Nice places in Arizona?

We are wanting to move to a warmer climate but prefer to stay on the west coast and are looking into AZ. I've heard a lot of bad stuff about the Phoenix area (traffic, congestion, crime) but I'm curious if there are other cities (preferably within an hour or two of Phoenix) that are nice. We're looking for good schools, low crime..could probably afford about $400k in a house. Any suggestions? Flagstaff or Prescott would be too cold for me!

Public Comments

1. Scottsdale is nice
2. phoenix is the only one i can think of just stay there
3. scottsdale is great sedona is nice but expensive
4. Try Scottsdale. That place is fabulous. I live in Phoenix, and to be honest with you, wouldn't recommend it. It's true, with the crime, illegals, etc. Scottsdale is really quaint and kind of looks like an old town kind of thing. It has nice houses, businesses, etc. I'd recommend finding somewhere to live there. :)
5. You should move to Scottsdale. It's about 20-30 minutes from Phoenix, is very nice, and you could most definitely find a home in your price range. You may also want to check out Gilbert or Chandler, they are very family-friendly towns. It gets extremely hot here in the summer, but I'm sure you probably already know that.
6. Flagstaff is the only place in AZ that looked nice at all to me, but it is too small before you go down off the mountain.
7. Try Tucson. Its much less crowded and you'll easily find a house in your price range. I wen't to the U of A there and it was really nice. Its about an hour and a half to 2 hours from phoenix. Its about 10 degrees cooler than phoenix too so the summers would be a little more bearable.
8. Grand Canyon is great, but I think that you have to in some way connected to the park services in order to live there. I stayed there with my dad for a few months, once upon a time.
9. hey, I used to live in tuscon, and it was great! if you like to eat out, they have great resturants the mountains are really cool to be near too! im so totally jealous of you!
10. There are only a couple of areas in Phoenix that are high-crime. Otherwise phoenix metro (suburbs) are some of the cleanest cities in the U.S. I have been a phoenician all my life, but have lived in California, Utah, and Washington. Scottsdale is the Beverly Hills of AZ and is expensive, but it's clean, low crime, and extremely beautiful. Also Chandler, Gilbert, Tempe, and Mesa. I've lived in 4 of those cities, and they've all been super nice. Mesa has it's drabby parts, but north-east mesa is low traffic and has beautiful homes. It's great for families and there are always kids out riding bikes, playing basketball, and there's christmas lights and neighborhood activities constantly. We bought a 5 bedroom house for 300K and now it's valued at around 600K. It's also fifteen minutes from the river and the mountains and about fifteen from downtown phoenix. Phoenix has bad traffic from 5-7 but other than that there is never a lot of traffic. You also wont see any graffiti here. Sheriff Joe is strict with us phoenicians! Surprise and goodyear are kind of far from phoenix and they are both more retirement communities. I wouldnt suggest them. I find Tucson disgusting and not very nice to look at. Lots of drugs. Peoria is also a bad idea!!
11. Now is the time to come as the housing market is depressed. What COULD work for you is an area called Queen Creek. It's about 50 miles south of Phoenix (Phoenix is huge, so you have to decide where you're measuring from and to). Queen Creek is a bit "landlocked," not multiple freeways at this time, but it's hardly intolerable. Lots of things to do out there, so if you only had to go 5 miles, who cares? A good friend of mine left Phoenix for there a few years ago and she has the same concerns and she's happy overall where she is. You could check out Surprise, AZ. So far, low crime and such, but the area is booming. Goodyear is growing like a weed and if you or hubby are in the medical field, would make some sense (Cancer Treatment Centers of America is opening there if I recollect and not that far from a U of A Med center, etc.). "Far" to people in the West may differ from what others would say, of course. Cold out here? Not really. BUT man, the heat. If you're coming from CA you probably are not used to THIS brand of heat--unless you lived in Needles. Traffic is not good here. Most areas the crime isn't that horrible. You can find good schools. There are other possibilities as well, but those are a few ideas.
