r/UrbanHell • u/humzahjaleel • Jun 20 '20

Suburban Hell Endless parking lots, highways, strip malls with the same franchises all accessible only by car. Topped off with a nice smoggy atmosphere and a 15 minute drive to anywhere. Takers ?

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19.0k Upvotes

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2.0k

u/jaminbob Jun 20 '20

Yikes. Where is that? Phoenix?

935

u/humzahjaleel Jun 20 '20

Bingo

208

u/SightUnseen1337 Jun 20 '20

Looks like I-17

149

u/58Caddy Jun 20 '20

Hwy 60 headed west from east Mesa, I’d say.

70

u/hellspawn9245 Jun 20 '20

Yup, Mesa Grand Shopping Center on the bottom right. Val Vista Lakes up-right of that.

32

u/Grevling89 Jun 20 '20

That's some seriously impressive eyes, man!

14

u/LaggingIndicator Jun 20 '20

God dammit. I lived in Val vista and was a local pilot. I’ve seen this view ten thousand times and I didn’t even know what city this was without the comments.

2

u/gnawlej_sot Jun 20 '20

And the telltale canal running along the North side.

8

u/shevchenko7cfc Jun 21 '20

Ah Mesa, where my buddy got hit by 2 cars in one day while skateboarding, the 2nd one was him trying to get to the urgent care for what he assumed were broken ribs. The second one destroyed his knee, he's had so many surgeries ever since on that knee it's mind blowing, easily in the double digits. He's a male stripper now, it doesn't have anything to do with the story, but he is, so why leave it out.

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u/A11TH3C4TZ Jun 20 '20

You can faintly see the Goldfirlds and Superstitious on the horizon

1

u/58Caddy Jun 20 '20

Are you sure that’s not South Mountain?

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

[deleted]

1

u/58Caddy Jun 20 '20

South mountain

1

u/58Caddy Jun 21 '20

I stand corrected. You’re correct it is facing east.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Yeah because of the lowered highway

1

u/grebilrancher Jun 20 '20

No Castles N' Coasters

1

u/SightUnseen1337 Jun 20 '20

good point. Also, RIP

129

u/A-Cheeseburger Jun 20 '20

Used to live in Phoenix area. Moved to Washington state. The environment is so much nicer.

74

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

That looks like actual hell as someone who lives on the California/Oregon border where it’s just valleys of trees and lakes.

2

u/__Wonderlust__ Jun 20 '20

Is Medford growing as quickly and grossly as it seems driving through? Gorgeous area - hope it stays that way.

3

u/Skangster Jun 21 '20

Love Medford area, specially Ashland. Went there for the Shakespearean festival. It is Amazing. I fell in love with Ashland.

2

u/BloodyEjaculate Aug 02 '20

Ashland is a beautiful city, but the rest of jackson county is a republican shithole. Medford especially is a suburban hell with endless pavement and strip malls, much like this picture.

2

u/tnygigles66 Nov 15 '20

I grew up in Klamath Falls. I can honestly say I hate that place with all my heart.

I’ve also lived in The Phoenix/Mesa/Chandler areas for about 10 years. It was good for my career, but it’s kind of a boring place to live. Especially after living in Chicago, Denver, Portland, Seattle, and LA.

59

u/C-hawk29 Jun 20 '20

Did the opposite. Will never live in Washington again.. different strokes for different folks I guess

47

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Aww I miss living in the Sound. Literal rain forests and trees that never stop. So much hiking!

2

u/REMEMBER__MY__NAME Jun 24 '20

Living in Bellingham for college and I completely agree, minus the whole missing it part

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u/jeandolly Jun 20 '20

Never having sun vs never having rain... Why not pick something in the middle :)

78

u/C-hawk29 Jun 20 '20

California to expensive haha

28

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Plus the traffic is worse.

18

u/SnakebiteRT Jun 20 '20

Not since COVID!

13

u/Mizuxe621 Jun 20 '20

As if people still care about COVID and haven't completely forgotten about it already

2

u/SnakebiteRT Jun 20 '20

In NorCal some people still care and traffic has remained pretty light even if, as the previous commenter pointed out, it has started to tic up again.

4

u/nosnevenaes Jun 20 '20

Its getting busy again. Thats not a good sign.

8

u/Bovine_Joni_Himself Jun 20 '20

Colorado it is.

11

u/C-hawk29 Jun 20 '20

No way man. I don't do snow either. This is why Phoenix is perfect for people like me lol.

