There are three more towns I would like to add to the list of
suburbs of Phoenix.
Paradise Valley - Somewhere north or northeast of
Phoenix proper, known for being inhabited by the
wealthy. This is where all of Phoenix's "million dollar homes" seem to exist.
Sun City - The major retirement community in phoenix. Almost all of it's citizens are over the age of 55. It is a
master planned community designed and
advertised by a
construction company called
Del Webb. It is in the very north west of Phoenix.
Sun City, West - West of Sun City, same concept and designers as Sun city.
In Phoenix all the suburbs are considered seperate individual cities, even though they all blend together.
There is currently a feeling of bitterness amongst many of the people that live on the west side of Phoenix towards, if not the east side of Phoenix, than towards the media, for treating the west side like it doesn't exist. This recently manifested in the debate over the new
Cardinals Stadium. A committee was assembled to decide where the
proposed 300 million dollar
stadium would go. They then asked all the cities that wanted the stadium to submit
site proposals. The committee narrowed down the sites to two sites, one on the west side, and one on the east side. Then
politics got majorly involved. The sites were moved, more were added, some removed, at one point neither side was officially "in the game". After about a year the
decision came down and the stadium ended up on the west side.
The public is pretty much sick of hearing about the Cardinal's Stadium. The Cardinal's haven't been a
winning team for years, the only reason they are getting a stadium at all is because Phoenix would like to host another
Super Bowl.
Phoenix's layout is best described as
urban sprawl. Construction companies here do not
build up, they
build out. As long as they can find the room, that is the way they will continue to go. Some
estimate that Phoenix is a hundred miles long, perhaps twenty to fifty
miles wide. It still has plenty of room to grow. There is lots of farm land on the outskirts of the valley that has yet to be built on, and eventually it will be. In the next 10 to 20 years the space will probably run out, and the
Powers That Be will have a lot of
problems to deal with.
Summer in Phoenix begins in May and ends in October. June, July, and August are the hottest months. Temperatures typically range between 105 and 120
Fahrenheit during these three months. It may be a dry heat, but it is still
very hot.
To add to the list of things to do in the Phoenix area, there are three large
water parks that are all owned by the same company. Water World is north of Phoenix, in Deer Valley. Big Surf and Golfland/Sunsplash are somewhere in Phoenix proper.
There are 22
community colleges in the Maricopa Community College district.
There are several
malls throughout the valley, most owned by Westcorp Inc. Phoenix is very much a
consumer oriented city. There are shopping centers located all over the city, the more succuessful ones located near malls and
freeways. They feature big name
anchor stores like
Target,
Kmart, and
Wallmart.
Maricopa County takes up most of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. It has approx. 3 million people in it. Phoenix is huge and widespread.
Phoenix's water supply comes primarily from the
Colorado River, lakes all over the state, and
ground water.
If you plan on moving a family to Phoenix, you may want to think again. Phoenix is not known as a community building city. New housing developments generally produce
cookie cutter houses on a huge scale. Walking down one of these residential streets in the middle of the day can be quite intimidating. On the other hand, everything is nearby, if you have a car.
Speaking of cars, Phoenix is a city of people who drive.
There isn't much of a
practical way to get around it, the city is too
geographically big to support walking or to have an efficient public transportation. If you don't have a
car in Phoenix then you don't go
anywhere.