12. Peoria District I hear has pretty good schools. Some older and newer neighborhoods in the area. Dear Valley... which aren't other cities. You could try Scottsdale... Traffic is not bad here compared to other major cities... and traffic is standard with any large area. Its worse in the winter here than the Summer.
13. Sedona.... I've never been anywhere so beautiful. Everytime you'd look out your window you'd feel like you were on vacation. There are so many amazing rock formations and it is truely breath-taking. If you don't move there, it's definately somewhere you HAVE to see! Scottsdale is nice as well, if you perfer a city. http://images.google.com/images?q=sedona&hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title
14. Just out side in Scottsdale , carefree, cavecreek,foothills.Get a map, or go on line.Then you can also pull the school up and look at the report card for that district. It will give you all the information. Student to teacher ratio, college bound students, tests results also.
15. well phoenix area is where im at, well mesa is the place, you have scottsdale, tempe, chandler, gilbert and phoenix within arms reach. mill ave is a fun place to check out, night life. there are over 6 malls wihtin 40 minutes of eachother. we have a water park in mesa, one in peoria and scottsdale. the river is fun for tubing and we have a couple of lakes in less than an hours drive. queen creek is where the housing market is at, just bought a 4 bedroom house, 2 story, and a loft for 150,000. the housing market is unreal there, and a new mall is being built right now. you have mountain view highschool, mesa highschool, red mountain, highland hs, gilbert, dobson and many more in these surrounding towns, and there is a movie theater on every corner, just about. email me for more questions, oh and what larger town doesnt have traffic. dont move to flaggstaff or prescott, to small of towns and hours from the city. jodypodolak@yahoo.com
16. If you're looking to relocate and just take it easy then I would suggest Sedona. It's really beautiful but they have been doing an awful lot of contrustion on the main highway up there. As far as in the valley goes, I know chandler and mesa are nice but don't know too much about the east side. I can tell you about the west side though. Glendale is doing really well but I don't think it's quite "there" yet. North Peoria is really nice. Lots of new businesses and Lake Pleasant is just a short drive from there. There is some traffic since it's continuously growing. Surprise is a wonderful city unfortunately you're right next door to the retirement communities. There's hardly any crime but licenses are issued with expiration dates 60 years off so watch out for some of the elderly drivers and the snowbirds! There's a new communtiy called Verrado right up against the white tank mountains on the west side. It's a really pretty area that has a "small town" feel. It has good schools and hardly any crime. They also have a lot of community activities. Good luck and I included some websites for you!
17. When I first moved to AZ in the late 90's I lived in the Northern Phoenix area. Back then it wasn't too bad but now it really has gone hill. After meeting my wife we moved to MN and two years ago got a job offer that required us to move back to AZ. At first we stayed in East Mesa. The area was nice but the traffic to work (in Scottsdale) was horrible. We then moved to a house in Queen Creek which is probably 45 minutes south of Phoenix. This is a rural area that is slowly being developed. Actually there are tons of empty houses available way below your price tag of 400k. It was a nice quiet area. The bad news is that there isn't much out there and the traffic is even worse. Developers built the houses before thinking of transportation. An hour and half morning commute was common place and getting home you are pushing over two hours. After a year of this punishment we learned in Arizona you should live where you work.. or as close as possible. So we moved again and now live in an apartment complex in Scottsdale that is three minutes from work and about 10-15 minutes from everything we need. Scottsdale can be on the expensive end depending upon where you live. Anywhere on camelback between the 101 and 38th ave puts you in the heart of Scottsdale. There is construction as developers are trying to make Scottsdale even more upscale, however, this has not affected our commute in anyway or diminished our satisfactions where we live. The big wigs at our company http://www.cology.com/ all have their kids in Scottsdale school systems and they say they love it. Where I live I have not heard or experienced any crime. We do hear a lot of sirens going off but we are close to a hospitable.