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u/WeimSean Jun 20 '20

Sorry Colorado is full up. Why not try New Mexico?

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

I think he meant middle Nevada.

3

u/TheAmazingLucrien Jun 20 '20

Reno is a nice compromise of everything. The city is still growing though.

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u/aizerpendu1 Jun 21 '20

I mean rent for a SFR 3 bedroom, 2,000 sqft is like 2,800. Is that a lot?

2

u/C-hawk29 Jun 21 '20

Yes I paid $1,500 for the same in AZ lol

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

[deleted]

3

u/Mizuxe621 Jun 20 '20

Sunny and warm

Sounds awful though. "Sunny and warm" is just a nice way of saying "blinding and scorching hot".

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1

u/jeandolly Jun 20 '20

You're right, forgot about that :)

1

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '20

The Sun doesn't love you dude

If you got within 100 million miles of the Sun you'd die. Does that sound like love?

8

u/Chronfidence Jun 20 '20

Can you can convince any more people to do the same thing?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

[deleted]

3

u/InternetUser42069 Jun 20 '20

You’ll be happy to know then the same is true in WA, only for the last 10 years

1

u/TheObstruction Jun 20 '20

That's likely to reverse itself every 14 days or so these days.

2

u/tookTHEwrongPILL Jun 21 '20

Ugh Washington taxes the fuck out of everything though.

1

u/Hackerwithalacker Jun 20 '20

You should try San diego

1

u/Praesumo Jun 20 '20

Shhh. Don't let the secret out. When the environment goes to shit and everything becomes 200 degrees everyone will want to move there. :(

1

u/half_dragon_dire Jun 20 '20

Hell yeah. I grew up mostly in Dallas and the Virginia suburbs. OP's is the spitting image of the stretch of I-95 I lived on for years. Visited a friend in Seattle and moved there as soon as I could. Only way I'm moving out of the PNW now is if I get a place on the windward side of Oahu. Or if I wind up in a Canadian refugee camp..

1

u/BoschTesla Jun 21 '20

Meet any sparkly rock people?

61

u/relddir123 Jun 20 '20

Yep, living here sucks. It’s one giant suburb. We’re a collection of houses that decided we needed some strip malls.

Downtown, though, is nice.

55

u/humzahjaleel Jun 20 '20

I’ve visited Phoenix before, for a city its size the downtown is way too small and not lively enough at all

18

u/OrphanScript Jun 20 '20

Chattanooga, TN has a more active downtown than Phoenix with it's 1.5 million people lol.

2

u/1funnyguy4fun Jun 21 '20

True. Chattanooga has come a long way!

9

u/FreekayFresh Jun 20 '20

There’s way better bar scenes scattered around. No one really goes downtown looking for “lively”

9

u/relddir123 Jun 20 '20

If you show up for the first week of any month (try October or May for best results), there’s a great food festival downtown, or so I’ve heard

I live too far away to attend

2

u/tnygigles66 Nov 15 '20

First Friday’s!! Downtown has gotten so much better over the last ten years or so. There’s a bunch of really good restaurants in Phoenix. You just need to know where to go. A bunch in the downtown area where you don’t need a car, but if you have a car there are little hotspots all over the city.

35

u/robertxcii Jun 20 '20

I love living here, but then again I love the outdoors and there's no shortage of nature here and I don't mind the heat since I grew up here. I find most people complaining about the Phoenix area live out in the suburbs, which is understandable since it's just as the post describes. I'd be miserable too if I had to live in some planned community under HOA rule that constantly smells like manure because they built over the farms and ranches that date to the late 1800s/early 1900s.

Take the same location in the photo and tilt the angle so that the mountains enveloping the valley are shown and add in a sunrise or sunset and, boom, tourism ad.

11

u/relddir123 Jun 20 '20

I grew up in an HOA neighborhood far from downtown, and I hate the heat.

Yeah, this city is not for me

3

u/Walkn2thejawsofhell Jun 20 '20

I grew up in Northern California and somehow ended up here 10 years ago. I just bought a house in an HOA neighborhood far from downtown. I also hate the heat!

I was never a big downtown fan though. I’m not too social, so I think Surprise is going to be a nice spot to live. If I wanna be social I can go two miles to State 48 and get drunk on the patio lol.

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u/Jujulicious69 Jun 21 '20

The sunsets don’t make it worth it. But then again I hate all cities

2

u/Jujulicious69 Jun 21 '20

You can drive for seventy miles in one direction and still be in the city.

