Arizona Sucks

When life might have become uncertain, gloomy, too expensive, or stagnant, people have turned to Arizona hoping for a brighter future and brighter days. With over 300 days of sunshine a year, plenty of people are easily convinced that a move to the Phoenix area is the right thing to do. And on just about any relocation website you will come across, Arizona sounds like a pretty damn good choice. You will come across countless claims on the affordable housing, an expanding and prosperous job market, terrific year-round weather, and a million other reasons why you should join the millions of lost souls spread throughout the state of Arizona.

It is not until you pack up the family, all your belongings, the golden retriever, and actually make the move to Arizona that you will realize life out here is drastically different than what your Realtor had told you. You will encounter life forms you were sure only existed on other planets, a job market that appears to be severely misplaced, and a housing market that may never fully recover. Everything you had ever worked for essentially thrown away in that snap relocation decision, and now you must live out your sentence melting away in an extremely over-priced stucco dwelling in the Arizona summer heat. You will go from having your own office to working your own drive-thru window – you will go from having equity in a nice house in an established neighborhood to paying down a mortgage which is hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the home is actually worth – you will go from having real, valued friendships to locked away in your house to avoid these people, all the crime, and the temperature extremes. It won’t take long until you realize you have become just another one of the many trapped in this discouraging, dusty, densely packed desert called Arizona.

Anyone with two brain cells left to rub together will know that Arizona is known for low wages and that the mainstream careers out here include retail and call centers. It is unfortunate that the job market in Arizona is so piss poor, but to say that it is anything else would be a straight up lie. Since there are so few places to further your career in Arizona, many people end up working the drive thru window or retail just to support their families. Plenty of people in Arizona are stuck in jobs where it becomes next to impossible to put away any money or acquire any valuable skill sets for a real chance to get themselves out of this mess. It is hard enough to land an out-of-state job, but it is increasingly more difficult if your recent work experience was polishing urinal mints at an Arizona fast food chain. Employers want experience and there aren’t too many jobs in Arizona where you can gain this experience unless you always dreamt of maximizing your number of plates washed or outbound calls per hour. Those stuck trying to move out of Arizona often realize that any time spent in Arizona has done nothing to build their resume or expand their professional network and this makes it increasingly difficult to leave. Arizona will not help you further your career and even if you do manage to get out, you will be stuck all the way at the bottom once again.

So many people bought into Arizona’s bogus housing market and are now stuck with mortgages they will spend a lifetime paying off. It is frightening how many people in Arizona are paying hefty mortgages, are upside down on their mortgages, or are just a month away from foreclosing. The Arizona housing market is not rebounding anytime soon, and many people who buy out here really have no idea what they are potentially in for. You would be surprised to find out just how many people are stuck out here just because they have a mortgage on a house they couldn’t dream of selling and can’t find any qualified renters for. In a real estate market where there are already so many available homes, more developments going up for some reason, and so few buyers, it really gives those buyers and potential renters the upper hand. Many people cannot afford to take the several hundred thousand dollar hit by selling their homes right now, so they end up stuck living in Arizona even though it is often not by choice.

Countless others arrive in Arizona and just let themselves completely go. Just a few months in Arizona and it is understood that ambition means nothing out here. Look at the people around you – so many people out here surround themselves with beers, double cheeseburgers, and chrome wheels they are just renting. It is absolutely astonishing when you look at the number of people who move to Arizona and become social drinkers who drink every day, drive-thru regulars, and people who think getting paid anything over ten dollars per hour is a lot of money. Arizona is a strange place and many people fall right into the trap, and become just as useless as the next guy out here. The overall vibe in Arizona is just scraping by, and once you also develop this mindset, it is next to impossible to accomplish anything. Suddenly, you have zero goals and no initiative, and the only thing keeping you kind-of going is the thought of going to Happy Hour. You no longer care about advancing yourself or your career, and as long as you have booze and fast food close by, you become just content enough to actually live in this wasteland.

It is easy to say that none of the above will happen to you – make the move to Arizona and see what happens. I don’t think a lot of people want to imagine what would happen if they were trapped in a desert, but it happens to thousands of people who move to Arizona each year.

