[Obadno]

Originally Posted by ungerdog

I moved to metro Phoenix 4 years ago from Fremont, CA (near San Jose). I'm from Chicago but have lived in Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, Texas and California.

Fortunately, I got a job in Cybersecurity where I could work from anywhere, but I had to be out west. I was living in Fremont and created a spreadsheet of western cities. I had Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, Boise, Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix on the list. I put categories that I care about on the spreadsheet... overall tax burden, cost of housing, how new is the housing, things to do (pro sports/college sports/concerts/festivals/hiking/etc), how bad is the traffic, can I trust the local government to not try and micromanage my life and finally how many direct flight options are there out of the airport.

I ranked each city from 1 to 7 on the list in each category and ranked the categories themselves from 1 to 7 in terms of personal importance. After EXTENSIVE research on each of these topics, I added the scores. Phoenix won, but Boise was a close second. Four years later and I don't regret the decision at all. It is the one place in the country I have lived and said "I don't want to leave."

In the 4 years that I have been in the southeast valley, I have seen a lot of things constructed due to the incoming Californians and Illinoisans. An overnight city is being created here and it is no surprise why. A wasteland? Hardly. The only trouble is that the incoming people may change some of the very things that made me arrive.. we'll see.

Why dont you post in the PHX forums brah????