I get New York and Chicago and LA and Boston and New Orleans and San Francisco. These are cities that make sense. I even get the reasons why Las Vegas exists, perverse as they are.

But what possibly justifies the existence of Pheonix Arizona?

  • SickleRick [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    The Salt River used to be a real river before it was dammed and diverted, and stage coaches crossed it at Hayden's Ferry in what is now Tempe (a suburb of Phoenix), as well as others like the Verde. Additionally, there was a lot of irrigation infrastructure already built by the native peoples who were forcibly displaced by the settlers. Before it became a huge sprawl, temperatures weren't as ridiculous (concrete heat island effect).

    Managed properly, it could be a less terrible place. Instead, all of the worst US urban planning techniques came together to make the hellscape that it is today.

    • deepcutsinsideme [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Proper management would include picking up half the population of the southwest and moving them east.

      • sonartaxlaw [undecided,he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Its not noticeably salty (I lost a bet), turns out it just runs over an area that has a bunch of salt deposits

        • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          I'm inclined to think something running over salt deposits makes it salty. Perhaps not noticeably to the human tongue, but did you see plants growing in it or near it as one is accustomed to seeing on land?

          • sonartaxlaw [undecided,he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 years ago

            I mean, yeah? The intermitent part of the river down from the dam is very lush. Like even if there was much salt in it it can't be worse for plants then whatever got the Indian bend wash turned into a Superfund site. Those are like underground salt deposits, in mines.