When I first found out that I was moving from a small, idyllic town in New Hampshire to a desert city with over 1.6 million residents, I was terrified. I didn’t know what to expect from “Phoenix, Arizona”. I knew that I wanted to stay in the town I felt safe in, where I could walk to my friends houses and to town in under 10 minutes, climb a tree, swim across the Connecticut river with my dog, and sled and ski in the winter. As far as I could understand, none of that was possible in Arizona. I remember wondering “Where are the grass and the trees?” The environmental change was large, but it wasn’t the only thing I was about to have to adjust to in the coming months. My 5 minute bus ride to my small public elementary school became a 20 minute car ride to a performing arts middle school in the traffic of Downtown Phoenix. My quaint but restrictively small bubble was 2,622 miles away, and I was now surrounded by a multicultural community in the Southwest. I felt like my life had been turned upside down.
Downtown Phoenix
But little by little, I began to adjust to my new surroundings. I began to appreciate the gorgeous sunsets every night, and to admire the way that the city wraps itself around the mountain preserves that I ran in almost every day. I began to adapt in the small performing arts school I was enrolled in with my older sister, which was very involved in the arts scene of Downtown Phoenix. Her and I made a routine out of visiting the Nash Jazz Club and getting ice cream afterwards. Slowly, the urban area began to feel like home, instead of just a vacation in a place with perpetual summer. And against all odds, I grew to love the new city I was in.
Phoenix Mountain Preserve
However, as much as I had grown to appreciate my new environment, I saw the many problems Phoenix had as well. I hated that the only way I could get to school was to drive in a six-lane highway, with constant traffic and accidents. How can a million person city that spreads out more than 500 square miles have such terrible public transportation? I also found an issue with the heat. After running with my cross country team in Downtown Phoenix, I learned that phoenix struggles with urban heat islands, and I quickly became passionate about finding solutions. Through this adjustment process, Phoenix transformed from a foreign vacation spot to a complex home with both positive and negative attributes. Ultimately, the city's intricacies sparked my interest in urban planning. Though vastly different from my hometown in New Hampshire, Phoenix and its layers of beauty and ugliness have become integral parts of my identity.
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