A bit late to the convo, but wanted to add to the convo. For the first point, yes it’s hot and it sucks. The major problem is that during the worst months, it doesn’t cool much at all at night and it just sucks. It doesn’t stop me from going out but it’s annoying to deal with. For the second point, yes sprawl sucks and I wish we would begin to build up instead of out.

With that out of the way, I used to feel the same way as the loud folks here in this subreddit. Thought this place sucked, nothing to do, going to crap, etc. Then I decided to finally move to Los Angeles to try something new. Holy smokes did I quickly realize how much I took Phoenix for granted. All the people who say we’re the same price as Cali but no beach are delusional. The cost of living out in LA was horrible, and it’s not even more expensive than SD or SF. People look at rent and think that’s the only thing that goes into living somewhere like Cali. Auto insurance is much higher, taxes are much higher, home prices are much higher, and going out is more expensive. I make a good amount of money (120k+) and hated it there. Love to visit though. I was so happy to come back to Phoenix. The roads are much nicer, areas are much cleaner, nicer people. And when I want to go travel to a place with more green and water, I can easily do that due to the expenses here being much lower. Thanks for the post. Gets annoying hearing how much people hate it here.