I guess if I were pitching PHX as a place to live, I'd say this: let's say you're 40, got a family, fighting it out in the Bay Area everyday for some little piece of the pie, a place like Phoenix could be a real shift of gears towards the better. This is an easy to place to live: commutes are fairly relaxed, real estate prices are low, everything is laid out in a nice big grid, so you're never really lost.<p>The obvious criticism of The Valley, as we like to call it, is that it's an undifferentiated sea of vitamin-c colored houses, that's totally true. Absolutely. And yeah, it's gonna be 108 here at the end of the week. Nothing but sunny days for the next three months.<p>The key to survival of an Arizona summer is to find a pool, grab a beer, and settle in.<p>Arizona is not without its obvious issues, but this place is steadily getting better. We've got a really strong outdoors community, tons of people up at dawn, running around in one of the really sizable parks which dot our metroplex. Our cultural scene has come together well after the launch of the Crescent Ballroom in Downtown PHX. We're centrally located with easy access to all the pleasures of the west, from the beaches at Rocky Point, Mexico and San Diego to the mountains in Colorado.