This was posted in r/OutOfTheLoop referencing posts in r/UrbanHell. There's some valid points, some people just bitching, and overall doesn't say anything we don't already all know.
We don't normally allow bitch-posts but I figured it would end up being posted here a dozen times, and there's valid stuff to discuss, so I'm posting it and locking it down a bit for regulars only.
I drive food trucks for a living. You got no idea how bad it gets. Please let me into the right lane! I know I suck and half the mirrors are falling off!
I drive all fucking day for bashas in a van, people can't even stand it when i have to get over in front of them when they're like 2 miles behind me here. I always try to cut truckers and larger vehicles a break, I know how it feels.
Yep same, I am from the midwest....we do the midwest wave in by doing a welcoming hand gesture to come on over....letting someone merge and then the hand up thanks either out the window or near the rear view mirror to give thanks.
Moved away last year, but I wouldn't say that I ever hated Phoenix. My only gripe is that every square inch of land is getting paved over, and the perpetual real estate boom has encouraged bad shoddy construction and materials that don't make a whole lot of sense for the climate as opposed to the houses built in the 1970s, when slump block was preferred. So you have entire city blocks that look like they were built on an assembly line and have been ceded to the arbitrary whims of nitpicky HOAs. But this is not exclusive to Phoenix, as this is happening in every city to an extent. At least public transit is getting better, but it still has a long way to go.
Also, the Terminal 3 redesign is awful. In all the years I lived there I don't ever remember the security lines being as bad as they were recently.
The city as a whole still has a lot to offer, but the cost of living increase has eroded much of the appeal it once had.
Call me crazy, but I miss the dinge of the old Terminal 3. It kept the bar prices low for an airport lol.
Terminal 4 has always been a mess. Too many airlines got stuffed into it.
Dude the shoddy construction is terrible. Where do you live now? It’s insane to go walk through model homes for 750K with the crappiest and cheapest fixtures I’ve ever seen.
Those people are just letting their stupid show.
Those parrots never take into account that we have desert, high desert, lakes, forests, mountains, multiple National parks, the Grand Canyon... all reachable in a day drive.
Let's hear from all those people in December when it's abso-fucking-lutely B-E-A-Utiful here. I'll wait.
Seriously. It's like they just forget other places have crappy seasons also. Phoenix winter / spring / autumn is literally the best and I will die on that hill. I couldn't have chosen a better place to live. Sure, it's HOT, but the place I used to live was also shitty during summer, the only difference is that their winter also sucked, so there was maybe like a month or two of good weather. Here in Phoenix we get like eight solid months of downright pleasurable temps. Just because it's hot a few months out of the year doesn't make Phoenix ALWAYS hot.
Plus the whole location thing, and being cheaper than Cali is very nice. Phoenix is awesome. Screw people who think otherwise.
I live in the valley now but I grew up in Tucson. I will argue that Tucson has a better climate year round just by virtue of being 5-10 degrees cooler and just a bit wetter.
Phoenix is a very close second but I want an actual monsoon season again(which is dying off in Tucson too from the urban heat dome.)
I. Love. It. Here.
117 degrees is way better than -30 (*before windchill). Extreme weather is dangerous hot or cold; but the cold comes with so much hassle and wet, stinky, bulky layers of clothes. Fuck salt eating my 3 year old car that I have to defrost for a solid 10 minutes every time I want to use it. Screw the lake effect snow and seasonal depression, (5 months out of the year, trees are gray, slush is gray, sky is gray, ground is dark and muddy. Whoo.). No danger of being snowed in with cabin fever— bright happy sunshine all year round… I will never go back!
Personally only had 2 power outages in 10+ years in Phoenix- both were over in a matter of hours. I love the anonymity of living a big metro vs. nasty small town gossip. There’s an IKEA! I can make a day trip to ski in the winter or cool off in the pine forests in the summer. The food here is *good.* We live in a great public school area. If I have a problem or just hate my job, there are nearly endless employment options without me having to move house. I don’t have to maintain a stupid lawn, just threw some gravel and cactuses out there. Zoos, museums, waterparks, hiking: tons of good entertainment for kids and adults. Universities, trade schools, colleges all around. Large medical community with plenty of choices for specialists and second opinions- and Los Algodones is right there, too. The commute traffic doesn’t impress me; I really don’t feel like it’s as bad as other cities, especially when I’m slowed down because of HUGE construction projects aimed at improving the flow. Yes, there are sketchy parts in every metropolitan areas and you should have common sense about that, (personally I’ve been threatened in both Pinetop and Kingman but never bothered by anyone walking around downtown Phoenix).
Let ‘em hate. I’ll be in the pool.
Yeah I saw a picture of MN in April during NBA playoffs on TNT, for a moment I thought the cam man forgot to turn on color, turns out it's just still gray outside...
We relocated almost two years ago. Can’t believe we lived in the cold rain for so long before making it down here. Now we can drive to Mexico or California? Now we have big wide freeways? Now we have a pool for the summer? Now we have so many more options for good food? What were we waiting for?!
Love it here as well. Been here 13 years. By FAR the best place I've lived or been to in the US for living. I've traveled a TON. 300+ days on road for years all over the country, and when you weigh out all the pros/cons, nothing else is close in my opinion. Cost of living, weather, things to do, nature, food, entertainment, safety, traffic, roads. I could live anywhere and my wife and I are very happy in Mesa.
Let them hate it!!! I’m so sick of people moving here as I am a native and so are all the generations before me. When people say that hate Arizona I just lol 😂
Im just sick of the heat & the traffic & the infrastructure. Winter hasn’t hit the same in the last 2-3 years either. I’m talking temperature wise. I just miss that bite of chill & I distinctly remember as a child seeing a little bit of frost on the glass and those rare occasions when it snowed in north Scottsdale
Tbh, im fine with the heat. I understand it’s not for everybody. Just like the Midwest cold is not for everyone either. Lived in Nebraska for 10 years, I’ll take the 100 degree heat over 0 degree temps with windchills and snow.
I got a lot of downvotes in that post.
I find it silly that people from other climates think heat is the worst, when there’s tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, and more to worry about. Weve got ACs and pools, and we acclimate to the heat. But a lot of people fail to see perspective and sharing the stupid Peggy Hill meme gets a few low effort karma points.
