Would you rather live in Fargo, ND or Phoenix, AZ?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

In addition to being preferable in virtually every way, including being less of a sprawly suburban mess, Fargo also has better weather.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

In addition to being preferable in virtually every way, including being less of a sprawly suburban mess, Fargo also has better weather.

I think most people prefer the weather in Phoenix to Fargo.  Plus, if you live in Phoenix, you have a short drive to the mountains or the beach for a few weekends in the summer.  You can't really escape the cold in Fargo during the winter. 

In terms of the sprawl, who is making you live in Gilbert or Buckeye?  If you live in Phoenix, you don't necessarily spend any time in those sprawly suburbs.

Phoenix itself is also a sprawly mess that contains many very un-urban parts, much like Jacksonville.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Might I also point out that the Cass County Sheriff is no doubt an asshole, he's not Joe Arpaio.

And seriously, Joe Arpaio alone is enough reason not to live in Maricopa County. His violations of due process, civil liberties, and human rights are horrific and not something I want to ever have the possibility of being the victim of.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

In addition to being preferable in virtually every way, including being less of a sprawly suburban mess, Fargo also has better weather.

I think most people prefer the weather in Phoenix to Fargo.  Plus, if you live in Phoenix, you have a short drive to the mountains or the beach for a few weekends in the summer.  You can't really escape the cold in Fargo during the winter. 

In terms of the sprawl, who is making you live in Gilbert or Buckeye?  If you live in Phoenix, you don't necessarily spend any time in those sprawly suburbs.

Phoenix itself is also a sprawly mess that contains many very un-urban parts, much like Jacksonville.

I know, I've been there many times.  I was more referring to central Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe around ASU.

The Fargo-Moorhead area is actually surprisingly well designed in terms of public transit and walkability. This is mostly because the traffic layout makes sense, and you don't have hordes of roads to nowhere or to some random neighborhood with no reason to exist where it does instead of closer in. Not perfect obviously and has some bad areas, but you can ignore them. Downtown Fargo kind of reminds me of south Minneapolis (in the sense of Minneapolis south of where I live, not the entire south Minneapolis area) and it has all the cool independent stores and coffee shops too. Even West Fargo is pretty well connected to the main city and to find horrific sprawl you have to drive outside of the city limits or to exurbs that were rural towns without traffic lights when I was in high school.

And as noted above, you don't have to live with the possibility of being a victim of Joe Arpaio's never ending civil liberties violations.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Phoenix (sane)

What the hell is sane about living in an oven ran by Joe Arpaio?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I lived through more than 18 North Dakota winters. Its no big deal.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Really? Even most people I know that like cooler weather prefer 100 degrees to 0 degrees, if they are forced to choose. You must have a lot of natural body heat or someting.

0 degrees is far preferable to 100, no contest. You'd have to go down to about -15F or so for it to become comparable.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Phoenix (sane)

What the hell is sane about living in an oven ran by Joe Arpaio?

Where to begin?

1) The weather preference is the closest thing to a personally subjective comparison. Yeah, it's a dry heat in Phoenix, but it's still a lot of heat. That said, anybody who claims Fargo winters "aren't that bad" because "I've survived about 18 of them" is not only objectively wrong, but likely suffering from an Ingress-related head injury. Point: Phoenix.

2) Joe Arpaio sucks, but he hardly "runs" Phoenix. He's in charge of the county jail and law enforcement generally in the unincorporated parts of Maricopa County plus a few (mostly smaller) incorporated communities they contract with. Phoenix PD is the law enforcement agency one would most likely deal with. Furthermore, most people on the Forum aren't likely to be arrested, at least not for anything serious. Again, Arpaio sucks, but thinking he'd have a tangible impact on one's life to avoid moving there is just boneheaded. That'd be like a Democrat not moving to WI or ME because they're "run" by Walker or LePage. But I imagine that if there are enough hipster churches there even that'd be okay. Fargo is penalized for general cluelessness by it's boosters---Point: Phoenix.

