Why is Tucson Arizona a bad place to move to or live in?

[madmunchie]

Wolf Blitzer was just talking about cities where in the very near future might just be ruins where people visit and ask, why did anybody ever liver here? As in some (coastal) cities: New Orleans, San Fran... and TUCSON????

[Renew Deal]

1. Because if you lose the Hoover dam...

life is unsustainable on that scale?

[azmouse]

3. Tucson uses ground water.

And that level is dropping rapidly. AZ is also going through a historic drought right now. Future water supplies for the entire state are in jeopardy.

[madmunchie]

27. Wouldn't that be true for most of the cities in that area by the desert?

I've suspected that water is going to be HUGE in the near future. I live near the Great Lakes and I think that they are worth their weight in gold.

It was curious though to hear Wolf B.'s guest (I don't remember who it was), mention Tucson as being one of the cities that may very well be uninhabitable at some point along with NO and some other coastal cities. I can understand the coastal cities, but Tucson really threw me.

[Karenina]

49. Errraaaa...

SCORPIONS.

[WyLoochka]

10. I love Tucson

It's much better than Phoenix. Great town, but as others have said upthread - water supply is a huge concern. The traffic is getting pretty bad too.

[Fridays Child]

11. The east side still feels like a "town" to me but, up here on the...

...northwest side of Tucson, it's like Phoenix without the In-N-Outs. :(

[diddlysquat]

2. Tucson is WAY TOO hot!

[azmouse]

4. It's even hotter where I live in Glendale.

More than 4 million of us can't be that wrong to want to live here. AZ is a beautiful state.
And the heat is easier to deal with than snow, ice and sub-zero temps.

[Viking12]

22. It's a matter of taste, I guess

I'm a midwestern boy that lived in Tempe for a few years in my grad school years. I couldn't stand the heat -- no escape. Now I'm back in the midwest and loving the four seasons, especially winter :)

[Delphinus]

23. I'm with you Viking,

I love the seasons. This time of year, Spring, is wonderful. Fall comes next (for me), with the colors, the smells, the raking of the leaves. And I don't want to think about going without my winter - except for the natural gas prices. :( Summer, although I work in my garden and try and raise some food, seems way to long for me. Especially since we're now under Mitch time instead of Sun time.

[madmunchie]

25. Yeah, I'm not a heat fan either, MODERATION, to me is where it

is at. I enjoy the seasons to. I lived in a warmer climate for a couple of years and I hated the summers. In the midwest, we love our summers and fall time. I missed enjoying the summers with picnics, cookouts, going to softball games, badminton, going to beaches, just hanging out for the most part.

Then comes fall and Indian Summer and the fall colors on all of the trees. I love the greenness of spring and summer where I live, and then of course the fall colors.

Winters have been much milder of late, so they don't really bother me much either. I love the clothes in the winter all of the knits and wools and fleece. Fires in the fireplaces. I love hoping and praying for snow for Christmas and when I was a kid I loved snowball fights, ice skating on the lake and making snowmen and snow angels. I also attempted skiing and enjoyed sledding. The best was as a kid, when we had a snow storm, NO SCHOOL! Some snowfalls are still absolutely beautiful.

I always felt that winter was a purging and cleansing process. When I lived in the south, it never seemed like all of the bugs were killed and they grew to be huge and there was no escaping them. There is nothing like a cold crisp night, walking and crunching in the snow, coming home making a fire and having some hot chocolate with a little Peppermint Schnapps. OR like now, when it is cold, sitting in the hot tub while it is snowing.

Sorry for going off on a tangent, but I hear so many people talk about winter like it was Hell or something. I personally don't mind it for the most part and can still find so much to like.

[saltpoint]

5. I like Tucson a lot. Sources of water for the future could be an issue.

[flashdebadge]

6. Yea if the Hoover is destroyed that city is done. I'm still questioning

whether or not N.O. is going to be able to make the come-back. We can talk all we want about how great that city was but a whole lot of people have said they are not going back. Judging by the progress or lack there of, I'd say it looks like these people are making good on their word.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. So who needs to destroy the dam? Didn't I read recently that

the water level in Lake Meade has dropped something like 20' in the last four years? The lake is going away on its own.