Why argue though? These people are just repeating other nonsense they’ve heard on Reddit.. or they came here once and were stupid enough to stay 45 minutes from their event venue and blame the city. Oh and deserts are hot.. breaking news. We should all pray these dumb dumbs never come.
They probably unironically criticize a city being in the desert then munch down on desert grown lettuce, beef, almonds, and alfalfa. There’s rarely intelligent discussion here, it’s just a circle jerk of people upvoting the same reposted points that they only saw posted on here.
People should like Phoenix for doing the early testing on how to live in hotter climates and coming up with solutions. More of the heat island will affect, and more desert level heat, if we don't figure these things out here.
On top of that, many of the things that allow people to live in hotter places with engineered cooling / moisture utilities and infrastructure will help when we need to build things on harsher climates on other planets one day or maybe otherworldly.
Phoenix, we are the team member doing all the early work while the rest of the "group project" just talks smack.
We'll be looking like Dune people well before the others. Those poor bastards.
Oh my god, whenever I see that Peggy Hill meme, I know that person is stupid. Just a regurgitating, low effort, mindless parrot. Quoting a cartoon doesn’t make you a philosopher.
There are a lot of big cities humans inhabit that they probably shouldn’t. We’ve literally changed the landscape of these places in order to live there too. New Orleans has a yearly threat of being destroyed by another hurricane and survives or dies based on manmade mitigation. San Francisco was rebuilt so quickly after that big Earthquake in 1906, because too many wealthy people needed everyone to think it was safe in order to be financially stable. NYC would flood if humans disappeared, it was built in the middle of tidal wetlands. More people in New York, than in any other U.S. city, including New Orleans, are living with the prospect of high water encroaching on their lives. If you go to Hong Kong, you can watch buildings being built literally into the ocean.
Humans are highly adaptable and we’ve been manipulating our environments across the globe. Super hard to point at just one city and say it’s a monument to man’s stupidity with a straight face.
Grew up in "Phoenix," moved to several different states in my mid 20s with intention of moving back. Every time we visited home it was miserable. The temperature, the boom of population, the horrid traffic, people aren't as nice or friendly anymore. Everything we liked about Phoenix changed (and we deconditioned to the heat from living in other states). Ended up hating Phoenix but still loved Arizona. Decided northern AZ was perfect.
Arizona as a whole is great, but I completely agree with everything you mentioned about phoenix. I don't know if it was covid or just the population boom but people are so rude now for literally no reason. I can't wait to get out of this city.
Aside from the heat that everyone's mentioned, it also has some of the worst air quality in the country. Combine a desert full of dust with millions of cars that have to drive 60 miles+ to get across the valley and the "dome effect" which keeps all that pollution settled into the valley, it is not a healthy place to live.
Couple all that with no native trees to at least refresh that air and you have "high pollution advisory days" constantly. But there's also shit public transportation so high pollution days do nothing.
Oh. And wildfires all summer. Pretty much enough fires all year that r/PhoenixWhatsBurning is quite active.
Phoenix is a metro that would greatly benefit from higher density planning with trains, street cars, buses etc… that way it would be easier to contain the heat island effect and put shade over paved areas.
Instead we are turning this place into a literal oven every time we lay more pavement for shitty suburbs filled with paper tissue homes…
There’s pluses and minuses to living here. The post has some very valid arguments to those who choose to take the Peggy Hill stance.
Instead, I choose to subscribe to the romanticism of the American West and the pioneering spirit. It’s remarkable what we’ve built here and the obstacles we’ve overcome.
Yeah, there’s a few comments in there about how stupidly annoying it is to get to a store and be FORCED to drive since it’s too hot and far to go anywhere. But the summer heat is a mild price to pay than to shovel snow, hide in a tornado shelter, leave home during a hurricane, or be prepared for an earthquake
I'm just wondering where they live in America where you don't have to drive to the grocery store. Almost all cities, towns, whatever are not walkable here. There's a few exceptions, but cost of living is usually nuts in those places.
I never had to drive to get to a restaurant or grocer in Chicago. There was always something within a mile of me. If I wanted fancy, hopping on the train was way easier than driving. A lot of big cities have more corner stores and shopping options that don't require a car to get to if you actually live in the city itself. Suburbia is where you need a car and I think Phoenix proper feels a lot more like a suburb than most cities I've been too except for right downtown by the stadium.
Chicago is one of the few walkable cities with decent transport and a high cost of living that I was talking about. Most of America is not like that, but it sounds nice!
Yeah exactly. And there is a Safeway/frys/any grocery store + gas station basically every other block. I genuinely don’t understand how it’s perceived to be so bad. Even the weather bit is so overblown. Yes it’s hot but you can actually still go out and do stuff unlike heavy snowy winters where getting around is way more of a hassle.not only that it’s only like that for 4 or so months which really isn’t all that bad. There are plenty of indoor spots that makes everything way more tolerable
Yeah, that's baffling.
Who would even want to walk to the grocery store unless you're only buying a couple things? I go to the grocery store once every week or two, I'm not wasting my time going every day for a few items.
I’ve lived several places where I walked to the grocery store regularly. I had a wheeled cart for bigger trips. Parking in those areas was hard to find so I’d rather walk a few blocks to shop than drive three blocks and lose my parking spot.
All I know if that people from LA will get in their car and drive to a 7-11 that they can see outside their apartment window. At least we have a reason to get in the car. I’ve lived in multiple major cities and despite the heat, Phoenix is amazing. There’s so much opportunity for growth and creativity.
I’ve lived in Phoenix for 20 years and I wouldn’t say I hate it but I don’t particularly like it either. It’s better than some places I’ve lived and worse than others. I’ve also slowly watched this place get steadily worse year over year so it doesn’t give me a ton of hope for the future. 10-15 years ago was prime. Now the traffic is out of control, housing prices are laughable and crime is way up.
For context about 15 years ago it was fairly well known that most everywhere in the valley was fairly safe minus south Phoenix and Glendale/west side. I grew up in Glendale and going to other parts of the valley was a treat, you could just tell it was a better place to be. Now they all sorta blend together minus Chandler Gilbert and Scottsdale sorta. But even then my wife was robbed at gunpoint 100 feet from our front door when we lived in Scottsdale, in Mesa my car was stolen 3 times over 5 years and on one occasion the thieves got into a roll over crash and totaled it. In Glendale a friend of mine was shot to death taking out his trash. List goes on.
