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I'm not gonna argue, again you can interpret and construe statistics a number of different ways... I can only tell you from my experience living and working in downtown Phoenix, what goes on here and around Phoenix in places like Mesa or Glendale in terms of crime is a freaking nightmare, much of it caused by gangs, the illegal immigrant situation and/or drugs. A better measure of how safe a city is is to look at trends- is a city geting safer or more dangerous every year? Phoenix's violent and non-violent crime rates are both rising at an alarmingly high rate.
I dont know about "alarmingly high". That is being alittle dramatic. I just took a look at Phoenix and Tempe's police department crime maps. They both show a decrease in overall crime between 2005 Jan-July and 2006 Jan-July. They do show increases in the years prior, however.
Heres some dumb questions. Other than statistics, how do you know that the crime is so horribly bad? So what if there are gangs and drugs. Every big city has that. According to statistics in Arizona you have a 5.3% chance of becoming a crime victim. I read the Republic daily, and I see a few articles here and there on crime, and occasionally read the police crime reports. Have you yourself ever been a victim? More than once? I never have been, at least in the 5 years Ive been here. Just curious for your 2 cents on this one.
If you ask me, Arizona should adopt that 3 strikes your out policy that California has. Three felonies=life in prison. Very good deterrent for the gang members and career criminals.
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Originally Posted by steve22
The only thing I will take issue with is the #3 ranking you have for Phoenix as a place for young singles. The list on Forbes I saw had Phoenix at #14 (for the country's 5th-largest city, that's not great), and that was mostly based on its relatively low cost of living and proximity to Scottsdale. There's nothing about downtown Phoenix that I would ever rate as advantageous or interesting for a young, single, educated professional.
I moved to Arizona about 1 1/2 years ago.And I love it.
I get the best sunrises and sunsets Traffic in my town is basically non existent.
And after spending my second summer here,all I can say is.
WAS THAT IT?PPPFFFFFFFFFFFF
BTW I moved here from San Diego,CA
and dont regret it not one bit.
I dont know about "alarmingly high". That is being alittle dramatic. I just took a look at Phoenix and Tempe's police department crime maps. They both show a decrease in overall crime between 2005 Jan-July and 2006 Jan-July. They do show increases in the years prior, however.
Heres some dumb questions. Other than statistics, how do you know that the crime is so horribly bad? So what if there are gangs and drugs. Every big city has that. According to statistics in Arizona you have a 5.3% chance of becoming a crime victim. I read the Republic daily, and I see a few articles here and there on crime, and occasionally read the police crime reports. Have you yourself ever been a victim? More than once? I never have been, at least in the 5 years Ive been here. Just curious for your 2 cents on this one.
If you ask me, Arizona should adopt that 3 strikes your out policy that California has. Three felonies=life in prison. Very good deterrent for the gang members and career criminals.
I've never been a victim of crime while living here, although I consider myself lucky. And again, without going into too much detail, I have a pretty good close-up view of what goes on in the streets here. When you work as a physician in a large inner-city hospital, you see some bad stuff, and you get to talk to law enforcement officials who let you in on some of the gruesome details. It's not a pretty picture, trust me. Is it any better or worse than other large U.S. cities? Well, that depends. The biggest difference overall, to me, is that here the bad crime doesn't sesm as localized to run-down areas in certain inner-city neighborhoods, like it does in most other large cities. It seems to be more widespread, and permeates the surrounding suburban communities much more here.
The Bestplaces website provides ample evidence of this. For instance, if you look at any other major city on that site, if you only look at the city itself and don't take into account the surrounding communities, the crime rates are similar or in many cases worse than Phoenix's. Now, factor the surrounding communities into the crime rates per capita, and the rates go down, in many cases dramatically in most large cities. But not Phoenix. Phoenix's crime rate actually goes up substantially, enough to make it the 4th-worst city in terms of crime statistics, when taking into account the suburban communities. That's a big issue for me.
As far as the Forbes list, I read the criteria they're using to judge the best places for singles, and they're basing their rankings on 7 factors: culture, nightlife (number of bars and restaurants per capita, which I'm guessing must include Applebees and Ruby Tuesdays from their results), job growth, cost of living, number of other singles, number of people using online dating (seems to me that should be a negative factor, not a positive one), and overall "coolness" factor (seems pretty arbitrary to me). I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I saw that they had Phoenix rated #1 for culture, and #2 for nightlife (New York, by comparison, was #3 and 13, respectively). At that point, no longer able to take their b.s. list seriously, I closed the site. Whoever made that list is smoking crack.