(Correct me if I'm wrong - I'd rather post than research.)

[flashdebadge]

19. I don't have any info on that.

[misanthrope]

34. That would be interesting...

...as it seems the level of Lake Meade is dictated by precipitation in the Rockies more so than Arizona drought. If the lake level is indeed dropping, it would mean less water (in whatever form) is falling in Colorado.

[Fridays Child]

7. Did he define "near future?"

Gee, Wolf. I've still got twenty-six years left on my mortgage.

[madmunchie]

28. A generation or two, I think.

[0007]

9. Tucson is a great town. And so are Lute Olson's Wildcats

[rene moon]

13. I concur!

GO CATS! :)

[blondeatlast]

30. BEAR DOWN, ARIZONA!

YESSSSSSSSS!

[0007]

32. Best fight song ever written. Of course Army's is the best and Norte

Dame is right up there.

[blondeatlast]

33. My HS adopted it--I couldn't agree more. nt

[SammyBlue]

45. Bear Down, Arizona

Bear Down Red and Blue
Bear Down Arizona
Hit 'em hard.
Let 'em know who's who
Bear Down Arizona
Bear Down Red and Blue
Go! Go! Wildcats go!
Arizona Bear Down

Bear Down Arizona
Bear Down Red and Blue
Bear Down Arizona
To kick the shit
Out of ASU!!!
Bear Down Arizona
Bear Down Red and Blue
Go! Go! Wildcats go!
Arizona Bear Down

[rene moon]

12. It's not a bad place to live--I live here!

Born and raised. But Tucson is a rapidly growing city with traffic problems and most importantly, rampant growth, which leads to not enough water. Pima County and the State of AZ have let developers blaze down beautiful desert for their ugly, over-priced track homes over the last 30 years.

Hello, we live in a desert! Uh, did you people think about water, no---you just though about your own pocketbooks, jerks.

Too many moving here from CA and back east have turned my beloved Tucson in another crappy U.S. city.

But Wolf also doesnt know what he is talking about---maybe people will leave Tucson and its will be left to those who really love it so.

[flashdebadge]

35. It's happening everywhere bro. Builders have local polititions in pocket.

[ThoughtCriminal]

14. How much of that water?

is being used to grow cotton in the desert?

[blondeatlast]

31. Not nearly as much as is being used on our lush green golf courses.

I grew up in a cotton farming town here in AZ.

Farmers were VERY mindful of water conservation; they were all too aware of possible drought.

The developers don't give a rat's ass about conservation and fight any kind of mandated measures tooth and nail.

Even though few can tolerate playing golf in the summer, the courses are as green as astroturf.

It makes me damn sick.

[alfredo]

37. the last time I was out west I saw people trying to grow

bluegrass. I live in the bluegrass and we don't even try to grow it here. We go for tall fescue and red fescue. It's more drought and shade tolerant.

I remember going by these home with their lawn sprinkers watering the storm sewers. Yeah, they had a green lawn, but they had to water it all the time, and the kids couldn't play on it.

Leave the desert for people who accept the desert as desert and is willing to live within its rules.

BTW, I spent time in one of the hottest places on earth. We didn't need swimming pools, we had gin and hashish. That's how we handled the heat. We got fucked up early, slept through the day then lived the nights. At 90 degrees, the nights were tolerable.

[tyedyeto]

54. But the man-made ponds are wetlands for waterfowl

:sarcasm:

There are nine courses down here where I live... drinking millions of gallons of water every day.

[kaygore]

15. First, Blitzer is an ass

[madmunchie]

24. We all know that, but what is 2nd?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. I don't know about Tucson, but Las Vegas is

using water at 130% of sustainable levels.

That location was never meant to be the site of the fastest-growing city in the country.

[PsN2Wind]

17. Well turning on the news to the almost daily killings

doesn't help. That's why I decided on Green Valley after trying for a few months to return to Tucson.