3) The largest city in the American Southwest with an enormous offering of cultural, recreational and entertainment opportunities vs.........Fargo. This isn't even debatable. Name an area of interest: music, art, sports, cultural, dining, dance, educational, nightlife, etc, etc, etc, etc. Phoenix has it, and often in spades.
Someone aptly pointed out that too many people believe the fallacy a city has to have at least "X" thousand people in it for there to be things to do. True, but we're not comparing Phoenix to Santa Fe, or even Green Bay, but to Fargo. The only apparent cultural attractions of note there are a plethora of regrettable "fests". Point: Phoenix x 100000.

4) Diversity: We're comparing a city of one and a half million with not only a large Hispanic population, but also sizable vibrant African-American, Native American, and Asian communties. It's truly a melting pot.

vs. Fargo, population a bit over 100k, whose whiteness matches it's landscape 7 months a year. "Diversity? Oh, yah, we gots lotsa diversity hereabouts. We got Germans AND Norwegians dontcha know." And no, having both emoviolence fans and screamcore fans IS NOT diversity.
PointGOOOOOOOAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL: Phoenix.

5) Landscape. I went to Phoenix a couple years ago. It's uniformly breathtaking. The mesas and desert cliffs. One would have to be flint-hearted not to be moved.

As best as I can tell, the landscape in greater Fargo, when one can see it the few months it's not buried under snow, is largely flat--as in "Hey! I can see Bismark standing on the hood of my truck!", flat--croplands for several area codes in every direction. But hey, if you like wheatfield after wheatfield after wheatfield after dairy farm after corn field after wheatfield after wheatfield, this is definitely the place for you!
Point: The Place With Great Scenery (not Fargo)

7) Being sick of the incessant attention-whoring BRTD threads involving Fargo or North Dakota. It technically may have nothing to do with either city's desirability, but on general principle--Point: Phoenix.

1) I've always held the heat to be far worse than the cold, because for cold you just have to put on a heavier jacket or another layer. Not much you can do with Phoenix level heat. Also every summer I hear stories about people collapsing and dying in heat waves, it's pretty rare to hear a story about someone freezing to death here even in the winter (and when it happens it's usually hypothermia because of some drunk person walking into a lake or something)

2) Actually Scott Walker is the main reason I would not move to Wisconsin from here. And Arpaio's violations of civil liberties are hardly trivial. It might be OK to overlook if Phoenix was an otherwise desirable place to live instead of a hot sprawling mess but as it is...

3) The show I saw last month in Fargo was one of the most fun ones I've ever been to. Per capita Fargo actually has far more than Phoenix. For various reasons bands prefer to play in Tuscon than Phoenix. Phoenix is not just a particularly desirable city to go to shows in, from what I gather the scene is mostly bad metalcore, think the type of crap 20RP12 liked. There was Jimmy Eat World I suppose but they started out two decades ago.

4) I described Fargo in another thread as the type of place where you can walk down a grocery store aisle passing a Somali man and a Hispanic woman with a chestpiece tattoo and necklace that says "DOPE" on it. I know this because I actually did it. Fargo is kind of becoming Twin Cities-lite in demographics. One demographic group that Phoenix has far more of is annoying olds who can't drive.

5) OK you have obviously never been to Fargo now if you think there's only a "few" months it's not under snow. Even North Dakota doesn't get any permanent snow until around Thanksgiving (there might be some earlier but it usually melts before that) and by mid-March it's mostly gone. There might be a snow storm or two after that, but then it all melts away quickly. So that leaves around 3-4 months of being buried in snow, or around only 25-33% of the year.

Now it's true that it's flat in that area (and while you can't see Bismarck from Fargo, you can from over 20 miles away on I-94, especially if it's dark out as Bismarck is the only light source) but I'm sure many might disagree on that being just boring, see Nathan's comment here:

Has absolutely no redeeming characteristics, or characteristics in general. HS, but because it is boring and white it will get a large FS majority.

It has a lot of open, stark natural beauty, although I imagine it had more before the energy boom started. That's why I'm voting FS on most of the Interior West states, not anything to do with their racial demographics.

Plus in Fargo you're not too far from being able to visit many of the places listed here if you want to check out cool scenery: www.ghostsofnorthdakota.com

6) (as it was skipped to 7.) Actually I explained above why I made this and the other thread, because the show I went to in Fargo was actually quite awesome and in fact even better than your average Minneapolis show.