Opinion of Arizona

[bedstuy]

I have a love/hate relationship with Arizona.

Good parts of Arizona:

Beautiful landscape, Grand Canyon, Sedona, Chiricahua mountains, White Mountains, Lake Mead, Lake Powell, etc. 

Phoenix has some nice parts and cool stuff going on.  Scottsdale, Tempe near ASU, etc.  Sure, I'll agree it's a terrible city.  But, in a city that large, you can seek out the good parts.

Tucson and Flagstaff are nice, sleepy, liberal college towns.  Kind of shabby chic and ugly like much of Los Angeles, sure.  But, if you like the outdoors and relaxed community, they're fine. 

Good weather from late October to April.  It's basically 60-80 and sunny every day. 

It's cheap and you can raise a family with a big house without being rich.

Bad parts of Arizona:

The reservations are terrible obviously, and Yuma, and many Phoenix suburbs, and Globe, and Kingman and Bullhead City, and Colorado City, and Casa Grande, and the border towns.

It's kind of a cultural wasteland full of boring transplants who were too boring for Chicago or California so they moved somewhere cheaper and more boring.  Arizona doesn't have its own culture like New England or Minnesota because it was built up so recently. 

The summers are terrible.

Too many old people.

Too many Republicans.

Ugly southwestern architecture and the fact that everything was built in 1950s to today, a terrible period for American design.

The lack of dynamism or intelligence in the people.

Arizona myths:

Arizona is racist: Arizona is not as racist as people think.  It's a Republican state so Republicans screw things up and pass crazy laws.  That's not necessarily indicative of the racism of most people.  People in Phoenix or Tucson are not significantly more racist than people in Albuquerque, Salt Lake City or Denver.   Everywhere in the world has some degree of racism anyway.  White liberals who live in white neighborhoods just don't see it and think they want to think they're immune from it.

Arizona is dominated by a conservative, American south-like culture:  Just not true.  Arizona is a weird mix of hippy, West coast bro-dude, outdoorsy and boring midwesterner.  And, people are from all over America so it feels like anywhere else in America.