Northern Europe generally isn't humid, at least not in comparison to the U.S. east of the Rockies.

Almost no one in Germany has air conditioning, especially in the westernmost reaches (which basically have London-Paris wet/moderate/barely any snow weather).

So are are the climates in places like Portland and Seattle more comparable to Northern Europe?

Anecdotally, I see a lot of transplants to Arizona from the Pacific Northwest and vice versa. People get tired of either the rain or the sunshine and move between the two with seemingly relative frequency.

If it isnt a state run train Euros dont want it.

I have always heard that the PacNW has similar climates to the British Isles.

Why does every thread about Phoenix inevitably end up as a conversation about climate? We get it...it's a hot desert climate. It is what it is.

No, not really. Portland at least is more Mediterranean, with very warm and dry summers. The Coast Range blocks the marine air but the Cascades block out much of the Arctic air, except on rare occasions. And overall, the winters here are considerably less miserable IMHO.

Northern Europe is a large area. London just doesn't get as hot very often compared to the eastern US so humidity's effects are less pronounced. Houston's humidity seems oppressive because it's hot 5 months out of the year but our average humidity isn't that much higher than it is in SE England.

The lack of AC reflects that Europe has more moderate climate; they don't get the harsh winters or the blistering heat we do over here. You don't need an AC 11 months out of the year in the northeast either but that one month makes it nice to have.

Cause a bunch of fat urbanites back east dont understand going outside and enjoying nature.
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/7...eb4dd~mv2.webp

Also id like to point out the Irony of the title "Phoenix 101" when the lesson it was trying to teach was completely incorrect

fat urbanites

Don't really see too many of those anywhere :haha:

You are right, Fat easterners.

https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/...px-768x462.jpg

Except Oregon I guess. What are you doing my dude????

It hit 37 degrees Celsius last Thursday in London. That’s 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Doesn’t happen often (especially this summer), but it happens. It isn’t humid, so it’s not as bad as in New York.

Big interstate freeways are ugly, period.

True that downtown Phoenix never developed to being with. But the reasoning lacks merit.

Downtown Phoenix is pitiful in comparison to LA, Dallas, or any other large sunbelt city. Their downtowns did, and continue to, develop.

Again. Consider when Phoenix grew. They missed the boat developing a cohesive downtown pre automobile the way other those cities did.

Right.

That's one of the various reasons why the following reasoning lacks merit: "why did downtown never develop to begin with?"

"And the answer to that is the same for LA, Dallas, or any other large sunbelt city Sprawl was the order of the day."


The question is not applicable to LA, Dallas, or other large Sunbelt cities... because those downtowns did, in fact, develop. And answer is not the same -- far from it.

LA has a bit of a downtown now but as late as 2000 ish people complained that Downtown LA sucked.

Even now LA and Dallas have small looking downtown areas compared to the regions they anchor.

On top of that, Dallas and LA were large cities when Phoenix was still a town. As for continued growth Downtown Phoenix has plenty; but its basically growth for the first time as most of the empty lots weren't even urban to begin with but old pre-war single family homes the area of the "original" "downtown" is completely filled in.

I disagree with this ^ comment as it relates to Dallas. IMO, the downtown Dallas skyline (which essentially also includes the uptown skyline) is a suitable sized skyline for the region it anchors. Same can be said for the downtown Houston skyline, as well as the downtown+midtown Atlanta skylines.

How large do you expect the downtown Dallas skyline to be? Comparable to NYC, Chicago, San Francisco or Miami?

Skyline has nothing to do with anything. The fact is that Dallas has a tiny core for a metro of 8 million, and LA has a tiny core for a metro of 18-19 million. These are huge metros with relatively unimportant cores.

I think everyone understands the reasons why. That doesn’t change the reality.

Yeah, what you're saying here is true. It's just that LA and Dallas (and other sunbelt cities) did in fact develop more significant downtowns than Phoenix did... a minor reason being that they developed earlier than Phoenix did, before auto sprawl displaced a lot of major development outside the core.

While LA and Dallas do have smaller downtown areas (though they still are pretty big) relative to the overall vast size of their multi-nodal metro areas, their downtowns are still orders of magnitude larger than Phoenix's downtown in relation... because they developed earlier and because they were and are more prominent cities. So it's very difficult to claim that Phoenix is in the same boat with LA and Dallas and others when it comes to why their downtowns didn't develop -- because they actually did, while Phoenix's did not. Phoenix seems to be kind of an outlier in this case.