18. i think scottsdale or awatukee would be a good fit for you. i grew up in north scottsdale and i recently bought a place there. there is no where else in the valley i would rather be. i just love it, crime is low and it is a very quiet area. also, make sure you realize just how warm it gets here. traffic in phoenix can be a pain. it is very important to consider the distance between home and work. it is also helpful to know traffic patterns. i live in scottsdale and work in tempe, pretty much the whole drive is a reverse commute for me. if you are looking an hour or two away that will take you to tucson, or prescott. keep in mind the phoenix metro area is huge stretching from goodyear to apache junction, anthem to maricopa. this of course is just my opinion. take some time and explore the phoenix metro area, do some research, and see what fits you best. good luck! http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?searchtype=address&country=US&addtohistory=&searchtab=home&formtype=address&popflag=0&latitude=&longitude=&name=&phone=&level=&cat=&address=&city=phoenix&state=az&zipcode= http://www.greatschools.net/city/Scottsdale/AZ
19. Tough question, ... Chandler (just outside of Phoenix) has held the "#1 fastest growing city" rating (nationwide) for about 35 years straight. Gilbert Arizona has been right behind them for about the last twenty years, (hint, hint)! There is a reason why they are growing so fast and it's because they are good family oriented towns, with minimal traffic issues. Some people have mentioned Scottsdale, (otherwise known as Snottsdale), and Scottsdale is a nice town, if a little on the pricey side, but it also has some serious traffic issues, always has had them, although they are improving. Two cities that are fairly new but very nice are Carefree and Anthem, both of which are North of Phoenix, about a 30 to 45 minute drive. These two cities are also a little higher in elevation than Phoenix so also a little cooler, (but not cold like Flagstaff or Prescott). Traffic overall, around the valley probably isn't as bad as you've heard, it does get congested in the early morning hours and late afternoon in some areas, but not all. The worst traffic area is the area Southeast of Phoenix, near the towns of Johnston Ranch and Queen Creek. These towns are new and nice. The developers developed the housing areas, but didn't develop any of the roads getting to them and the traffic is horrible. It will probably be three to four years before the roads catch up. PS: I'm glad your hearing bad things about Phoenix, it means maybe people will finally stop moving here, hahaha.....NOT! (I can hope can't I?) :O)
20. we just moved here from bullhead city az. thats along the nevada border close to vegas. we moved to mesa and the first night we got here and checked into a hotel in mesa i wanted to get the heck outta here. mesa is right outta phoenix. we ended up finding a home for rent in east mesa,very nice home in nice neighborhood and were in a gilbrt school district which is something people around here brag about,i havent figured that part out yet. weve taken drives on the weekend and looked at houses and queen creek is nice, its looks pretty new there and the houses are awesome there and affordable and also we seen alot of beautiful homes in gilbert az. right next to queen creek and chandler and mesa and tempe. im just starting to figure out when im in a different city now because they all run together. i like it here but im still a little scared at night even though we live it nice area,i see so much bad stuff on the news everynight.
21. Tucson is a nice city. Crime is all over the place and we have it here also. If you decide Tucson is the city for you I would suggest the Northwest part of town or the Foothills. You may have a harder time getting a house in the Foothills in that price range but with some effort I'm sure you could find one in this housing market. Catalina Foothills school district is one of the tops in the state. Oro Valley and Oracle are to the north of us a little and are smaller communities. If you go on MSN.com and click on real estate search zip codes 85743, 85741, 85716. Check out the site city-data.com It gives all the stats you are looking for on larger cities
22. It's a big city, so you do have your really bad areas and your really nice areas. Stay away from Central, South Central, West and South Phoenix. Verrado is really nice. It's way out West and far from the city. When you pull into the down town area, you forget you're in the desert, but it's far from any jobs. Queen Creek is way out East and is growing rapidly.