Why do people live in Phoenix? Not because we're all crazy. Or because we love the heat

A quick glance at the weather app on my phone — this becomes an obsession about five minutes after you move to Arizona — is not promising.

Looks like we’ll be getting up in the 115-degree range again soon, after a veritable cold snap of highs around 108. My eyes didn’t tear up, but it’s not welcome news, particularly after the heat we’ve had lately.

That’s what it’s like around here. You take the bad with the worse in the summer.

Perhaps you’ve heard that Phoenix in July was like hell on a hot day. Of course, you’ve heard — Phoenix heat is a national obsession, making the front page of the New York Times, the nightly national news, dominating local news. You watch and read and listen to enough of those stories and see TikTok posts of people frying eggs on sidewalks or whatever, and the question becomes obvious.

Why do people live in Phoenix?

Breaking news: It's hot in Arizona. Just ask the media

Why do people live in Phoenix?

It's complicated.

Believe me, this is a question those of us who live in the Valley of the Blistering Hot Sun (new motto idea, feel free to use at no extra charge) ask ourselves every day in the summer, which is roughly defined as the period between June and October, when walking outside feels like opening an oven and the heat blasts you in the face.

And yet people keep moving here. Phoenix is routinely cited as one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, and the Census Bureau cited more people moving to Maricopa County than anywhere else in the country.

Suckers.

Kidding. Sort of.

There’s no getting around it — the heat is brutal. At least in Green Bay or wherever you can add more layers when it’s freezing. You can only take off so much when the temperatures are averaging triple digits.

That’s why Arizona was going to be a temporary stop for me. Do some good work, enjoy the temperate winters, suffer through a couple of summers and move on.

I’ve lived here for 33 years.

Many of the reasons are the usual ones: good job, once-upon-a-time affordable housing, lots of friends, raised a family here, that kind of thing.

But really, all of that could have happened in any number of places. (Like one where it cools off at night. And there are gurgling streams within earshot. And you can actually touch your steering wheel when you get in your car. What an idiot.)

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People wonder what living in 115-degree heat is like. We KNOW

More specific to Phoenix and the surrounding area, it has all four major sports: football, basketball, baseball and hockey. It has a thriving dining scene, which possibly gets written about enough by national media now to no longer qualify as underrated (or unknown). All the major music acts play here — Taylor Swift started her universe-conquering tour here — and the local music scene is strong, as well.

The weather is pretty swell when it's not triple digits. Great winters, in other words. You can play most sports almost year-round. And it's a hotbed for cornhole, apparently. Not sure that qualifies as a sport, but it's good to know.

There’s Arizona State University, Grand Canyon University, a major, easily accessible airport (with nicer dining options than a lot of cities). In other words, there are a lot of reasons to live here.

And yet a lot of cities have versions of all that, and as an added bonus do not include a better-than-average chance of heat stroke in the bargain.

So again, the question: Why do people live in Phoenix?

Phoenix is a city of rebirth

I think part of it is our contrarian streaks. Everyone else wonders what it’s like to live through regular 115-degree temperatures. We know.

Plus, you can drive two hours in any direction and be in a completely different climate. Just be prepared for marathon traffic jams on the way home from Flagstaff. (If you know, you know.)

The point is, you’ve got choices. Really, you can come to Phoenix and be just about whatever you want to be. No one cares who your family is or where you went to college. (Why yes, I did grow up in the South.) Mostly, people just care who you are.

Don’t sell short the idea of reinvention. Back in the day, people moved west to get away from other places. It’s still a place to change yourself, even if it means living on the surface of the sun.

Take it from Jack Burden, in Robert Penn Warren’s great novel “All the King’s Men": “First, that you cannot lose what you have never had. Second, that you are never guilty of a crime which you did not commit. So there is innocence and a new start in the West, after all.”

So why live in Phoenix? The better question is: Why not?

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X, formerly known as Twitter: @goodyk.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why do people live in Phoenix? Not for the reasons you might think