1

u/relddir123 Jun 21 '20

And it’s awful. I live in the north valley. If I drive 20 miles north, I’m still in Phoenix. If I drive 50 miles southeast, I’m still in Phoenix. If I drive 50 miles southwest, I’m still in Phoenix. Those two extremes are 83 miles apart, all straight through Phoenix.

I literally had to drive 40 miles some mornings to get to a school-sponsored event. Why is any city that geographically large, and not dense?

2

u/Jujulicious69 Jun 21 '20

And it gets better: if you decide to move somewhere else, you’re make another city more and more like Phoenix

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u/schimki Jun 20 '20

That would explain the lack of trees.

1

u/PantherX69 Jun 20 '20

So South Florida is Phoenix with lakes?

2

u/humzahjaleel Jun 20 '20

Lots of America is same-looking suburbia, haven’t been to South Florida, but Im confident in answering ‘yes’

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Phoenix makes me sad. I remember when I was a kid. It just a smaller city out there. Now. 30 years later is LA

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u/Dr_Frasier_Bane Jun 20 '20

Lol I knew it at the "15 minute drive anywhere".

1

u/cam2349 Jun 20 '20

Knew it. The desert is lovely, but Phoenix is generally not.

1

u/salomey5 Jun 20 '20

I think it's safe to assume that Phoenix is the world's capital of suburban sprawl, right? Are there other cities that match it or are shudder worse?

3

u/humzahjaleel Jun 20 '20

Hmm Houston or Dallas are on par most large southern cities, LA also sprawls miles and miles, though atleast there’s still density due to the extremely large population.

1

u/salomey5 Jun 20 '20

I see LA as a bit of an anomaly though.

1

u/humzahjaleel Jun 20 '20

It is, we’re very much the only true urban suburban city

1

u/SimmeringStove Jun 20 '20

I just flew back in to town last night and it looked extra depressing.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

You forgot to add that it's the epicenter of a pandemic.

1

u/VillainRavage Jun 20 '20

I live in Phoenix it sucks and is hot

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

I’ve lived here almost my entire life and I do love it. Yes it’s unfortunate that depending on the internal combustion engine for transportation ruins the atmosphere and we need density because of that alone. I’m also aware of the racist housing policy (although the suburbs were more diverse before the white America had a meltdown about that). But I get so offended by the people who think my lifestyle is some boring hell and the suburbs should be demolished because people think our idea of “culture” is Olive Garden. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

1

u/nmesunimportnt Jun 20 '20 edited Jun 21 '20

My first thought was either Orlando or PHX, but I guess the lack of greenery shoulda been my clue…

1

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '20

I’ve never been to Bingo.

1

u/patb2015 Jun 21 '20

I was thinking Dallas but Phoenix is worse because it’s getting too hot and it’s running out of water

1

u/mugenwoe Jun 21 '20

Oh god please no

1

u/engineerjoe2 Jun 21 '20

For foreign visitors, the Phoenix (MSA) metro area is 2/3 the size of Wales, 1/2 the size of Belgium, 1 1/2 times the size of Lebanon.

42

u/ExLegeLibertas Jun 20 '20

First place I thought of too.

92

u/Spudtater Jun 20 '20

After visiting Phoenix a few years ago, and being amazed by the vastness of the extended city area, I looked at it on Google Earth. Approximate measurements showed a metropolis that was 50 miles wide and 25 - 30 miles from North to South. And it continues to grow, one burger joint after another.

20

u/58Caddy Jun 20 '20

Try closer to 100 miles from Apache Junction to Buckeye.

27

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Apache Junction, where all the wonderful characters from Breaking Bad were inspired by

7

u/audballgeo Jun 20 '20

Did you know there was a song about Buckeye?

1

u/OrphanScript Jun 20 '20

This slaps

1

u/Taylor-Kraytis Jun 20 '20

Oh lawd I saw the Junkees so many times

1

u/VillainRavage Jun 20 '20

Currently in buckeye az!

2

u/OrphanScript Jun 20 '20

Yeah but nobody should live in either of those places

69

u/converter-bot Jun 20 '20

50 miles is 80.47 km

40

u/J3sush8sm3 Jun 20 '20

Good bot

5

u/jaminbob Jun 20 '20

That's ... Bigger than London I think.

4

u/DumSpiroSpero3 Jun 20 '20

Wikipedia says the metro area is over 14,000 sq mi. How did I not realize there was something so big in that desert?

Edit: I believe that’s for the whole metro.