If you have spent any sort of time in or around Arizona over the last few years then you had to have seen the eventual decline in construction out here coming. It was only a few years ago that the ‘Great Arizona Gold Rush’ would arrive in the Phoenix area. It prospered more than anyone would have ever imagined, promptly vanished, and would end up spoiling Arizona’s economy for years to come. It was during these golden days in Arizona that the Arizona housing market and construction industry felt as hot as a beautiful, August day out here. Loans were available for anyone and everyone, and the abuse was not about to stop there. Money was essentially being given away and everyone was encouraged to buy, buy, buy! Arizona home builders, Realtors, and home flippers were making tons of cash and many believed they were on the fast track to early retirement. Arizona residents were selling their homes for soaring profits, but quickly realized they were priced out of the market just weeks later. Construction workers were being bused in just to keep up with demand and many had projected that we would have construction jobs out here to fill for years to come. It was a crazy time in Arizona as construction flourished, property values were always higher than the day before, people were smiling, and there was a ton of money to be made if you played your cards right. For a short while, Arizona looked like the place to be or at least the place to invest your money in. So many people including Arizona Realtors, outside investors, home builders, and casual investors were certain this streak would continue and there was no way anyone was about to lose in this erupting Phoenix market.

It turned out that the only hot streak that would continue across Arizona would be our record setting number of days over 110 degrees just a couple years back. The state of Arizona and its inhabitants were left in quite a predicament once the housing bubble finally burst, banks tightened their lending practices, and the ‘free’ money had finally run dry. People were no longer moving to Arizona, the majority of residents were now priced out of the market, many builders had gone bankrupt, partially built developments were deserted, and there became little reason to continue building anything. Arizona’s economy had always been tied directly to population growth, construction, expansion, and the growing real estate market which was suddenly no longer here to assure us that the Arizona economy would continue moving right along. These days, the state of Arizona has no money left, the vast majority of Arizona residents have no money, and outside investors have all but vanished. We now have a surplus of moderately filled and deteriorating apartments, vacant office buildings all over the place, just about every strip mall in Arizona is half empty, and foreclosed homes line our streets. As artificial as it may have been, the construction boom in the Phoenix area is effectively over and wiped out a number of jobs a lot of people had always counted on being available out here.

The numbers are out, and the number of construction jobs lost in Arizona during 2009 is nothing short of depressing, especially for a state where the job market is non-existent to begin with. It has been reported that 26 percent of Arizona construction workers, or 40,300 individuals lost their construction jobs during 2009. That is a lot of people no matter how you slice it and our construction numbers had already been dwindling for the last few years. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this downturn will not affect you just because you might have no direct ties to the construction industry. The housing bubble bursting, the sharp decline in Arizona population growth, and the loss of jobs around the state is hurting everyone right now. The state, quite a few local businesses, and countless folks have run out of money and don’t know where to turn. Many people and even the state of Arizona are fishing around right now for a bailout. Numerous businesses including restaurants, car dealerships, movie theaters, and grocery stores have closed their doors and were forced to lay off a number of people. Even a number of state parks and rest areas in Arizona are in the process of shutting down for the time being. We have so many unemployed across Phoenix right now who are all stuck fighting for the same jobs that the situation becomes increasingly worse every time another industry or organization suffers a blow. The massive decline in the construction and real estate industries have effectively saturated our Arizona unemployment lines for years to come. There are just too many applicants and not enough jobs out there for everyone looking for work.

The major setback for these Arizona construction workers who are now out-of-work is that the number of construction jobs in Arizona probably won’t be picking up again for quite some time. It has been said that the Arizona construction industry is showing small signs of improving this year, but just take a look around you at all the vacant homes, office buildings, restaurants, and strip malls and it should give you an idea of just how much Arizona was overbuilt. Everyone in Arizona will pay for the overbuilding and greed which consumed so much of Arizona just a few short years ago.

I’ve heard it, you’ve heard it, we’ve all heard it several times – ‘it’s the same everywhere else’ – it has slowly but surely become the go-to argument whenever a negative story or comment is shared about how life really is in Arizona. This argument has really increased in popularity out here over the last few years as many have tried to relate Arizona’s problems with that of the nation’s struggling economy. There are some people out here who may actually believe that other states are having the same economic, real estate, crime, and job struggles which we are dealing with in Arizona. Maybe you’ve even wondered if it really is this bad everywhere else in the country?

Not a chance. Do other states share some of the similar problems? Absolutely. Do other states have their own issues to deal with? They sure do. How many other states are stuck with permanent economic and social issues? Not many. Could it be the economy? Elsewhere, yes – in Arizona, not really. Is it just that the future for Arizona and its residents doesn’t sound all that appealing? Probably.