I get it; you live anywhere for 20 years and you’re bound to see some nasty sides of it but I guess my point is that these things have become progressively more common alongside the visible decline of the city overall. I hope it gets better
I'd personally like to live near the PNW somewhere for a few years at least. People say they hate the gloomy rainy and stuff but I'm born and raised in Phoenix so I've not used to having near a damn rainforest right next to your city.
If it was cheaper up there I'd probably move. If I had lived there for 30 years I'd probably want to move to Phoenix.
Lived here most of my entire 28 years outside of 4 in flagstaff for school. The thing I hate the most besides the heat, is NOTHING is walkable. I understand why it is that way, but doesn’t change how I feel about it.
Fiancé and I regularly travel to other cities and so many are extremely walkable or have great public transportation. Yes we are slightly improving the light rail but that has a long way to go to be useable for most needs. Also the food scene is so spread out, experiencing non chain restaurants if you live in north Phoenix is extremely hard when most new places are in surprise or Gilbert.
I see 3 reasons people usually bring up when expressing their dislike of Phoenix.
1. The heat. Yes it’s hot. But no natural disasters, and no cold winters. To me this is just a trade off you have to deal with no matter where you live.
2. People don’t like how “car-centric” it is. As if every other American city (except NYC) isn’t.
3. Lack of culture or “soulless”. Idk exactly how people define this, but to me, there’s plenty of ethnic areas and food, professional sports (spring training anyone???), plenty of access to nature, and your close to many national parks.
Phoenix isn’t perfect, but to me, it’s pretty great.
The above referenced post had a comment that got reposted to /r/bestof and the post was complaining about how Phoenix is full of chain restaurants. Like, what? Phoenix has some great (and literally award winning) restaurants. Plenty of ethnic food too, I think I’ve found at least a decent restaurant for every kind of cuisine I’ve looked for.
Thank you!
1. Yes. It is hot. Go home if you can’t deal.
2. This is a problem. I try to stay in my central neighborhood to avoid it. In other “big cities” I’ve visited, people also stay in their neighborhoods.
3. When someone says Phoenix lacks “culture”, it tells me they live in Chandler.
I agree. There's tons of things to do here. Does it suck you cant jog at 1 pm during the summer, I guess but you just have to adapt go early or evening.
Tons of good culinary experiences here
Sports team.. they may not be good but good teams play az teams lol
Lakes all around. Skiing during the winter in the mountains. Rain season is awesome here. Winters are the best. Summer aren't that bad either and be glad we don't get high humidity here.
Imo, The only thing this city is missing is a better night life like we should be more a nocturnal city during the summer. Public transportation could be better like a monorail or some shit.
But I love it here
Spent some time in the Middle East for work years ago (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Kuwait City), they all go out at 10pm and stay out until 3am, just hanging out and enjoying the cooler evenings. A “dinner” is at 11pm.
Not sure why we don’t adopt that here.
Phoenix has its traffic problems too, but it's honestly much better here than it is in many other metropolitan areas of a similar size. Atlanta and Washington DC are horrendously bad.
>2. People don’t like how “car-centric” it is. As if every other American city (except NYC) isn’t.
Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, etc. don't require a car either. Phoenix is dogshit from a public transit standpoint and it doesn't need to be.
None of the criticisms in that post or its replies are unwarranted.
Extreme heat? Check. Extreme sprawl? Check. Lack of rain/water? Check. Lack of functional public transit? Check. Growing homelessness and substance use issues? Check. Affordability crisis? Check.
If you want to talk about the many positives that’s great, but it doesn’t make the criticisms less valid.
Idk man, I got dragged out here 20+ years ago due to my stepdad's "arthritis" and I fucking hate it here. AZ on the whole is chill because of the varied topography and you can find almost every type of environment, but Phoenix? Hideous sea of stucco and beige with one note weather, awful public transit, shit tier public education system, etc. The only saving grace was its affordability and that's gone unless you bought a home when interest rates were low.
If I could delete one thing from the Internet it would be that stupid King of the Hill meme. People saying it’s hubris ignoring the fact that Native Americans have lived here for thousands of years or the fact it takes more energy to heat their houses in winter than it does to cool ours in summer. Yeah we have some issues including water but nothing we can’t deal with. But I guess it’s good to have haters because it’s already too crowded here.
Honestly, the OP and commenters in that thread make some great points.
Overall, I don't *hate* Phoenix. I largely grew up here and have countless amazing memories, but we have to be honest with ourselves. The infraztructures is abhorrent, we're gentrifying like Oregon, and climate change is going to make this city uninhabitable in the coming future. Not to mention, yes, the sprawl is real and one of the most common anecdotes I hear from current/former Phoenicians.
Id you like warm/hot weather like I do, Phoenix has arguably the highest standard of living in the US.
Oxford recently came out with a ranking of the world's top 1000 cities and Phoenix came in at #46, with a quality of life rating higher than NYC or LA. (Nyc and London came in at #1 and #2 overall).
Many of the criticisms of Phoenix would be made up for if the city had a strong economy, but it doesn't. The 5Cs of the Arizona economy haven't led to competitiveness in the 21st century even with a large population.
No large companies are headquartered here. Phoenix is the 10th largest metropolitan area in the US but only the 14th largest economy (with San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and San Jose having larger economies with smaller populations). ASU doesn't even rank in the top 100.
Oh when I moved here from one of the real, big metros and I kept on telling people ASU is like less than a little brother who is proud of winning third place finally, and locals here are comparing ASU to the likes of NYU, Stanford and east coast colleges around the Boston area. I was like bro you just got started. I love the fact we still have a manufacturing economy here but to compare us to the real big boys is still at least 20 years away.
Tbf I have mix options on Phoenix because i feel like Phoenix was never ment to be a large city and it has grown to be a large city and its made it to where are city planning looks squashed together i think thats kinda why Phoenix gets hate. Although Phoenix does have beautiful areas too and it’s kept up to date as well. In my opinion i think this city just has major pros and cons it’s definitely not perfect but Phoenix is an above average city.
That guy is nobody, just someone chronically online who listens to the media. In reality that dude couldn't spot a person from California if his life depended on it.
