My boyfriend and I are thinking of moving to Arizona. We have a small child in elementrary school so of course we need a place with a great education system. He’s a truck driver who drives a set of doubles and was told Arizona is the only state other than Michigan (our state) that allows doubles on the roads. I’m just wondering what some good areas are to start researching as far as employment and school systems. I don’t want to live in a retirement city nor do I want a city like Phoenix. I’d really like a nice suburb.
Thanks!!!
Where’s A Good Place To Live In Arizona?
July 6th, 2009 by admin Leave a reply »
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If you like warm year round….Queen Creek, Higley, Gilbert or Chandler are all great places. A lot of people live there and commute to Phoenix. All have great schools, reasonable rent on a huge variety of homes and the housing market is finally getting reasonable again. I moved to Queen Creek from a small town in Iowa and the places I looked for homes to rent were websites such as rent.com, and the local newspaper websites such as azrepublic.com and eastvalleytribune.com The schools systems are a little more difficult to research. I just crossed my fingers and enrolled my daughter in Queen Creek Schools, there are charter schools out here too-which isn’t an option available back home. I don’t think I would recommend those. There seems to be a lot in the news about those not meeting the education guidelines.
If you are interested in Queen Creek go to http://www.ourqueencreek.com It is an on-line forum and you can ask questions from the residents of the area and they would love to help you find the perfect school for your kids.
Did you know that there is a high school in the area that kids can attend and when they graduate they have an associate’s degree in animal science?! My aunt is checking it out for her daughter. The only down side is that it is a 5 year high school. Pretty wild!
Check out the websites I talked about and good luck in your search.
If you want simular weather (snow-but not horrible cold) like back home look at Prescott up north. I think it is the most beautiful city in Arizona. Lots of charm. And the housing is reasonable there too.
Gilbert! or mesa but with in gilbert school district boundaries (its weird how they have it set up) The school i suggest for elementary is SSE(superstition springs elementary) good teachers there and thats where i went(im in 8th grade at highland junior now)
Surprise is a fairly new city ( established 1960). New houses were built in the early 2000’s and some are still being built. Great educational system, great community, although it’s about 15 minutes to the freeway and about 30 minutes to Phoenix. It’s west of Phoenix and near an Air Force base, so that could be an area of interest in terms of employment.
Take a look Anthem which is about 12 miles north of the Phoenix city limits. Excellent housing and school system and they have a large factory outlet Mall nearby. However, if you’d have to commute to a job in Phoenix daily the rush hour traffic to and from is down right awful!
Sierra Vista AZ. It is a good small town to raise children. I live there.
I agree with the poster who said Surprise. For what you are looking for, it would be ideal.
I say either Gilbert or Chandler; both are suburbs of Phoenix and they consistently have some of the highest rankings as far as the educational systems. If I were you I would try the Kyrene School District. They are usually the best as far as performance, rankings, and satisfaction. Also, if you decide to go with a charter school there are a lot that have been running for many years and that have been very successful. There are also some that really stink. Just do your research. It is nice to have options here.
Sadona, it’s about 100 miles from Phoenix. It is a city I guess, but it is suburban like. It’ is higher elevation so the temps are considerably more tolerable than Phoenix. If you ever go there, ask someone where the Snoopy and Lucy rock formations are. You’ll be amazed and you can see them from a considerable distance away. I loved Arizona when I was there. good luck
Gilbert or Chandler would be great.