Sunday 20 May 2012

Well, Alice Cooper likes it.... (Phoenix)

Phoenix... the fifth largest city in the USA. If you include the suburbs, there are 4 million people (according to the Rough Guide) living in the middle of a desert.

There's no water there, so it has to be piped in from vast distances. There's very little of cultural interest, and it's not a particularly attractive city to explore (for many reasons, not the least of which is a complete absence of shade from the burning sun).

Like much of America, everyone drives everywhere. The only people you see on the streets are the poor, the disenfranchised, the dissolute. In Phoenix, it's mostly native Americans from the local reservations. All of which means there's absolutely no sense of life on the streets. The town feels dead. Or at least it feels that way to someone used to European towns and cities, as I am. My main thought, as I explored the down-town, was (to paraphrase Gertrude Stein): "there's no there, there."

What is does have is a lot of golf courses (in the middle of the desert)....

I couldn't wait to get the eff out of town.



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