It’s been about 5 weeks since I uprooted myself to Phoenix,
700 miles away from my friends and family. I don’t regret the decision yet. I
hope I don’t end up regretting it at all, but the nice thing about our highly mobile
society is that California isn’t going anywhere, so I can always move back home
if I decide I hate it here.
It’s been an adjustment living so far from my support
systems, but I tend to be a pretty independent person anyway, so it hasn’t been
that bad. I still haven’t found a job, which is a bit stressful. It’s hard to
network when I don’t know anyone, and it’s hard to get the attention of
recruiters without a referral. I have a few more months before I get desperate,
so I’m still restricting my job search to college faculty or lawyer jobs. If I
have to dig further down in a few months, I’ll start looking at HR or paralegal
work. If things get really dire, there’s always a temp agency for general
office work until I can get back into my career.
Here are some general impressions about the area so far.
Housing:
My apartment is comparable in quality to the one I had in
Union City. It’s smaller, but I have it all to myself. It’s 1/4 the price, so I
would have to say I came out way ahead on this front. Plus, it’s actually
possible to buy a home on one income here, so as soon as I get the job thing
sorted out, I’m going to look into buying a house. Not a condo – a real house.
I can buy a single family home with a garage and a yard for about half the
price of a condo in the Bay Area.
Weather:
When I told people I was moving to Phoenix, the one thing
that everyone said was “It’s hot.” Universally, that’s the impression people
have of the area. (Just like if someone told me they were moving to Seattle, I
would probably feel tempted to respond “It rains all the time.”) I haven’t hit
the worst of it yet, but so far, I really like the weather. The hardest thing
about San Francisco is the fog. It’s cold, damp, and the sun never comes out.
Phoenix, on the other hand, is warm, dry, and sunny. People are fond of the
saying “it’s a dry heat”, and it’s true. It really makes a difference. My first
week here, I was out running errands, and several locals were complaining about
the heat. I thought it felt lovely and about 85. When I checked the
thermometer, it said 99. If that temperature spread holds up, then when the 115
degree heat hits this summer, it will probably only feel like 100 to me, which
is very doable.
I’m looking forward to the warm winters, too. I had to come
to Phoenix last November for a conference. When I boarded the plane in San
Francisco, it was 50 degrees. When I stepped off the plane in Phoenix, it was
78. Short-sleeve weather in November, sign me up!
Getting around:
Phoenix is huge. Like, totally enormous. The Phoenix metro
area is physically twice the size of the entire SF Bay Area, and there’s no
large body of water in the middle. (And half as many people, so it feels pretty
empty here to me.)
However, it’s laid out in a really easy to navigate fashion.
Because there’s no real topography to contend with, all the roads are straight,
wide, and flat. They’re laid out on a grid, so I almost never have to look
stuff up on a map to find it. In general, numbered streets run north/south, and
named streets run east/west. All the avenues are on the west side of town, and
all the streets are on the east side of town. And the addresses on the named
streets line up with the numbered street/avenue. For example 7000 W. Camelback
Rd. is at the corner of 70th Avenue and Camelback Road. (And 7000 E. Camelback
Rd. is at the corner of 70th Street and Camelback Road.)
I have a car, which is nice. I thought I would be able to
get by without one, so I was going to buy a bicycle and get a car after getting
a job. My parents convinced me otherwise, and I’m glad they did. It’s so
unbelievably spread out that I would be greatly inconvenienced without one. I
got spoiled by the ease of public transit in San Francisco. Parking in Phoenix
is great, though. Every place has a large, free parking lot. No more cramped,
overpriced parking garages for me!
Drivers here are terrible, though. On the freeway, they’re
really polite and easy to deal with. But as soon as you get them on a city
street, it’s like driving the bumper cars at an amusement park. Stoplights are
viewed as just a suggestion, the speed limit signs bear no relationship to
reality, and people tailgate like crazy. It’s no wonder that car insurance is
three times as expensive here.
Culture:
Phoenix metro is kind of divided into two main halves,
culturally speaking. The west side (west Phoenix along with the towns of
Avondale, Glendale, Peoria, Litchfield Park, Goodyear, and probably a few
others I haven’t found yet) has kind of a California vibe to it, and the east
side (east Phoenix along with the cities of Mesa, Tempe, Gilbert, Chandler, and
probably a few others I don’t know about yet) kind of has a Utah vibe. I chose
west Phoenix for that very reason. I haven’t gotten a feel for Scottsdale yet,
besides rich.
For the most part, I like the culture here. The people are
laid back and friendly. My neighborhood is racially and ethnically diverse,
though a bit less so than in the Bay Area. Crime is low, and I feel safe, even
though my neighborhood kind of has a reputation for being a not so nice area.
There are farms nearby, and I even saw a herd of goats grazing by the side of
the road.
I’ve been told that Arizona has a major racism problem, but
I haven’t seen it yet. (That could be because of the neighborhood I live in. It
might be a bigger thing in other parts of town or in other parts of the state.)
I have run into a bit of sexism, but it’s less than I encountered when I lived
in North Carolina, which was a terribly racist and sexist place. Honestly,
though, outside maybe Sweden, anyplace is going to have more sexism than the
Bay Area.
I’ve found that my enjoyment of intellectual pursuits marks
me as a bit weird here. I imagine that
if I had chosen Tempe instead, that would have been different, since there’s a
university there. I’ve also noticed that spas seem to be a big thing here –
they’re everywhere, and people of all income levels go. I don’t get a
stereotypical Los Angeles vibe, though, which is good, because I wouldn’t want
to have all that pressure to look perfect all the time.
Baseball is apparently a big deal here, too. I’m not into
baseball, so whatever. I’ll just have to find where the hockey fans are hiding
and go meet them. (I imagine a hockey game would be a good place to start...)
Shopping/Amenities:
I can’t believe how cheap things are out here. There is
sales tax on food, which really annoys me. But the savings make up for it. Gas
is a good 40 cents per gallon cheaper, groceries cost about 80%, and I got an oil change today for half what I would have paid.
Due to the previously mentioned spa culture, my chiropractor
is cheaper, as is the treatment for my chronic health conditions. (They don’t
respond to western medicine, so I have to go the alternative treatment route.)
Plus, because there are so many of them around, I don’t have to wait as long to
get an appointment.
The farmers’ market that I visited last week leaves
something to be desired, though, and health food is a bit harder to find. There
are several farmers’ markets to choose from, so I’m going to check out a few
more to see if there’s a better one available.
On the restaurant front, I really miss sushi. I’m awash in
Mexican food, which is nice, but sometimes I just want a piping hot bowl of
miso soup and some avocado rolls. Maybe one of these days I’ll go exploring and
see if I can find some.
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