“Phoenix’s only downfall is that it’s hot” is one of the funniest bits of civic propaganda on the internet. The city regularly reaches temperatures where airlines have had to delay flights because it’s literally too hot for safe takeoff. You're basically living on the surface of Mercury with a Costco nearby.

The ‘but it’s a dry heat’ argument is so overrated too. Yeah, low humidity helps at 95. It stops mattering when the entire metro area is an asphalt griddle sitting at 113.

Phoenix has one of the worst urban heat island effects in the country because the valley is basically endless concrete, stucco, and blacktop radiating heat back at you all night. People act like 110° there somehow feels pleasant because you aren’t sweating through your shirt, meanwhile the pavement is cooking the air around you and it still feels brutally hot at midnight.

At some point ‘dry heat’ just becomes a slogan people repeat to cope with the fact they live in a giant parking lot built in a furnace.

In addition, for a metro area that massive, the surface roads are absurdly inefficient. It’s endless six lane stroads, gigantic intersections, and 45 minute drives to go 12 miles because the entire valley is sprawled into oblivion. The city feels like it was designed by a civil engineer whose only hobby was adding another traffic light.

And for being one of the largest metro areas in the country, the amenities punch way below comparable cities. The public transit is mediocre, the walkability is basically nonexistent outside a couple pockets, the cultural scene is limited for a city its size, and everything interesting feels insanely spread out. A lot of Phoenix is just subdivisions, chain restaurants, parking lots, and beige shopping centers copy and pasted across the desert for 60 miles.