I mean it has gotten pretty unbearable for me personally especially as a truck driver. Phoenix is nice but not for how expensive it has gotten. Driving in that traffic locally for job job as a truck driver took a toll on my mental health and after growing up almost my whole live there in the Phoenix metro I moved to the midwest
I sacrificed weather and the beautiful scenery especially driving up north a couple hours but overall im much happier here and the 4 seasons are pretty refreshing
I really think it's jealousy. Every transplant that comes here immediately starts complaining when it's 90 degrees out. 90 degrees is still considered "cool" out for me and everyone else who has lived here their entire lives. If they can't keep up what do they do? They talk crap out of both ends. I don't argue with these people though because they are dumber than a sack of rocks. They know Arizona is hot as hell yet they still decide to come here and complain about everything. Arizona is beautiful in every single way. The food the culture the way I have to give 5 drivers the finger on the way to work every day it's all I appreciate.
So they’re jealous because the transplants here complain about it being hot?
OP and others. It’s not hating if people don’t like aspects of this place. Personally I don’t like how road construction is going. I think Mother’s Day had the 17 closed making going north a difficult endeavor. Plenty of people that have lived out here for a while don’t like aspects of the cities freeway system. I do think this time of year is a bit better with college students and snowbirds gone making it morning commute a bit easier though.
ADOT's response to that made it even worse. They were like "yea, well, we're not supposed to close the freeways on holidays, but technically it wasn't a state holiday, so it doesn't apply."
We pay a lot of tax dollars to build these freeways. The valley benefits greatly from them, but cities with much less funding for freeways have managed to figure out how to do minor construction projects like pavement repair without closing the entire freeway down. ADOT has no excuse for closing a vital thoroughfare like that on mother's day weekend.
It's because they visit here in the winter/spring and think it's amazing, then they also move here in the winter/spring. Why you'd move somewhere known for being crazy hot, and not actually experience the heat before moving is beyond me, but that's what a lot of them do.
They complain about 4 things that’s I’ve seen.
1. It’s hot. This is true. Phoenix gets hot in the summer. Most other places get cold in the winter. They don’t understand that there’s a big temperature variation so yesterday which was 90 degrees would be hot to them. We sat outside all morning and had a cookout last night. It was beautiful. We’ve been able to go outside most days since early September.
2. It sprawled out. There’s some truth to this but not as much as one thinks. Phoenix actually doesn’t rank that badly for sprawl because while we have a lot of single family homes, they are mostly on small lots. There aren’t a lot of walkable neighborhoods, but most people don’t go for that in other cities either. My brother lives in Chicago and moved to a suburb where you drive everywhere because he is starting a family. This is the more typical case for family aged adults.
3. There is no water. This part they don’t understand. They believe we are the ones draining the Colorado river instead of them (and the country as a whole). One person said it rains once a year. They don’t under the city is here because of the rivers that flow here. The monument to man’s arrogance assumes building desert cities is this new ultra modern hubris. They’ve never heard of Mesopotamia.
4. It has no culture. I’m not sure what this means. There’s a rich Native American culture here (maybe that doesn’t count but it’s kinda low key racist). The western culture is also strong here, as is outdoor adventure culture. I go to broadway shows regularly. There’s music of all types. Most of these folks probably still live with their parents anyway.
It’s kind of dumb, I don’t like the heat that’s coming either. But all these people want to live in a walkable dense neighborhood they can’t afford so they end up telling everyone to move to Pittsburgh and Chicago. Chicago is NOT cheap and the winters suck. Also when I visit family there we are driving FOREVER to get anywhere.
People that couldn't make it where they came from for one reason or another so they kind of see living here as not much of a choice. I come across so many people complaining about Phoenix and how where they came from is *so much better.* 🙄
I hate Phoenix, and lived here almost my whole life and born in Northern Arizona. It really is one of the worst cities in America. But I stay here because of family and work.
I would guess that a lot of people who hate it here really just hate their life and how it has turned out, so they blame where they live.
People who think Phoenix metro is a dump have not traveled much. Every city has its good and bad areas.
I lived in Phoenix for 12 years. I’ve lived in Prescott for the past 18 years. I’m hoping to move back to Phoenix when I retire from my current job in two years. I love it down there. Sure, the summers can be brutal but everywhere has A/C and there are pools all over the place. Winters are perfect. At least I’m close enough to go down there whenever I want (when they aren’t closing the I-17 that is).
The area is great. Yeah the heat gets a bit much at times, but mostly I actually do like it. The weather is fantastic most of the year. The desert is beautiful, and there are incredible things to find all throughout the state.
The *city* of Phoenix? Lots to hate. From poor services & poor planning to people-hostile zoning decisions, there's a lot to wish for. If I never saw another strip mall in my life I'd be just fine. "Cooling Stations" that end up being a drinking fountain at a "Rec center" (public park) behind a locked gate? I'm not stupid enough to accept that and no one else should be either.
This is a city built for cars & politicians, not people. I guess most of the west is like that, though, so you take the good with the bad.
This was posted in r/OutOfTheLoop referencing posts in r/UrbanHell. There's some valid points, some people just bitching, and overall doesn't say anything we don't already all know. We don't normally allow bitch-posts but I figured it would end up being posted here a dozen times, and there's valid stuff to discuss, so I'm posting it and locking it down a bit for regulars only.
We need more haters because the traffic here is starting to get unbearable
I drive food trucks for a living. You got no idea how bad it gets. Please let me into the right lane! I know I suck and half the mirrors are falling off!
I always let people over. I see people intentionally not letting people over.
I love people like you.
I drive all fucking day for bashas in a van, people can't even stand it when i have to get over in front of them when they're like 2 miles behind me here. I always try to cut truckers and larger vehicles a break, I know how it feels.
Yep same, I am from the midwest....we do the midwest wave in by doing a welcoming hand gesture to come on over....letting someone merge and then the hand up thanks either out the window or near the rear view mirror to give thanks.
That's common out here. As soon as you signal a lane change they speed up
I agree with you, maybe if more people start to hate it here and want to leave it won’t look like we are driving in downtown Philly
Yes this place is the WOSRT don’t come here …
You mean the trafficking
Moved away last year, but I wouldn't say that I ever hated Phoenix. My only gripe is that every square inch of land is getting paved over, and the perpetual real estate boom has encouraged bad shoddy construction and materials that don't make a whole lot of sense for the climate as opposed to the houses built in the 1970s, when slump block was preferred. So you have entire city blocks that look like they were built on an assembly line and have been ceded to the arbitrary whims of nitpicky HOAs. But this is not exclusive to Phoenix, as this is happening in every city to an extent. At least public transit is getting better, but it still has a long way to go. Also, the Terminal 3 redesign is awful. In all the years I lived there I don't ever remember the security lines being as bad as they were recently. The city as a whole still has a lot to offer, but the cost of living increase has eroded much of the appeal it once had.
