructure. it is designed for the greatest population in mind. it's too hot for the most of them.
cars with air conditioning. pollution. i feel dumb sometimes.
got any trains there? a good bus system? taxis?
- ********0
no passenger trains. just the freight ones that go along Grand Ave. - where you have to wait in traffic for about 10 minutes for them to pass by.
there are buses. not sure if they're good - never used them.
taxis - nah. very rarely I see one... & I drive about 85 miles a day.
It's not that I hate Phoenix. I just don't think it was meant for humans to live there. You can't be outside in the summer for more than a half hour before feeling like you're gonna past out. without air conditioning you couldn't survive - it's just not "natural" (for lack of a better word) to me.
- studderine0
its not "natural" and freezing cold temps. are? nice logic.
- ********0
What I mean by it not being "natural" is that its not healthy for us to be inside 24 hours a day and continuously breathing in recycled air during the 8 month summers. I'm not saying heat isn't "natural". You're taking it literally.
I think we would've migrated out of the area (or never even settled here - back in the day) - if it wasn't for our technological advances (AC).
- ********0
there is that little ancient pueblo thing in the park in Tempe, just north of the freeway, where it runs alongside Tempe town lake...and on Tempe Butte there is evidence of agriculture/rain collection, so peoples must have lived there in antiquity, but I cant for the life of me believe they made a year-round (ie in the summer) home there, the unending heat really has to be experienced to be believed. I loved it, actually, despite my random bitching on here.. When they built houses just next to ours, the roofers and construction workers would be up on the rooves at midday, with shirts on, towels round their heads, running around all singing along to the radio, none of them breaking a sweat...that's another thing about Phx - it absolutely could not ever function without illegal/sub-minimum wage workers.