[SOS]

55. Arizona #1 in crime

http://www.doc.state.ok.us/MAPS/incrimUS.htm

[B Calm]

18. My Dad retired to Tucson 12 years ago. I wouldn't live in that

hot dirty place if it was the last place on earth. Republicans painted the A ontop of A mountain red white and blue after war protesters painted it black.

[Arugula Latte]

46. But isn't Tucson one of the more liberal parts of Arizona?

:shrug:

[B Calm]

50. Only because it's a college town..

[QC]

20. Housing market about to crash hard? n/t

[PsN2Wind]

21. Just to add

Now I feel vulnerable going down on South Sixth for good Mexican food, Little Abners is all yuppies, no cowboys and they tore down the best bar in town, The Buckskin, to build a mall.

[rene moon]

38. Why do you feel vulnerable on S. 6th?

Some of the best people on the Earth live there. I hope its not because of any the "Mexicans", Americans, legal or not.

[PsN2Wind]

39. But not where I would go at night anymore

and I used to spend a lot of time in the bars in South Tucson so forget the racist, bigot, xenophobe line. It's just not the same town or the same people.

[SammyBlue]

26. Fuck you, Wolf Blitzer

I live in Tucson, Arizona!

Blow me and every one like you can go to hell!

You can lick my butt after I'm done eating chili!!!

[madmunchie]

29. Not too moderate of a personality there, huh?

[ripple]

36. Immigration?

My mom lives there (well, in one of the pretty suburbs, anyway) and complains often about illegal immigration. She lives in a gated 'community' and prefers it that way.

I visited her a few months ago and I asked a number of questions about the economy, the homeless population, etc. She didn't seem to know much about any of it. When I persuaded her to show me the actual city, she seemed surprised by the number of homeless folks we encountered.

My mom has worked hard her entire life and now makes a very decent living, but unfortunately, I think she's another example of why there is such a disconnect between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' in this country. In her world, it's out of sight, out of mind.

Aside from all of that disappointment, I fell in love with Tucson. Great city, great people, fantastic weather, and little or no mowing. What more can a person ask for?

[RagingInMiami]

40. All those ILLEGAL aliens!!

ARRGHH!

[leftofthedial]

41. the unreliability of water supplies has brought down

civilizations in Arizona before.

[Gloria]

42. Here in NM, the water situation isn't so great either...Elephant

Butte resevoir is almost empty.

[leftofthedial]

43. When I was at UNM long ago, I helped a grad student with a

study on water usage and supply in New Mexico. He grossly underestimated actual population growth in Albuquerque and Santa Fe and predicted a severe water crisis in 2010.

[Thirtieschild]

52. The Great Plains are going to dry up too

When the Ogallala Aquifer is gone the plains will be uninhabitable. And there goes the nation's bread basket. And there goes the majority of Republican voters - the plains are redder than the South, or even the Mountain West.

What I've seen of Tucson was mostly gravel in the front yards instead of grass. It's immoral to move to the desert and not live by its rules.

[BiggJawn]

44. So Leslie has read "The Long Emergency"?

what surprise. Did he have his staffer load into the teleprompter so he would be familiar with the format?

Kunstler says that Southwestern cities like tuscon and Las Vegas that depend on pumped water and massive ammounts of electrical refridgeration will dry up and blow away when "The JUICE" is gone.

[RaleighNCDUer]

47. What an image.

Can you picture Las Vegas as a ghost town? The high-rise hotels sitting empty, the fountains and swimming pools filling in with sand, tumblweeds scittering along the Boulder Highway?

[BiggJawn]

51. Sure will be on my mind next week...

I'm leaving for 7 days out there in "Sin City".
"Disneyland for Adults" is how my ESSO describes the place.

[lonestarnot]

53. Well never go on a New Years Eve.

[madmunchie]

48. THANK YOU!!!!

I was really wondering why Tucson was mentioned. Now that you have confirmed my guesses, I will have to watch out for that book as well.