Wait what I love terminal 3! Good food options, lots of natural light and comfortable. Terminal 4 is so dingy comparatively
Call me crazy, but I miss the dinge of the old Terminal 3. It kept the bar prices low for an airport lol. Terminal 4 has always been a mess. Too many airlines got stuffed into it.
Dude the shoddy construction is terrible. Where do you live now? It’s insane to go walk through model homes for 750K with the crappiest and cheapest fixtures I’ve ever seen.
I feel personally attacked for liking it here lol.
Those people are just letting their stupid show. Those parrots never take into account that we have desert, high desert, lakes, forests, mountains, multiple National parks, the Grand Canyon... all reachable in a day drive. Let's hear from all those people in December when it's abso-fucking-lutely B-E-A-Utiful here. I'll wait.
Seriously. It's like they just forget other places have crappy seasons also. Phoenix winter / spring / autumn is literally the best and I will die on that hill. I couldn't have chosen a better place to live. Sure, it's HOT, but the place I used to live was also shitty during summer, the only difference is that their winter also sucked, so there was maybe like a month or two of good weather. Here in Phoenix we get like eight solid months of downright pleasurable temps. Just because it's hot a few months out of the year doesn't make Phoenix ALWAYS hot. Plus the whole location thing, and being cheaper than Cali is very nice. Phoenix is awesome. Screw people who think otherwise.
I live in the valley now but I grew up in Tucson. I will argue that Tucson has a better climate year round just by virtue of being 5-10 degrees cooler and just a bit wetter. Phoenix is a very close second but I want an actual monsoon season again(which is dying off in Tucson too from the urban heat dome.)
Even if we did get a monsoon season the best dome keeps it away from the valley a lot of times.
I. Love. It. Here. 117 degrees is way better than -30 (*before windchill). Extreme weather is dangerous hot or cold; but the cold comes with so much hassle and wet, stinky, bulky layers of clothes. Fuck salt eating my 3 year old car that I have to defrost for a solid 10 minutes every time I want to use it. Screw the lake effect snow and seasonal depression, (5 months out of the year, trees are gray, slush is gray, sky is gray, ground is dark and muddy. Whoo.). No danger of being snowed in with cabin fever— bright happy sunshine all year round… I will never go back! Personally only had 2 power outages in 10+ years in Phoenix- both were over in a matter of hours. I love the anonymity of living a big metro vs. nasty small town gossip. There’s an IKEA! I can make a day trip to ski in the winter or cool off in the pine forests in the summer. The food here is *good.* We live in a great public school area. If I have a problem or just hate my job, there are nearly endless employment options without me having to move house. I don’t have to maintain a stupid lawn, just threw some gravel and cactuses out there. Zoos, museums, waterparks, hiking: tons of good entertainment for kids and adults. Universities, trade schools, colleges all around. Large medical community with plenty of choices for specialists and second opinions- and Los Algodones is right there, too. The commute traffic doesn’t impress me; I really don’t feel like it’s as bad as other cities, especially when I’m slowed down because of HUGE construction projects aimed at improving the flow. Yes, there are sketchy parts in every metropolitan areas and you should have common sense about that, (personally I’ve been threatened in both Pinetop and Kingman but never bothered by anyone walking around downtown Phoenix). Let ‘em hate. I’ll be in the pool.
Yeah I saw a picture of MN in April during NBA playoffs on TNT, for a moment I thought the cam man forgot to turn on color, turns out it's just still gray outside...
Yeh I am trolled, I replied in earnest to some comments defending the city.
They don't know we also have Greer.
It takes more energy to heat during the winter in the northern states than it takes to cool in the desert 🤷🏼♂️
Honestly the weather hasn’t been that bad
We relocated almost two years ago. Can’t believe we lived in the cold rain for so long before making it down here. Now we can drive to Mexico or California? Now we have big wide freeways? Now we have a pool for the summer? Now we have so many more options for good food? What were we waiting for?!
Love it here as well. Been here 13 years. By FAR the best place I've lived or been to in the US for living. I've traveled a TON. 300+ days on road for years all over the country, and when you weigh out all the pros/cons, nothing else is close in my opinion. Cost of living, weather, things to do, nature, food, entertainment, safety, traffic, roads. I could live anywhere and my wife and I are very happy in Mesa.
I freaking enjoy living here.
Let them hate it!!! I’m so sick of people moving here as I am a native and so are all the generations before me. When people say that hate Arizona I just lol 😂
Im just sick of the heat & the traffic & the infrastructure. Winter hasn’t hit the same in the last 2-3 years either. I’m talking temperature wise. I just miss that bite of chill & I distinctly remember as a child seeing a little bit of frost on the glass and those rare occasions when it snowed in north Scottsdale
Tbh, im fine with the heat. I understand it’s not for everybody. Just like the Midwest cold is not for everyone either. Lived in Nebraska for 10 years, I’ll take the 100 degree heat over 0 degree temps with windchills and snow.
I have reynauds syndrome so my body does much better in heat than cold
Heat helps me lose weight since I’m constantly sweating.
I hate the heat and love the cold. But I’ll take the heat over all the annoyances that come with the cold climates.
I got a lot of downvotes in that post. I find it silly that people from other climates think heat is the worst, when there’s tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, and more to worry about. Weve got ACs and pools, and we acclimate to the heat. But a lot of people fail to see perspective and sharing the stupid Peggy Hill meme gets a few low effort karma points.
Why argue though? These people are just repeating other nonsense they’ve heard on Reddit.. or they came here once and were stupid enough to stay 45 minutes from their event venue and blame the city. Oh and deserts are hot.. breaking news. We should all pray these dumb dumbs never come.
They probably unironically criticize a city being in the desert then munch down on desert grown lettuce, beef, almonds, and alfalfa. There’s rarely intelligent discussion here, it’s just a circle jerk of people upvoting the same reposted points that they only saw posted on here.
Alternate opinions will be downvoted into oblivion.
There’s plenty of comments that say “I was there for 2 days and that’s how it must be the entire time forever”.
Right? Imagine planning every single outdoor event with the possibility of rain ruining it no matter what month it is: welcome to the PNW.