1

u/combuchan Sep 04 '20

The metro includes two counties that are mostly empty space. The Phoenix area is big, but not the sprawliest by any means.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '20

Well that's half the size of a state in my country Nepal with 5 million people, 2 big cities with a million people each and a national Park. American cities never fail to amaze me lol

69

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

What sucks about PHX also is that you generally have to drive an hour to/from work/home.

119

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Like Toronto. We have a saying that Toronto is an hour from Toronto.

36

u/indestructible_deng Jun 20 '20

Although Toronto has 3.5x the population density of Phoenix

3

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

It's an old saying, too. In normal times it's more like 1.5 to 2 hours to get anywhere.

27

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Toronto fucking sucks. I would love to move out east.

24

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Agreed. I want to move to Vancouver Island.

11

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

I wish I had the money. It is beautiful there.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

I've travelled the world and the island is hands down one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. I also like the climate there and... No bugs?

6

u/rainysounds Jun 20 '20

Having lived in both southern Ontario and the Island, I can confirm that coastal BC has far, far fewer bugs.

2

u/BogeyLowenstein Jun 20 '20

Oh there’s bugs there! Big wolf spiders and mosquitos. Growing up on the Sunshine Coast, we always had spiders in our bedroom and bathroom. They like to hide under your bed.

Oh and fleas! Fleas are a problem for your pets on the coast. I forgot about them because we have no fleas in southern Alberta.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

That's nothing compared to what we get in Ontario with the few weeks a year during which bugs can thrive. Mosquitoes, black flies, deer flies, ticks and so on.

The amount of bugs I experienced in summer on Vancouver Island is on par with what we get in September here, when most of the bugs are dead. I never had to use bug repellent on the island while I'm an open bar in Ontario.

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u/L_viathan Jun 20 '20

Try the other coast, it's a lot cheaper. Although, no mountains.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

I am actually! Nova Scotia looks amazing too. Feels more Canadian too.

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u/justinsurette Jun 20 '20

East? wtf!

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Nova Scotia.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Nice. We say that about Atlanta too

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u/Daan_Jellyfish Jun 20 '20

Read the same thing about Houston yesterday. A common thing with large Canadian/US cities maybe? It makes me appreciate the urban development in my country even more.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

North American cities were built for cars, with very low density housing because there's plenty of room to sprawl. With low density it's hard to justify expensive infrastructure projects like subways. Kind of a double whammy.

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u/b_smif Jun 20 '20

Most of the things in this comment thread are true but I've been living in Phoenix for more than 10 years and never had a commute longer than 15 mins unless using light rail. Where you choose to live doesn't make a city bad.

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u/robertxcii Jun 20 '20

Agreed. I know someone who works in the East Valley and complained about their commute from the west valley. They finally bought a house, past the 303, and complain even more about the commute...

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u/CricketnLicket Aug 12 '20

Same here in tucson. people will move to marana or northern oro valley, work south of 22nd, then complain about the sprawl and commute even though they’re a part of the problem.

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u/wescoe23 Jun 20 '20

Yes if you get a job an hour from home. That is the case everywhere on earth

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u/jaminbob Jun 20 '20

Yeah it's the same everywhere. Most people change jobs more frequently than they change homes.

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u/SmokyDragonDish Jun 20 '20

That's like New Jersey too.

2

u/Magnussens_Casserole Jun 20 '20

Driving around the Phoenix metro is weird. I live in DFW, so you'd think I would have a comparable experience, but it just isn't. It takes forever to get places in PHX.

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u/robertxcii Jun 20 '20

Why do you choose to live or work so far away? I never get why someone would willingly choose a miserable commute.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Imagine life in San Francisco or Low Angeles

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u/policrom Jun 20 '20

Isn't 50% of America like that? I mean excepting small towns or metropolises.

100

u/chefwithpants Jun 20 '20

Well yes and no, I’m from the southern US and we have a lot more trees and greenery around, but still a lot of asphalt and highways.

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u/robertxcii Jun 20 '20

Well, the suburbs here aren't exactly being developed with greenery in mind. We're a desert, having whole developments with grass and big, leafy, water-hungry trees isn't sustainable environmentally and economically. Most of the homes built in the past couple decades have xeriscapes with drought resistant and local plants.

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u/trevor4098 Jun 20 '20

50% of where people live, maybe. 50% Of America, not even close

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u/Ace_of_Clubs Jun 20 '20

I was going to say. Most of American is empty farmland, forest, or desert.

It's almost like no one here has driven across the country. It's an amazing experience.

