Phoenix Questions

I'm not a native, but have lived in Tucson and now Phoenix for about 40 years. There are likely three factors:

1. The entire valley infrastructure (roads, airport, hotels, bars, restaurants, etc.) is built for our peak winter population of tourists, seasonal residents and college students. January and February are just nuts.

2. There is no doubt that we are in a recession, with Phoenix discretionary spending clearly down.

3. Phoenix's downtown, once dead, is now on an upswing with increasing population, new and improved hotels, and university campus additions. That said, it has little night life.

 

I like it here, but like he said the recession is definately hitting. The heat may get to be a little much after a while, and as for downtown, I was there sunday and besides the baseball game, it seems abandoned. But if you were to come up towards Fashion Square, Desert Ridge, Scottsdale Road in general you'll see more people. Where in scottsdale were you?

 

the valley is full of micro communities.
In North Scottsdale, restaurants are still busy.

Its still hard to find a good parking spot at Kierland. This is my barometer for how many paople are in town.

My guess is people are still coming into town, and come November, Scottsdale RD. and Camelback will all have traffic.

 

Thats fashion square mall, I really like it there, especially the Waterfront condos that tower over the mall. Topcarbon is right, it's almost community based, and roads will start to get a little more crowded soon. I stay fairly North (I live off Via Linda) and really like N.Scottsdale. One thing I will say is that some people in Scottsdale think they own the world can be pricks. I'm in high school here in scottsdale, and all the kids are extremely spoiled, snotty to adults, and down right disrespectful. But there are many nice people!

I hope Scottsdale/Phoenix doesn't turn into a Los Angeles type of city anytime soon.

PS: I actually wasn't impressed with Sprinkles at all! Maybe it was just the batch or something?

 

We couldn't wait for Sprinkles to open here. We only went once but were very disappointed. They were definitely not as good as in LA. Perhaps they are still perfecting things here or maybe we got an "off" batch too. Will try again soon.

It is actually nice to not have to fight crowds everywhere and have to search for parking or wait for a table, etc. Less traffic is always better, since the F1s seem to get very confused by traffic.

And now that the weather will be cooling down, we are entering that perfect time here in Scottsdale.

Enjoy!

 

I run a classic Mercedes restoration shop here in North Scottdsale and I will tell you that a majority of my clients are running scared due to the Obama thing... We have had two clients completely stop payments for ongoing restorations because they are worried about future tax policy under an Obama/Democrat controlled government... Trickle down economics WORKS for us...

 

There are actually a lot of Asian people here They generally keep to themselves though:

http://www.phxchinatown.com/

I think "most" general public are spending more time at home now ("think" being the keyword here). The lakes are busy as hell though. If you wanna see a lot of people hit the I-10, 202 and 60 at about 4:30PM. It's hell.

Aside from that this valley is so spread out that you don't generally see a "ton" of people in one place. Just moderate amounts of people everywhere. During big events it gets crowded at places of course. Nascar, Edgefest, etc. Micro communities like topcarbon said.

Hope you enjoyed your stay It's fantastic here as you can see.

 

I can certainly understand that. Things were awful under the last democratic administration and the economic benefits and wizardry of the present administration will be difficult to duplicate. Wait, maybe they're running scared because of the economic meltdown NOW. No, that couldn't be it, it must be the administration that is not, and may not ever, be in power.

 

Let's not encourage a thread hijack into politico. Although I agree with you. My BS Meter went off as soon as I read that comment.

As for the original post - AZ isn't really a "downtown" kind of place. They are usually only living 8-5 M-F and home only to bums outside that. As noted, there are pockets of community traffic in different parts of town.
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I'm Asian, but not what whoever said oriental, I'm Indian, but there are a hell of a lot of us here. I'm surprised it was dead. I'm in Tempe, at ASU, and it is always packed here.

I think it is because you are from LA, its always different. To me its packed in LA and Phoenix compared to Austin. You love the heat, I mean I like it, but when it gets into the 105s+ it is just horrible. Today, I stood in the heat for 1 hour, I was waiting for free food at Chipotle, so, it was kind of worth it, I was sweating so badly, I don't tan, I get red and sweaty, and since I had my backpack that was kind of heavy. It probably depends what time you go out in the day too, my family that lives here like to go out when the sun go down, just shopping and all that, since it is less heat, and they have been here for a while, so I guess it's more preference.

 

Hi Warren, my take on Arizona. Being a California transplant, the first things I noticed were a) We aren't quite the melting pot of cultures that California has become, but we are catching up fast (Our ice cream trucks do not have English, Spanish and Vietnamese writing on them like Silicon Valley) b) People don't tend to gravitate to the "downtown" areas as much as in other major metropolitan areas where downtown is typically the pulse of the community, particularly on the east coast and c) People actually dig hanging out at home and entertaining because they have a little more for the money here and most have been able to customize or personalize their living environment. In California, everyone was always talking about leaving..."getting out", not knowing when, or where, or how, just that at some point, they were going to leave. There's a whole lot of "Calizonans" here who found that yes, there are four solid months of heat, but air conditioning in the car, the restaurant, the house and the store fix that...one can live a little better on the same $$$ here that for the most part left us broke on a higher level further west. Next time you are in town, skip over to Tempe which is two minutes from the airport by tax and you will find Mill Street buzzing all night long with window shoppers, coffee drinkers, club hoppers and many more who just enjoy getting out at night and enjoying the vibe.