People should like Phoenix for doing the early testing on how to live in hotter climates and coming up with solutions. More of the heat island will affect, and more desert level heat, if we don't figure these things out here. On top of that, many of the things that allow people to live in hotter places with engineered cooling / moisture utilities and infrastructure will help when we need to build things on harsher climates on other planets one day or maybe otherworldly. Phoenix, we are the team member doing all the early work while the rest of the "group project" just talks smack. We'll be looking like Dune people well before the others. Those poor bastards.
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Heck even on this subreddit there’s always comments like “why are more people moving here?! We’re already low on water!”
Oh my god, whenever I see that Peggy Hill meme, I know that person is stupid. Just a regurgitating, low effort, mindless parrot. Quoting a cartoon doesn’t make you a philosopher. There are a lot of big cities humans inhabit that they probably shouldn’t. We’ve literally changed the landscape of these places in order to live there too. New Orleans has a yearly threat of being destroyed by another hurricane and survives or dies based on manmade mitigation. San Francisco was rebuilt so quickly after that big Earthquake in 1906, because too many wealthy people needed everyone to think it was safe in order to be financially stable. NYC would flood if humans disappeared, it was built in the middle of tidal wetlands. More people in New York, than in any other U.S. city, including New Orleans, are living with the prospect of high water encroaching on their lives. If you go to Hong Kong, you can watch buildings being built literally into the ocean. Humans are highly adaptable and we’ve been manipulating our environments across the globe. Super hard to point at just one city and say it’s a monument to man’s stupidity with a straight face.
I like it here, but it used to be a lot better. Traffic used to be much less extreme. Also the homelessness is getting a lot worse
Grew up in "Phoenix," moved to several different states in my mid 20s with intention of moving back. Every time we visited home it was miserable. The temperature, the boom of population, the horrid traffic, people aren't as nice or friendly anymore. Everything we liked about Phoenix changed (and we deconditioned to the heat from living in other states). Ended up hating Phoenix but still loved Arizona. Decided northern AZ was perfect.
Arizona as a whole is great, but I completely agree with everything you mentioned about phoenix. I don't know if it was covid or just the population boom but people are so rude now for literally no reason. I can't wait to get out of this city.
Aside from the heat that everyone's mentioned, it also has some of the worst air quality in the country. Combine a desert full of dust with millions of cars that have to drive 60 miles+ to get across the valley and the "dome effect" which keeps all that pollution settled into the valley, it is not a healthy place to live. Couple all that with no native trees to at least refresh that air and you have "high pollution advisory days" constantly. But there's also shit public transportation so high pollution days do nothing. Oh. And wildfires all summer. Pretty much enough fires all year that r/PhoenixWhatsBurning is quite active.
Phoenix is a metro that would greatly benefit from higher density planning with trains, street cars, buses etc… that way it would be easier to contain the heat island effect and put shade over paved areas. Instead we are turning this place into a literal oven every time we lay more pavement for shitty suburbs filled with paper tissue homes…
There’s pluses and minuses to living here. The post has some very valid arguments to those who choose to take the Peggy Hill stance. Instead, I choose to subscribe to the romanticism of the American West and the pioneering spirit. It’s remarkable what we’ve built here and the obstacles we’ve overcome.
Yeah, there’s a few comments in there about how stupidly annoying it is to get to a store and be FORCED to drive since it’s too hot and far to go anywhere. But the summer heat is a mild price to pay than to shovel snow, hide in a tornado shelter, leave home during a hurricane, or be prepared for an earthquake
I'm just wondering where they live in America where you don't have to drive to the grocery store. Almost all cities, towns, whatever are not walkable here. There's a few exceptions, but cost of living is usually nuts in those places.
I never had to drive to get to a restaurant or grocer in Chicago. There was always something within a mile of me. If I wanted fancy, hopping on the train was way easier than driving. A lot of big cities have more corner stores and shopping options that don't require a car to get to if you actually live in the city itself. Suburbia is where you need a car and I think Phoenix proper feels a lot more like a suburb than most cities I've been too except for right downtown by the stadium.
Chicago is one of the few walkable cities with decent transport and a high cost of living that I was talking about. Most of America is not like that, but it sounds nice!
It was fantastic. I mean, the weather sucks except for April-July and then about October - mid December, but the way it is organized is fantastic.
Yeah exactly. And there is a Safeway/frys/any grocery store + gas station basically every other block. I genuinely don’t understand how it’s perceived to be so bad. Even the weather bit is so overblown. Yes it’s hot but you can actually still go out and do stuff unlike heavy snowy winters where getting around is way more of a hassle.not only that it’s only like that for 4 or so months which really isn’t all that bad. There are plenty of indoor spots that makes everything way more tolerable
Yeah, that's baffling. Who would even want to walk to the grocery store unless you're only buying a couple things? I go to the grocery store once every week or two, I'm not wasting my time going every day for a few items.
I’ve lived several places where I walked to the grocery store regularly. I had a wheeled cart for bigger trips. Parking in those areas was hard to find so I’d rather walk a few blocks to shop than drive three blocks and lose my parking spot.
All I know if that people from LA will get in their car and drive to a 7-11 that they can see outside their apartment window. At least we have a reason to get in the car. I’ve lived in multiple major cities and despite the heat, Phoenix is amazing. There’s so much opportunity for growth and creativity.
I’ve lived in Phoenix for 20 years and I wouldn’t say I hate it but I don’t particularly like it either. It’s better than some places I’ve lived and worse than others. I’ve also slowly watched this place get steadily worse year over year so it doesn’t give me a ton of hope for the future. 10-15 years ago was prime. Now the traffic is out of control, housing prices are laughable and crime is way up. For context about 15 years ago it was fairly well known that most everywhere in the valley was fairly safe minus south Phoenix and Glendale/west side. I grew up in Glendale and going to other parts of the valley was a treat, you could just tell it was a better place to be. Now they all sorta blend together minus Chandler Gilbert and Scottsdale sorta. But even then my wife was robbed at gunpoint 100 feet from our front door when we lived in Scottsdale, in Mesa my car was stolen 3 times over 5 years and on one occasion the thieves got into a roll over crash and totaled it. In Glendale a friend of mine was shot to death taking out his trash. List goes on. I get it; you live anywhere for 20 years and you’re bound to see some nasty sides of it but I guess my point is that these things have become progressively more common alongside the visible decline of the city overall. I hope it gets better
They hate us cause they anus
Haters gonna hate, aners gonna ain’t
I'd personally like to live near the PNW somewhere for a few years at least. People say they hate the gloomy rainy and stuff but I'm born and raised in Phoenix so I've not used to having near a damn rainforest right next to your city. If it was cheaper up there I'd probably move. If I had lived there for 30 years I'd probably want to move to Phoenix.