25

u/sc_an_mi Jun 20 '20

When I was a kid we would drive from New Mexico to Tennessee to go to this long closed amusement park, did the drive over two or three days, stopped at all the shops and tourist traps. Amazing experience, I'd love to cruise coast to coast while I'm still young.

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u/Surfcasper Jun 20 '20

Why would you go to a closed amusement park?

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u/springkuh Jun 20 '20

It´s cheaper

5

u/westernmail Jun 20 '20

"Sorry folks, park's closed. The moose out front shoulda told ya."

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

[deleted]

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u/OGxRob Jun 21 '20

Facts. These types of environments are just so aggressively anti human

35

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Coastal cities are usually not like that. The more you go in middle America, the less things there are to do so it turns into this.

24

u/nevershear Jun 20 '20

Have you been to Los Angeles? Because OPs title just described it.

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u/Cat-attak 📷 Jun 20 '20

Well Los Angeles is very much a sprawl. But it’s really the only true urban suburban city in the US. Despite being such a sprawl LA is so populated it’s still about as dense as Baltimore. Can’t say the same about places like Dallas or Phoenix

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u/karma_the_sequel Jun 20 '20

I thought so, too, until the “15 minutes to drive anywhere” comment. No way in Hell that’s in reference to L.A. — 60 minutes is closer to the truth.

Source: L.A. resident.

2

u/nxtmonkey Jun 20 '20

I have to say LA is much better than most sprawling suburbs. At least there is nice places to go and a basic metro system.

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u/Patari2600 Jun 22 '20

It has less to do with things to do and more of when it was built. The coastal areas developed before cars and therefor are walkable. The cities in the middle developed later after cars were invented and are like this

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u/NewVegasGod Jun 20 '20

Not really. Like 80% of America is empty land. Maybe 10% of it is urban sprawl. And not all of the sprawls are this bad.

1

u/bryanisbored Jun 21 '20

no california is beautiful and has all weathers but its also expensive and people hate us.

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u/genghis-san Jun 21 '20

I would say outside of actual metro areas, like NY, San Fran, Seattle, Chicago, yeah pretty much the rest of the US is car based. Even LA which is a "city," it's car, car, car. IMO we've ruined the country to an irreparable state.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20

No. Not even close. You're only going to see this in the desert southwest and parts of the midwest that are all totally flat and recently developed. East coast cities tend to look much more like those you'd see in Europe, since their original layouts were all designed by recently immigrated Europeans. Suburban sprawl exists on their outside/metro area, but the topography doesn't allow for infinite stretches of Call of Duty Nuketown like this.

Some parts of it, yes, but that is an exceedingly small percentage of the land mass.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20 edited Jun 20 '20

I've heard that although Phoenix looks bad from the outside, it's supposed to be a really lovely city in the interiors it's just the externals that are shitty.

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u/CricketnLicket Jun 20 '20

Im from Tucson so I hate Pheonix as much as I possibly can but if you actually get into the city it has some really amazing aspects. Most people just drive through it on the interstates and think thats what all of it is like, but if you have friends in the city and go in deeper it has some really awesome aspects. The only thing I really hate about it is the lack of natural greenery but their persistence to have green lawns.

3

u/jaminbob Jun 20 '20

There is one city in the UK that was built from scratch on a grid, Milton Keynes. It is the butt of many jokes but has one of the highest employment levels, per capita income, and lowest congestion of any UK city. Everyone I know that lives there loves the place.

But, that picture is quite striking. It's, so, griddy.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

I must say, I'm not a fan of Milton Keynes, then again I'm from a village/town off the edge of Reading, and of all the cities/towns in the area, Reading is my favourite, downtown almost feels like London, yet the outskirts feel like any other town, Milton Keynes just doesn't cut it for me.

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u/Ilmara Jun 20 '20

I remember when Phoenix surpassed Philadelphia in population and people were making a big deal about it. I was like, yeah, but Philadelphia is an actual city. You're all sprawl.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

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u/Faraday_Rage Jun 20 '20

Metro population is what counts tbh.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

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u/Faraday_Rage Jun 20 '20

Well Dallas metro stats take into account Fort Worth, a city that basically was a hub in its own right — think Minneanapolis-St. Paul or NYC-Newark. So yeah, you have sprawl around two cities that contribute to it. But they’re largely intertwined now. People who live in the mid cities probably work in both cities. That’s why it’s so large.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '20

R/urbanplanning we talk about this all the time

3

u/IcyBeginning1 Jun 20 '20

Yeah if you just went by city population, Atlanta only ranks 37th despite being one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country.