Anyone who really believes that the problems we are experiencing in Arizona are ‘the same as everywhere else’ either has never left the state of Arizona, has been stuck here so long that the heat has left them with no rational thought left, or is just ignorant to what is really going on around them. Look around you – most of these issues found here are not plaguing the rest of the country. Arizona does share some similar struggles with the rest of the nation, but the main difference is the rest of the country will probably recover at some point. Three of Arizona’s major struggles which will continue for the forseeable future include the housing market, job market, and increasing violence. I’ll keep it pleasant and much, much shorter by leaving the weather, schools, residents, drivers, traffic, and lack of things to do out of this one.

Arizona’s Housing Market – finished. I really don’t think there is a simpler way to describe how the real estate market is going to continue playing out here in the coming years. The growth over the last 10 years fueled a real estate boom like something never seen before. Brand new developments went up all over the Phoenix area and each new development managed to get farther and farther away from the center of this mess. The homes continued to go up, but the population growth did not. The homes became larger, more feature packed, and pricier, but the number of unemployed and underemployed in Arizona increased. Arizona now struggles with tons of vacant homes, foreclosures galore, and a population struggling just to make rent. Who is going to buy these houses now? Arizona has always relied on growth to keep the bulk of its economy moving along, but what happens now as the growth continues to go down? More foreclosures and extremely cheap housing for anyone dumb enough to still move out here. Investors will certainly be shopping around for the best bargains, but might be in for quite a surprise when they realize nobody wants their home or they have to accept Pesos just to get someone to rent their home. I’ve said it before, and it needs to be said again – avoid the Arizona housing market all together unless you plan on staying for a very, very long time.

Arizona’s Job Market – almost non-existant with the exception of the retail, call center, and fast food industries. Even the construction jobs have vanished since we have vacant homes, offices, and strip malls for years to come. It will be interesting to see how the restaurant and service industry fare in Arizona since disposable income is just another thing running dry out here in the desert. Arizona’s job market will not rebound like that of the rest of the country because it can’t come back around since there was never really any jobs here in the first place. The so called HOT job market in Arizona was one of the more elaborate schemes coming out of Arizona which was pioneered, abused, and a success story for many Realtors around the state. It was simple, but it worked – create a false job market, persuade people to relocate to Arizona, and then sell them a home. The result was thousands upon thousands of people who made the voyage to Phoenix in the hunt for a piece of this bogus job market. So many people moved out here thinking good jobs were abundant, bought homes, and then could never find work. Want a good job, maybe even a career? You probably want to avoid Arizona, unless you want to push shopping carts around while it is 117 degrees outside.

Arizona’s Escalating Violence/Gang Activity/Drugs – they say crime is going down in Arizona, but picking up a newspaper, watching the news, or just keeping an eye on what is going on around you would tell you otherwise. The crimes out here seem to get crazier and more intense every year. Arizona criminals are desperate and will go after anyone and everyone including kids, the elderly, cops, the homeless, and even your pets. Fanatical crimes happen everywhere in Arizona from the white trash trailer parks to the illegal ridden apartments to the so-called affluent area of North Scottsdale. Drugs are all over the place as well, and what were once normal people will now do anything to get their fix. The schools out here can’t brag about the education your children are getting, but they do offer great exposure to gang activity and hard drugs. The number of gangs is on the rise across Phoenix, and the bulk of it is originating from our friends down South. Drug, human, and weapon smuggling is commonplace in Arizona and something you probably don’t want to get in the middle of. The most alarming part about all the violence and crime in Arizona is that it is only going to get worse as more illegals creep in, more people lose their jobs and houses, and the meth use continues to rise. It is quite the situation out here and it is definitely not the same everywhere else.

Still think Arizona is exactly or close to being like anywhere else? Think again.

Many thanks to member, Out of AZ, for recently posting this invaluable, honest look at how life really is in Arizona. I wanted to be sure everyone got a chance to read it, so enjoy!

I lived in the Phoenix area of AZ for eight years and just moved back to CO this summer. There are definitely negatives about anywhere, but there seems to be more in Phoenix than most. I’ve lived in NY, CA, CO, and NE and AZ is definitely the worst of all the places I’ve been.