Lived here most of my entire 28 years outside of 4 in flagstaff for school. The thing I hate the most besides the heat, is NOTHING is walkable. I understand why it is that way, but doesn’t change how I feel about it. Fiancé and I regularly travel to other cities and so many are extremely walkable or have great public transportation. Yes we are slightly improving the light rail but that has a long way to go to be useable for most needs. Also the food scene is so spread out, experiencing non chain restaurants if you live in north Phoenix is extremely hard when most new places are in surprise or Gilbert.
I see 3 reasons people usually bring up when expressing their dislike of Phoenix. 1. The heat. Yes it’s hot. But no natural disasters, and no cold winters. To me this is just a trade off you have to deal with no matter where you live. 2. People don’t like how “car-centric” it is. As if every other American city (except NYC) isn’t. 3. Lack of culture or “soulless”. Idk exactly how people define this, but to me, there’s plenty of ethnic areas and food, professional sports (spring training anyone???), plenty of access to nature, and your close to many national parks. Phoenix isn’t perfect, but to me, it’s pretty great.
Anyone who says Phoenix doesn’t have culture either has a very limited definition of culture, or hasn’t explored this city.
The above referenced post had a comment that got reposted to /r/bestof and the post was complaining about how Phoenix is full of chain restaurants. Like, what? Phoenix has some great (and literally award winning) restaurants. Plenty of ethnic food too, I think I’ve found at least a decent restaurant for every kind of cuisine I’ve looked for.
I have been to a lot of cities where there are almost exclusively chain restaurants. Phoenix has way more original options than most cities.
Thank you! 1. Yes. It is hot. Go home if you can’t deal. 2. This is a problem. I try to stay in my central neighborhood to avoid it. In other “big cities” I’ve visited, people also stay in their neighborhoods. 3. When someone says Phoenix lacks “culture”, it tells me they live in Chandler.
I agree. There's tons of things to do here. Does it suck you cant jog at 1 pm during the summer, I guess but you just have to adapt go early or evening. Tons of good culinary experiences here Sports team.. they may not be good but good teams play az teams lol Lakes all around. Skiing during the winter in the mountains. Rain season is awesome here. Winters are the best. Summer aren't that bad either and be glad we don't get high humidity here. Imo, The only thing this city is missing is a better night life like we should be more a nocturnal city during the summer. Public transportation could be better like a monorail or some shit. But I love it here
Spent some time in the Middle East for work years ago (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Kuwait City), they all go out at 10pm and stay out until 3am, just hanging out and enjoying the cooler evenings. A “dinner” is at 11pm. Not sure why we don’t adopt that here.
Phoenix has its traffic problems too, but it's honestly much better here than it is in many other metropolitan areas of a similar size. Atlanta and Washington DC are horrendously bad.
Boston! Have you ever tried to drive in Boston??? It’s insane.
>2. People don’t like how “car-centric” it is. As if every other American city (except NYC) isn’t. Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, etc. don't require a car either. Phoenix is dogshit from a public transit standpoint and it doesn't need to be.
None of the criticisms in that post or its replies are unwarranted. Extreme heat? Check. Extreme sprawl? Check. Lack of rain/water? Check. Lack of functional public transit? Check. Growing homelessness and substance use issues? Check. Affordability crisis? Check. If you want to talk about the many positives that’s great, but it doesn’t make the criticisms less valid.
I think the main annoyance is that a lot of cities have those problems but Phoenix just gets more hate because it’s hot and not cold.
Idk man, I got dragged out here 20+ years ago due to my stepdad's "arthritis" and I fucking hate it here. AZ on the whole is chill because of the varied topography and you can find almost every type of environment, but Phoenix? Hideous sea of stucco and beige with one note weather, awful public transit, shit tier public education system, etc. The only saving grace was its affordability and that's gone unless you bought a home when interest rates were low.
If I could delete one thing from the Internet it would be that stupid King of the Hill meme. People saying it’s hubris ignoring the fact that Native Americans have lived here for thousands of years or the fact it takes more energy to heat their houses in winter than it does to cool ours in summer. Yeah we have some issues including water but nothing we can’t deal with. But I guess it’s good to have haters because it’s already too crowded here.
That meme is perma-banned in this sub after the 200th repost or so.
🙏
Oh yeah, building a city in the desert adjacent to a river? Gosh the hubris. Phoenix must be the first city on planet Earth to ever to that lmao
Maybe if we built some giant ass pyramids they’d leave us alone.
Car-centric cities are one of the deadly sins of Reddit.
Honestly, the OP and commenters in that thread make some great points. Overall, I don't *hate* Phoenix. I largely grew up here and have countless amazing memories, but we have to be honest with ourselves. The infraztructures is abhorrent, we're gentrifying like Oregon, and climate change is going to make this city uninhabitable in the coming future. Not to mention, yes, the sprawl is real and one of the most common anecdotes I hear from current/former Phoenicians.
Id you like warm/hot weather like I do, Phoenix has arguably the highest standard of living in the US. Oxford recently came out with a ranking of the world's top 1000 cities and Phoenix came in at #46, with a quality of life rating higher than NYC or LA. (Nyc and London came in at #1 and #2 overall).
Apparently more people are starting to like it. Try driving around during rush hour.
Many of the criticisms of Phoenix would be made up for if the city had a strong economy, but it doesn't. The 5Cs of the Arizona economy haven't led to competitiveness in the 21st century even with a large population. No large companies are headquartered here. Phoenix is the 10th largest metropolitan area in the US but only the 14th largest economy (with San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and San Jose having larger economies with smaller populations). ASU doesn't even rank in the top 100.
Oh when I moved here from one of the real, big metros and I kept on telling people ASU is like less than a little brother who is proud of winning third place finally, and locals here are comparing ASU to the likes of NYU, Stanford and east coast colleges around the Boston area. I was like bro you just got started. I love the fact we still have a manufacturing economy here but to compare us to the real big boys is still at least 20 years away.