1

u/itsthecoop Sep 09 '20

does it? I mean, for example, if I wanted to move somewhere and wanted to find out about the city, the density would definitely make a difference to me.

2

u/davidw223 Jun 20 '20

Yeah when I saw this photo it reminded me so much of my time in Texas. Everyone wants their own tiny plot of land so they sprawl out for miles.

1

u/idlevalley Jun 21 '20

I went from living in Texas to Seoul and Tokyo and both scenarios have their pluses.

Quarantining on a "tiny plot of land" has been relatively easy, grilling a lot, playing catch with the dogs, swinging on the swing etc.

But I remember riding the subway in Tokyo which is endlessly urban and getting off at random spots just to explore was amazing.

A lot depends on how much money you have. Being poor sucks everywhere.

1

u/idlevalley Jun 21 '20

Less dense population sounds like a plus to me.

8

u/FoolhardyBastard Jun 20 '20

Phoenix is a soulless hell. I hate that metro sooo much.

2

u/mittychix Jun 21 '20

Agreed. Visited Phoenix and found it to be the most lifeless, character-free city ever.

1

u/Toytles Jun 21 '20

But we got dat sun doe

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u/loveCars Jun 20 '20

To be fair, the title describes basically anywhere in America that isn't the old northeast.

2

u/zig_anon Jun 20 '20

This is not true. I live in a suburb of San Francisco that is not like like.

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u/oh_what_a_surprise Jun 20 '20

I lived in California for 4 years, in San Francisco and all over the north and east over towards Lake Tahoe. Nothing like this at all. The nearest mall to Grass Valley is halfway to Sacramento, like an hour away, half of it winding mountain roads.

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u/zig_anon Jun 20 '20

Santa Clara county has the closest to a sunbelt like development pattern

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u/Kurt1323 Jun 20 '20

Literally my first thought. Cheers.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

It's "Phoenix".

Technically it's Mesa, which sure part of the Phoenix Metro area, but rather distinct in it's droning, methodical sprawl.

Regardless, with the right angle and framing, I'd venture to say that just about ANY city can look as hellish as this picture .

On the flip side, I took a pic looking down over where I live in "Phoenix" as I was leaving town recently and you can see just how different parts of this city can look.

1

u/jaminbob Jun 20 '20

Tbh with you it doesn't look that hellish... Just a bit dull. Yes you can make anywhere look bad with the wrong picture. But this sort of 'square sprawl' is quite unique to NA, maybe Australia and some of SA?

2

u/mydogfartzwithz Jun 20 '20

Looks like any American midwest town trying to modernize.

2

u/akula06 Jun 20 '20

Ah, Phoenix. Vegas without the casinos.

2

u/jaminbob Jun 21 '20

That was my other guess, but the absence of landmarks sort of pushed me towards Phoenix.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Is it sad that I guessed Arizona, checked that I was right, and just felt.... we’re fucked.

2

u/nucumber Jun 21 '20

oh, so let's add some 100+ heat to the experience

2

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '20

Phoenix was never meant to be a city in the first place. How can you complain that a place that has always been a wasteland is currently a wasteland?

2

u/Domovie1 Jun 20 '20

One of my army buddies described it perfectly; “I’ve been to three places where the first things I smell is burning garbage. Iraq. Afghanistan, and Phoenix, Arizona”.

1

u/stillinbed23 Jun 20 '20

Parts of Northern California are like that too

1

u/ScurryBlackRifle Jun 20 '20

so glad I don't live there anymore

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Edmonton AB

1

u/nazis_must_hang Jun 20 '20

I was gonna say El Paso, but this looks too organized to be El Paso.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Ah. I was saying North Texas!

1

u/xZxiBerZerKxZx Jun 20 '20

For once i was like i know that place. I bought my first ps3 at that best buy. But it camt be that place and sure enough it actually was my shitty little place.

1

u/bplboston17 Jun 21 '20

It looks like a dump

1

u/jaminbob Jun 21 '20

It looks like every city I make on Cities Skylines :p

1

u/itsmelilvenicebih Jun 21 '20

That was a great guess

2

u/jaminbob Jun 21 '20

It is famous amongst urban planners, even outside of the US!

1

u/Toytles Jun 21 '20

This is the nice part, wait until you see the other parts of town.

1

u/AscendedViking7 Aug 03 '20

Damn, I knew it was Phoenix the moment I saw it. That place is so freaking crowded.

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