For the nation’s fifth biggest city, there is absolutely nothing to do. You can go to one of 1235 shopping malls around the valley to escape the heat or go watch a movie, but you can do that anywhere in the country. You can go to an indoor baseball game if you can afford it. If you don’t have a swimming pool, your time in Phoenix will be miserable. If you do have a pool, expect crazy APS/SRP electric bills due to the pool and 24-hour air conditioning your house will need to keep it livable.

Your car will take a beating, the heat notwithstanding, but also the AZ drivers that you’ll drive defensively to avoid slamming into. Constant road construction is also a negative. There is approximately 15 miles of valley freeway closed every weekend for construction.

The job scene isn’t all that great. Not only is this place a right-to-work (more like right-to-get-fired-for-no-reason) state, the economy is heavily dependent on construction, which has all but ceased to exist right now.

There are like 21236 strip malls in Phoenix that look exactly like the 21235 others in the area. Same stores, same restaurants, same landscaping. It’s pretty hellish. And now, roughly half of most of the strip malls stand empty because of Arizona’s economy (and the broader US economy as well).

There’s no culture here. I’m not kidding. The best Mexican food here comes from chain restaurants. Or at least that’s what most Phoenicians think. Most Phoenicians love spending long weekends in Mexico but look down on Mexicans, Mexican food, and Mexican culture. Any other culture? Forget it, the best Italian food in the valley is at Olive Garden, the best Chinese is at Panda Express. For a metro area with a population over 4 million, it’s pretty pathetic.

The homes/neighborhoods/cities all look the same. Stucco brown boxes with eight tons of crushed rock in the front yard. You don’t know if you are in Ahwatukee, Tempe, Peoria or Chandler. It’s all the same.

I don’t know about public schools, I don’t have kids. But I will say that if you really think you’re going to receive a world-class education in a college with 70,000 others like at ASU or by paying tens of thousands for a degree people may or may not take seriously like at University of Phoenix, this may be a good place.

Phoenix is a waste. Truly. They waste water for miles of grass for golf courses or huge resorts. There are fountains and fake lakes everywhere. It’s great if you want to live near a body of green water so you can be eaten alive by mosquitoes. They waste electricity. How else do you justify living in a town that can get upwards of 120 degrees?

Phoenix is a demonstration of human accomplishment and hubris all at once. The fact that you can take a desolate, uninhabitable desert and turn it into the nation’s fifth-largest city shows what we can accomplish as a society. But for what purpose? So your kids can stay indoors for six months watching tv and playing video games because it’s too hot to play outside. So you can drive in your air conditioned car to your air conditioned office and back to your air conditioned home. So you can earn less money than most people doing the same job in the rest of the country. All this, with fluctuating real estate values, increasing crime, decreasing job opportunities, it’s all reason to stay out of Phoenix.

The secret is out – the quantity of quality jobs in Arizona is extremely low. Finding one of the few great job opportunities in Arizona is nearly impossible, but these days people are struggling in their hunt for any sort of job out here. Obviously, the economy across the country isn’t doing too great right now, but the employment situation in Arizona probably won’t be rebounding any time soon as it will be in many places. Arizona has always been known for its call center and construction jobs, along with a number of positions tied directly to the building, leasing, and selling of local real estate. There are very few companies headquartered in the area and a limited number of jobs out here outside of the construction, real estate, and service industries. The majority of Arizona residents have always relied on working these retail, foodservice, and construction jobs and many were happy to do so – remember, the majority out here have little desire to get ahead. The great Arizona housing crash has not only successfully dropped Arizona housing prices back to reality and then some, but has also led to a depressing situation in the Arizona job market for many residents here.

As Arizona experienced record population growth in recent years, it led to a false sense of security for many and a very temporary job market. Construction teams were busy building up house after house, along with the adjacent community shopping centers. More and more service jobs were created to service all the residents in these newer communities and strip malls which shot up around Phoenix. Many people jumped into real estate and mortgage jobs in order to keep up with the temporary demand and most saw it as their gold ticket to early retirement. The mindset in Arizona seemed to to be that the population growth would continue, home values would continue to go up, and jobs were more than secure. So, now that the real estate bubble burst and took tons of real estate and construction related jobs with it, what is your now out of work Arizona Realtor or mortgage broker to do? Well, you have probably seen many of them out and about as many now work at Safeway, Burger King, Bashas’, or Applebees – jobs that a lot of people in Arizona had always relied on being available. And in a place like Arizona, this trend is likely to continue for quite some time as all those excess mortgage and constructions jobs just aren’t needed anymore.

