

Why work in Arizona? - rtorr
http://why.az/

======
romerostoneG
Throwaway account here.

I am am Arizona native. Up until recently, I was working on the largest
supercomputer in the state, Saguaro2 at ASU, and a Translational Genomics
Research Institute (genomics research) employee. I live downtown right in the
creative district, near Roosevelt Row.

I am in the process of selling my home and leaving the state. I am done here.
I don't want to live in Arizona anymore. I won't be coming back.

I am now in my 30s and I really regret staying here. I should have left long
ago. My career could be so much better and i could have learned so much more
by being with my peers in the SF/valley area, Seattle, or Boston. I have
wasted a portion of my life here in a black hole where retirees come to die,
not live.

I would never tell anyone in technology to move here. There are few jobs and
the people you would be working with are mediocre and lack ambition.

Employers like Intel, TGen, and GoDaddy(YUCK) deal with low moral issues.
Intel employees over in Portland know that if you get transfered to Chandler,
it's pretty much a death sentence for your career. I can rattle off a dozen
names of ex-Intel employees who I know shipped in from elsewhere to Chandler
and had quit within five years because they hated the local company culture,
along with Arizona's culture. TGen has a massive problem with investigators
and other senior staff jumping ship because of the "Arizona problem". As for
GoDaddy... a morally bankrupt hole of despair.

The outdoors here are pretty great if you are in to that sort of thing... the
problem is all the people.

Oh, BTW, of those 128 lakes in Arizona? Zero of them are natural. All
artificial. Let's not bring up the water quality of Tempe Town Lake, lest
things get gross.

Arizona's many problems with regressive social issues can be directly
attributed to it's large retiree population. Or more generically stated, the
old people.

Native Arizonans (white and "Native" natives) from places like Wilcox,
Safford, Show Low/Lakeside/Snowflake, Flagstaff, and Tuba City are pretty
normal people who have lived a mostly rural life. They care about the low
desert, the high desert, and the wildlife. They care about schools, kids,
ranching, mining, agriculture, and those sorts of things.

The old people, and to an extent the economic transients... they come from
elsewhere. They are not from Arizona, and they really don't care about
Arizona. Plow the desert, put in new subdivisions, heavily chlorinated pools,
and green golf courses. They want to cut or completely eliminate estate and
property taxes. They don't care about schools or education and consistently
vote to down anything related to it.

Arizona education is pitifully bad... [http://www.examiner.com/article/u-s-
state-public-education-r...](http://www.examiner.com/article/u-s-state-public-
education-rankings-arizona-ranked-50th-education-ranking)
[http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2012/01/arizona-schools-
finish...](http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2012/01/arizona-schools-finish-near-
bottom-in-national-ranking/)
[http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110220120820AA...](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110220120820AAFS6wJ)
Yes, I'm somewhat ashamed to support an argument from yahoo answers, but there
it is.

The old people stay with their own, inside their own collective conclaves like
Youngtown, Sun City, and elder-slums of Mesa, and Apache Junction. It's an "Us
vs Them" mentality where the "Us" is white people over the age of 65, and
"Them" is everyone else in the world.

Old people vote pretty reliably and consistently, I'm sorry to say, and so
they are pretty good about getting their candidates into office. As a result,
you've got finger-waving bat-sh*t Brewer, Joe Arpaio, Tom Horn, Russell Pearce
and other white weirdos. Let's not forget about Evan Mecham here though...
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Mecham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Mecham).

Let's stick some support for child molesters in here while I'm at it...
[http://www.azfamily.com/home/Pearce-on-accused-child-
moleste...](http://www.azfamily.com/home/Pearce-on-accused-child-molester--
212576591.html)

Is Arizona racist? I'm going to have to admit: YES. The evidence is
overwhelming and spans decades. Plausible deniability becomes ineffective at
some point, and we are way past there. Countless politicians have showed up on
white-supremacist radio shows and been photographed with their ilk. Arizona's
war on the MLK holiday was long sustained. The Mexican illegal boogyman talk
is everywhere.

[http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/...](http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/01/12/20120112martin-
luther-king-holiday-dilemma.html)

Let's be clear that the mass exodus of Mexican nationals across the border
into the US is a real issue and I see the real consequences of it on a daily
basis (my neighbor just had his car wrecked by a Mexican who ran from the
scene because he was here illegally), but the racism part is just what Arizona
was already doing before the old white people realized that dark skinned
people had been living here before they did.

The Mormon population and their official support for segregation long into the
late 70s certainly does not help here either.

Let's see what the kids of good Arizonans, like federal senator Jeff Flake are
learning about these days...