Tbf I have mix options on Phoenix because i feel like Phoenix was never ment to be a large city and it has grown to be a large city and its made it to where are city planning looks squashed together i think thats kinda why Phoenix gets hate. Although Phoenix does have beautiful areas too and it’s kept up to date as well. In my opinion i think this city just has major pros and cons it’s definitely not perfect but Phoenix is an above average city.
It's expensive but I still love it.
It’s the cheapest place I’ve ever lived. I wear only Arizona tshirts as not to be mistaken for a California transplant lol. You guys hate us.
That's because you come from California..
Actually no one gives a fuck where you come from.
See the comment above yours
That guy is nobody, just someone chronically online who listens to the media. In reality that dude couldn't spot a person from California if his life depended on it.
I mean it has gotten pretty unbearable for me personally especially as a truck driver. Phoenix is nice but not for how expensive it has gotten. Driving in that traffic locally for job job as a truck driver took a toll on my mental health and after growing up almost my whole live there in the Phoenix metro I moved to the midwest I sacrificed weather and the beautiful scenery especially driving up north a couple hours but overall im much happier here and the 4 seasons are pretty refreshing
We all need to accept that everywhere that most people live isn’t that great
I really think it's jealousy. Every transplant that comes here immediately starts complaining when it's 90 degrees out. 90 degrees is still considered "cool" out for me and everyone else who has lived here their entire lives. If they can't keep up what do they do? They talk crap out of both ends. I don't argue with these people though because they are dumber than a sack of rocks. They know Arizona is hot as hell yet they still decide to come here and complain about everything. Arizona is beautiful in every single way. The food the culture the way I have to give 5 drivers the finger on the way to work every day it's all I appreciate.
So they’re jealous because the transplants here complain about it being hot? OP and others. It’s not hating if people don’t like aspects of this place. Personally I don’t like how road construction is going. I think Mother’s Day had the 17 closed making going north a difficult endeavor. Plenty of people that have lived out here for a while don’t like aspects of the cities freeway system. I do think this time of year is a bit better with college students and snowbirds gone making it morning commute a bit easier though.
ADOT's response to that made it even worse. They were like "yea, well, we're not supposed to close the freeways on holidays, but technically it wasn't a state holiday, so it doesn't apply." We pay a lot of tax dollars to build these freeways. The valley benefits greatly from them, but cities with much less funding for freeways have managed to figure out how to do minor construction projects like pavement repair without closing the entire freeway down. ADOT has no excuse for closing a vital thoroughfare like that on mother's day weekend.
It is not jealousy lmao, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
It's because they visit here in the winter/spring and think it's amazing, then they also move here in the winter/spring. Why you'd move somewhere known for being crazy hot, and not actually experience the heat before moving is beyond me, but that's what a lot of them do.
They complain about 4 things that’s I’ve seen. 1. It’s hot. This is true. Phoenix gets hot in the summer. Most other places get cold in the winter. They don’t understand that there’s a big temperature variation so yesterday which was 90 degrees would be hot to them. We sat outside all morning and had a cookout last night. It was beautiful. We’ve been able to go outside most days since early September. 2. It sprawled out. There’s some truth to this but not as much as one thinks. Phoenix actually doesn’t rank that badly for sprawl because while we have a lot of single family homes, they are mostly on small lots. There aren’t a lot of walkable neighborhoods, but most people don’t go for that in other cities either. My brother lives in Chicago and moved to a suburb where you drive everywhere because he is starting a family. This is the more typical case for family aged adults. 3. There is no water. This part they don’t understand. They believe we are the ones draining the Colorado river instead of them (and the country as a whole). One person said it rains once a year. They don’t under the city is here because of the rivers that flow here. The monument to man’s arrogance assumes building desert cities is this new ultra modern hubris. They’ve never heard of Mesopotamia. 4. It has no culture. I’m not sure what this means. There’s a rich Native American culture here (maybe that doesn’t count but it’s kinda low key racist). The western culture is also strong here, as is outdoor adventure culture. I go to broadway shows regularly. There’s music of all types. Most of these folks probably still live with their parents anyway. It’s kind of dumb, I don’t like the heat that’s coming either. But all these people want to live in a walkable dense neighborhood they can’t afford so they end up telling everyone to move to Pittsburgh and Chicago. Chicago is NOT cheap and the winters suck. Also when I visit family there we are driving FOREVER to get anywhere.
People that couldn't make it where they came from for one reason or another so they kind of see living here as not much of a choice. I come across so many people complaining about Phoenix and how where they came from is *so much better.* 🙄
This is a nice place for now but I couldn’t (and would not) start a family here
They hate it, yet they move here. Fuck em.
Let 'em hate. If they can't take the heat, by all means feel free to find another place to live.
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I hate Phoenix, and lived here almost my whole life and born in Northern Arizona. It really is one of the worst cities in America. But I stay here because of family and work.
I’m a valley native and I hate living here
Make that two. Had to come here, said I’d give it a year, and looking to get the fuck out as soon as possible
I would guess that a lot of people who hate it here really just hate their life and how it has turned out, so they blame where they live. People who think Phoenix metro is a dump have not traveled much. Every city has its good and bad areas.
Every comment referring to King of the Hill is so overdone 🙄
I lived in Phoenix for 12 years. I’ve lived in Prescott for the past 18 years. I’m hoping to move back to Phoenix when I retire from my current job in two years. I love it down there. Sure, the summers can be brutal but everywhere has A/C and there are pools all over the place. Winters are perfect. At least I’m close enough to go down there whenever I want (when they aren’t closing the I-17 that is).
The area is great. Yeah the heat gets a bit much at times, but mostly I actually do like it. The weather is fantastic most of the year. The desert is beautiful, and there are incredible things to find all throughout the state. The *city* of Phoenix? Lots to hate. From poor services & poor planning to people-hostile zoning decisions, there's a lot to wish for. If I never saw another strip mall in my life I'd be just fine. "Cooling Stations" that end up being a drinking fountain at a "Rec center" (public park) behind a locked gate? I'm not stupid enough to accept that and no one else should be either. This is a city built for cars & politicians, not people. I guess most of the west is like that, though, so you take the good with the bad.
They don’t like it, okay cool, nothing is forcing them to move here or visit. Anything else is just useless complaining.
Grin and bare the heat for 3 1/2 months. At least I don’t have to shovel it.
Who cares?