Arizona: Phoenix Suburbs.

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Wrath

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I have two hospital job interviews coming up, one in Phoenix and another in Tucson. With COVID, they will be Zoom interviews and so I won't have a chance to visit the areas. I know nothing about AZ and was wondering anyone had good pros and cons of each town along with preferences they would prefer living between the two? I'm mid 30's with similar aged girlfriend. My girlfriend keeps reading that both aren't the best towns. I've had several people say great things about Tucson, however haven't had time to do the research myself.
 

Big Phoenix

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Compared to Phoenix Tuscon more liberal(both our Senators are from that area), slightly cooler in the summer and if youre into the outdoors has some good hiking/mountains right next to it.

Advantage for living in Phoenix is probably the lowest cola to city size of any city in the country. Depending on where youre working, you can get a lot of house for your money. Also its in the center of the state so going up North and enjoying the best outdoor activities is less of a hassle.
 
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BrutulTM

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Either way if you go outdoors for more than 15 minutes from May through October you will die. Phoenix is the only place I've lived that I really disliked. Giant beige suburban sprawl with horrible weather 6 months out of the year. High crime, bad air pollution, lots of traffic. To be fair, it was many years ago that I lived there. Just about every house has a swimming pool if you're into that sort of thing.
 

Big Phoenix

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High crime
Its a huge metropolitan area so theres always going to be a lot of crime but statistically its not a stand out. Pretty much as long as you dont live within a mile or two of i17/i10 or in Maryvale/Guadalupe you wont encounter much crime.
 
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Wrath

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Thanks for the information. We currently live in OR and are very outdoorsy, so Tucson sounds at least more bearable in terms of heat. And it will only be for 3 years regardless so not a long term location for us.
 

Crone

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I did the opposite and moved from Phoenix to Washington and love it. However one thing I remember of my 30 years living there is that you can always find a house/apartment that suites your needs and price range. The entire city is setup for people to commute an hour or more one way, because it’s just a huge urban sprawl, and so from cheap to expensive you can choose where to live in your price range and be ok.

Up here in Washington and Oregon I feel there is less difference between neighborhoods. It’s kind of all expensive. You can’t go 30 minutes down the freeway and be in an area that’s half the price. The only way to get cheaper is to move outta the city. And that’s what I did up here by moving to the equivalent of Prescott or Payson.

Maybe it’s different in Tucson as I have no experience there except it’s a weird mix of college students from UofA and retirees.
 

Heriotze

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Its a huge metropolitan area so theres always going to be a lot of crime but statistically its not a stand out. Pretty much as long as you dont live within a mile or two of i17/i10 or in Maryvale/Guadalupe you wont encounter much crime.
Tucson also has vastly more crime than Phoenix and a fraction of the population. It's always top 10 for property crime, top 5 for rape and up towards the top for violent crime by population density. A majority of the population are incredibly heavy drinkers since the entire city completely shuts down at around 8pm and the only thing to do is binge drink. There is absolutely no planning involved within the city so you'll have multi-million dollar homes across the street from trailer park meth slums and the roads and drive times are a nightmare due to this same lack of planning, you have to take surface streets everywhere which are filled with potholes.

Wrath Wrath the outskirts to the north and east are generally the nicer places to live in Tucson. My parents are out past the city limits on the east and it's a few minute drive to Mt Lemmon or Tanque Verde Falls so you can get pretty close to some nice outdoors areas. Mt Lemmon and Wrightson are sky islands so you can go from high desert to pine forests and snow within the span of a few miles. It has the best Mexican food in the world but the entire place feels, and generally is, a college town so it feels like a ghost town for 3 - 4 months out of the year. 3 years is probably the perfect amount of time to live there, more than that it will start to wear on you unless you're a musician then you will make it your life's goal to move away and then move back as many times as you can for some reason
 

Cybsled

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I visited a great aunt in Tucson years ago. It’s pretty far from Phoenix, but it felt like there was more outdoorsy options if that was your thing. I do recall the endless bland housing sprawls in Phoenix, so Tucson had more personality in that regard.

College towns can be nice in that they tend to be restaurant oriented, so you usually have a good choice of options. Plus during off school months you don’t have to deal with all the kids. Downside is during school the weekends feel busy everywhere.
 

Wrath

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Thanks for all the information. I ended up getting the Phoenix job because of a few perks that Tucson didn't have. The hospital is close to downtown and so I've been looking for apartments around that area. I've found a few places in Midtown that I've liked. My girlfriend also found some places in Tempe. The google traffic from Tempe gives a time of around 15-20 minutes when I'd leave for the morning which isn't an issue for me. Anyone have any other recommendations or otherwise places to avoid?
 

Heriotze

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If you're at Banner or St. Joseph's you might also be able to ride the light rail from Tempe and completely avoid traffic in the mornings. I'm near midtown in Coronado and I go the other way, Phoenix -> Tempe, for work and the light rail, while sometimes kind of a mess, is usually preferable to dealing with the freeways in the morning and evenings.

If you guys choose midtown you're in an old part of town so you'll have a decent amount of museums, food and grocery and other shops within walking distance which is a perk when the outdoors isn't unbearably hot. All of the older neighborhoods are kind of getting restored right now in Phoenix so there are going to be a lot of new places to go anywhere north of downtown. You're about 15 - 20 minutes from almost everything if you go midtown and you're just a minute drive from I-10 so even if you guys wanted to check out Prescott or up north you're only an hour or so away and in a very convenient spot to get around.

If you pick Tempe there's a ton of stuff to do because it's a college town but it's more geared towards college students and if you're right in the middle of it it can get a bit grating having beer bottles and cans and college detritus strewn about but thanks to covid it's probably the most peaceful place to be in the metro area right now so you might be able to sneak into a great old neighborhood and get all of the perks of Tempe without any of the negatives.

There aren't really any places to avoid for any other reason than just not being your taste. Some people avoid Scottsdale because it's snobby but there's some really good food there. Some people avoid Glendale, Chandler and Mesa because it's too suburban but there's also some really good food there. You won't need to avoid anywhere because it's too sketchy other than not hanging around the fairgrounds at night and other things that hold true everywhere and are common sense. The more signs in Spanish you see in a neighborhood the better the Mexican food is going to be.
 
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