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/johnstanton/arizona-senators-son-
use...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/johnstanton/arizona-senators-son-used-
homophobic-anti-semetic-language-o)
[http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_phoenix_metro/central_p...](http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_phoenix_metro/central_phoenix/arizona-
sen-jeff-flakes-son-posts-disturbing-suicide-video-on-youtube)

I've lived here and I've seen how the old people behave. I don't want to grow
old here and become like that. I don't want to have to live with those kinds
of people. They can have this state where I grew up. I'm outta here.

------
DVassallo
Isn't Arizona the state where anyone that looks non-native may get harassed by
the police? [1]

No thank you.

\---

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_SB_1070](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_SB_1070)

~~~
baddox
I think that's every state, including the ones where it may not be legal.

------
rtorr
Submitter here (and an Arizonian native):

I know we receive a lot of bad press for our politics. I will not speak for
the many people in my state, but I will say we are pretty diverse, and a lot
of us agree with you. Boycotting us does not help the issues we have, I
believe that staying here and fighting helps a lot more.

The site was made to show a different side of AZ, and I think the discussion
here proves that it is needed. We have our bad stuff, but we also have a lot
of great stuff (just like anywhere else).

~~~
jmharvey
For a lot of people, it's not a matter of a boycott, it's a matter of
practicality. My two co-founders are both naturalized U.S. citizens, and they
don't want to have to carry proof of citizenship with them everywhere they go,
so we don't do business in Arizona.

------
pyrocat
Incredibly backwards politics and laws are some good reasons not to.

~~~
jfb
Also, the death weather and the very sketchy water situation.

~~~
mabbo
While in Phoenix on a business trip, an associate I was working with who lived
in Phoenix was driving us to lunch. He said "You know, the nice thing about
this place is you never have to worry about weeds or yard care. Nothing here
is alive unless it is being actively kept alive."

Also, no matter how much water I drink in that city, I can only manage to pee
about once per day. Kinda dry there, is what I'm saying.

------
ibero
As a hispanic developer on an H1-B, I didn't attend to JSConf last year with
my team out of the feeling of contempt I get from the immigration policies of
that state.

------
wmf
Interesting domain choice; .az is supposed to be Azerbaijan and .az.us is for
Arizona.

------
hardwaresofton
Very well made website, I really liked the coherent design.

Opinions of your state (which I have none, but large swaths of the American
population probably do) aside

------
runnr_az
I'm an AZ resident... and, sure, we've taken a beating in the National press
as of late, much of it deserved. That said, if you like to play outside, this
place is awesome: tons of amazing trails to roam, a vast array of places to
explore.

More of more, PHX is becoming a fun place to live, full of culture and
interesting places to eat. It ain't the coolest town in the world, but it's
very affordable, extremely easy living. All the streets are straight lines,
all laid on on a grid... you'll never get lost.

Beyond that, this is The West. When I lived on the East Coast, I always felt
the weight of ancestral class issues brought to bear on every interaction --
especially, with the self-styled "Upper Class." Out here, it's all good... you
can go anywhere in jeans, people are generally very nice, regardless of your
appearance. The jerks who have come to dominate our politics are not
necessarily a refection of the population.

I'm not saying we don't have our problems: it was 106 today and I'm a little
tired of summer... but once you find yourself a pool and a beer and settle in,
the heat ain't so bad.

------
mey
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+portland...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+portland+vs+flagstaff+arizona)

I will stick to Portland for now.

~~~
runnr_az
Well... sure. That's Portland vs. Flagstaff, a small town up in the mountains.

Check this out:
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+portland...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+portland+vs+tempe+arizona)

(I've lived in Portland and while there are many things I missed about it, the
ability to afford a house here is a big deal for folks like me.)

~~~
romerostoneG
Flagstaff is a nice place, but jobs are sparse and pay is low:

[http://www4.nau.edu/insidenau/bumps/2008/4_23_08/knau.htm](http://www4.nau.edu/insidenau/bumps/2008/4_23_08/knau.htm)
[http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=485...](http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=4857512)

------
shire
You should also include a how or where to work in Arizona.

------
jon7
AZ's a great place to live. It's a shame that the local software industry's
growth is so slow!

~~~
shire
if you like living in weather almost as hot as Africa. Personally I couldn't
live anywhere where it doesn't rain at all which is why I live and love
Seattle (:

~~~
plainOldText
The sunny climate might have a positive net effect on your creativity :)

~~~
shire
Idk who told you that but I work better in my room or office when it's raining
out, than 100degrees of sun it gets really uncomfortable to sit and program :(
nevertheless I love this design good web designer for sure!

~~~
plainOldText
Just as you don't go outside in WA to write code when it's raining, you don't
go out to write code in AZ when it's 100+. The A/C inside buildings works just
fine. :) Anyway, each person with his/her own likes.