Times are tough for your average Arizona resident and they aren’t going to be getting better any time soon. More jobs aren’t going to appear out of thin air – if anything, the number of available jobs in Arizona is actually declining. Next time you head out, count how many strip malls have vacant openings or how many grocery stores have closed down or the now empty fast food restaurant buildings. And it seems like someone finally wised up to the fact that it might be time to slow down all the new home and commercial property builds – many of which sit vacant regardless of location. These retail and service jobs were the jobs Arizona’s people had relied on for so long and many of these jobs are now done by out of work Arizona Realtors and construction workers. It was bad enough that there were never really any good jobs in Arizona, but now that there is pretty much NO jobs in Arizona – good luck!

It’s obvious to anyone who works in Arizona or has looked for a job out here that the career opportunities out here are extremely limited. We do have a few great organizations with offices in Arizona, but pretty much everyone else is stuck working in the service industry or real estate. The real question is not where are the jobs in Arizona, but why were great job opportunities never here in the first place?

Work Ethic / Commitment – Arizona boasts some of the laziest people in the country. Arizona people are famous for wanting it all, but don’t want to put in any of the hard work and hours to get it. Pyramid schemes, fly by night businesses, and all the other get-rich-quick schemes are all over the place out here. People out here will use every excuse in the book to get out of working. Fake sick days, family emergencies, and countless other excuses are all too common in this state. Hard work and honesty are just too hard to come by through out Arizona.

Content – as weird as it sounds, so many others in Arizona are absolutely content being nothing or just barely scraping by. Few out here actually give a damn about career advancement or getting ahead. Do you really need people working for you who have no desire to advance in life – these people are going to continue to do just the absolute bare minimum to keep their job.

Incompetence – it’s no lie, most people out here just don’t get it or anything for that matter. People here struggle with daily and meaningless tasks, let alone anything that involves a valid thought process or decision making. It’s common for people around here to have absolutely no clue what is going on around them or within their industry. People in Arizona are stuck in this permanent fantasy land which nobody else has seen before or can really understand.

Lack of Education – one of the worst public education systems in the entire country. And to make matters worse, a large percentage of Arizona’s population does not pursue advanced education. You surely can’t learn everything in the classroom, but advanced education never hurt anyone. Regardless of your opinion on education, many of your large organizations will not even consider you for many positions if you don’t hold a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, so why would these companies even bother holding offices out here where so few would even meet the minimum qualifications?

Limited Applicant Pool – the abundance of unskilled, uneducated, and lazy individuals in Arizona leads to a very, very limited application pool. Why settle for the best of the worst, when you can go anywhere else and get the best of the best? End of story.

Not a week goes by, where one of the major Arizona news station neglects running a segment on how specific companies around the Valley are hiring for hundreds of positions. Unfortunately, it is not only the local news stations running these ‘feel good’ about Arizona’s job market stories. I have read several nationally published articles on Arizona being a great place for recent college graduates, as well as others to come and further their careers. These stories are not reality – Arizona has always had a very limited number of good jobs, still does today, and probably will for many more years to come. Unlike other places, the lack of jobs out here is not because of the national economic downturn, but because that is just how life is out in Arizona. Do not be fooled by the media propaganda. If you move here and plan to look for a job, or even if you move here with an out of this world job offer – you better be prepared for the absolute worst.

The majority of these so called job openings out here are in retail, call centers, construction, landscaping, and real estate in recent years. Other opportunities out here are very, very limited. What outsiders who are considering relocating to Arizona may not realize is that these types of jobs are the norm out here. A lot of people out here earn an honest living working in grocery stores or construction which is fine. But, if you come here looking for work on the other end of the spectrum, it is just not going to happen. If you are just starting out and want to begin your career, or want to advance in your current career path – DO NOT move to Arizona.

Living and working in Arizona should be a scary thought for many, but few out here actually think about the future. They are too focused on getting by and trying to look rich while doing so. Even if you happen to have a great paying job with one of the Valley’s top companies and believe you are on the fast track to success, what happens if you are laid off or suddenly fired for no reason at all? It happens more than it should out here – then what’s the plan? Chances of finding a comparable replacement job out here are slim to none. What about your Hummer payment and that mortgage?