People who support smart-growth in general usually tend to push for Mass Transit, and zoning changes.
People who support expansion outward try to cancel out our vote.
And they do it. And its because of that, that we cover as much land as we do, but yet are only home to single family tracts, and a bus system thats mediocre at best. No life, no will to improve things, and make Phoenix the city is has the POTENTIAL to be.
Its because of all the goddamn NIMBY's (Not In My Back Yard) in this city, that it blows up in our faces.
People who support smart-growth in general usually tend to push for Mass Transit, and zoning changes.
People who support expansion outward try to cancel out our vote.
And they do it. And its because of that, that we cover as much land as we do, but yet are only home to single family tracts, and a bus system thats mediocre at best. No life, no will to improve things, and make Phoenix the city is has the POTENTIAL to be.
Its because of all the goddamn NIMBY's (Not In My Back Yard) in this city, that it blows up in our faces.
--Cody
Fair enough, I have no problems with posts that are fair.
Right now i am living in NC, Raleigh area, we left oregon because it was fighting growth and things were ending up so close together it was scary. now I see here that the same thing is begining, so many people coming in homes close together, they all look alike, crime is picking up. There is crime everywhere, my mother was in NYC doing the tourist thing and was mugged on the street in broad daylight and no one came to her aid, what does that say!! In Portland we had mass gang activity and rapes, it is everywhere you go, Phoenix has a better downtown than Portland does or raleigh for that matter, I wont live in Phoenix because I wont live in any big city but I will live close, If you dont like it than leave to each his own, if you love it good for you for defending your home.
If you are talking about Portland, Oregon, then Portland's CBD is much larger than Phoenix. Phoenix would probably have the smallest CBD of any city that has a metro population of more than 3.5 million people in the world. The Phoenix metro area is also in the top few highest crime in the US, so I wouldn't compare it to New York which is one of the lowest.
New York was also recently named the most polite city in the world for people helping others, so undocumented isolated incidents are not a guide to NYC in my opinion. As for Australian cities, barely any crime at all, so it doesn't happen everywhere. There are legitimate reasons that Phoenix has so much crime that does not compare to other cities.
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Originally Posted by Steve22
As far as the Forbes list, I read the criteria they're using to judge the best places for singles, and they're basing their rankings on 7 factors: culture, nightlife (number of bars and restaurants per capita, which I'm guessing must include Applebees and Ruby Tuesdays from their results), job growth, cost of living, number of other singles, number of people using online dating (seems to me that should be a negative factor, not a positive one), and overall "coolness" factor (seems pretty arbitrary to me). I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I saw that they had Phoenix rated #1 for culture, and #2 for nightlife (New York, by comparison, was #3 and 13, respectively). At that point, no longer able to take their b.s. list seriously, I closed the site. Whoever made that list is smoking crack.
I laughed too! How could Phoenix be rated as #1 in culture, and #2 in nightlife? I immediately felt that it was paid for, especially when the article says that Phoenix 'surprisingly' finished that high. Phoenix doesn't have any nightlife, while Scottsdale is pretentious and Tempe is a frat party. There isn't any real nightlife options in Phoenix, and everybody I know that has spent considerable time here agrees. I think 'cool' factor is important because I read that as options for a wide range of people, and last year Phoenix finished in it's rightful place of #35 in cool factor.
Last edited by AussieGirl; 08-22-2006 at 04:45 AM..
I immediately felt that it was paid for, especially when the article says that Phoenix 'surprisingly' finished that high. Phoenix doesn't have any nightlife, while Scottsdale is pretentious and Tempe is a frat party.
Do you even live/have you ever been to Phoenix? Those are quite some generalizations. Scottsdale has many clubs that are great and considering it has one of the highest concentrations of clubs and bars in the country, is saying something. Yea, I guess its pretentious that many of the clubs are nice, safe, and sees the occasional celebrity. I don't know about Phoenix nightlife, but Scottsdale has consistently been ranked in the top. In several rankings, Scottsdale clubs have been ranked near the top, including the new club e4, voted the best new club in the US in 2005.
I don't necessarily believe that Phoenix should be ranked #2 for nightlife, be definitely top 15. There is a reason celebrities come to Phoenix to party. As for #1 in culture.....I can't even defend that one.
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The Phoenix metro area is also in the top few highest crime in the US, so I wouldn't compare it to New York which is one of the lowest.
I guess people on this forum fail to look at the broken down numbers? When looking at violent crimes, Phoenix is one of the lowest. Auto theft and property crime amounts for the majority of Phoenix crimes. Get a decent security system and you will be fine.
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It seems to be more widespread, and permeates the surrounding suburban communities much more here.
And thats false. Most crime in Phoenix happens within Phoenix city borders and 1-2 surrounding suburbs. Most suburbs in Phoenix have little to no violent crimes.
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I can only tell you from my experience living and working in downtown Phoenix, what goes on here and around Phoenix in places like Mesa or Glendale in terms of crime is a freaking nightmare, much of it caused by gangs, the illegal immigrant situation and/or drugs.
And what experience is that? You just stated earlier that you ahve never experienced crime in Phoenix. Really, what is it that scares you? Numbers? Do you witness someone getting murdered on a daily basis?
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which I'm guessing must include Applebees and Ruby Tuesdays from their results
You obviously don't get out much. I am sorry, but your posts are completely biased. You have created this hatred for Phoenix and you try nothing to go out and look for something that makes Phoenix unique. Phoenix has plenty of great places to eat. Go to the right place you and will find top restaurants, famous chef spots, great cheap joints, etc. Phoenix/Scottsdale consistently trumps the Food & Wine restaurants list, many of our restaurants beating out others in the mountain west and southwest. We are consistently topping Dallas, Houston, Denver, ABQ, other southwest/mountain west cities. Vu was named as one of the top 10 best new restaurants of 2005. We have 4 5-star restaurants, a lot compared to other cities (minus SF, Chicago, LA and NYC.) We have several chefs that have won the James Beard award of distinction. Many famous chefs like Michael Chiarello, Wolfgang Puck, Ming Tsai, Bobby Flay have all started restaurant concepts here. Mary Elaine's at the Phoenician has been included in the top 10 of the top 100 restaurants in the country by Travel and Leisure.
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New York was also recently named the most polite city in the world for people helping others, so undocumented isolated incidents are not a guide to NYC in my opinion
Have you lived in NYC? I can tell you right away, as most new yorkers will, NYC is far from the most polite city in the world.
In general, I am not trying to say Phoenix is the best city in the country. Phoenix is also not my favorite place to live but I do enjoy it and have no regrets. You people are criticizing Phoenix so harshly as if its a world city. Its not. You don't live in a world city. No one said it was. But it is also far from the worst place to live in the US. Looking at the most populated cities in the country, Phoenix is just that. A top 20 city to live in. Not the best, but far from the worst
Sorry, Arizona is not a great place to live. It is a fair place to live and a GREAT place to visit on vacation. I'm from New York and would go back east in a second if I could. I'm stuck here because of my husband's job with a major airline. Yes, I've sold my soul to the devil for a majorly good paycheck. Goin' on year number ten.
Duh, of course some people are going to love it and some people are going to hate. It's that way with almost everything. The beauty is that we are all free to come here and express our opinions and then people can make up their minds.
Thanks for the post in the Arizona (Phoenix) is great column. Somebody had to write it!
It really does depend on your likes and dislikes. We moved 17 years ago from S. CA to a small, nepotistic little mountain town in N. CA thinking we had found Paradise (actually called Paradise), it was not. The bias there against anyone not having grown up there was terrible and they would literally, after taking your money for real estate, try to starve you out of town. We survived, but we were so sick of pine trees, never seeing the sun and the wild life (sorry PETA) we were very happy when we watched our first sunset here in our new home. I think my husband cried. The air here is wonderful, at least to us. I love the Quail and the rabbits, even the Javalina. I love the funny plants! Downtown Phoenix was not nearly as scary as downtown L.A during a convention, or as gross as San Fransisco. The things you step over in that city you cannot post. So, it depends on what you are looking for. To each his own. I think it is always wise to visit many times before making a move.
Oh, and I agree with the above post mentioning the fabulous restaurants in Scottsdale. Love the food here, beats going to aTastee Freeze all the time.
Arizona is a great state. Have been there extensively, all over the state and love the differences from north to south, east to west. Love the high desert and mountains, and the hot desert of southern AZ. So much to do there if you are an outdoor person! Grand Canyon is our national jewel, who can dispute that? Wish it was closer to Texas, I would be visiting much more than I do now!
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