Yuma

[MJLO]

Wherever I live, I tend to immerse myself in it. As noted by my all consuming knowlege of all things Michigan. I've heard about Yuma. But the only thing I know about it, is that it has upwards of 90k residents in it. Is it a giant empty burg in the desert, fueled by military testing/training? Or is there more history and character to that. From what i've seen and heard, it's kind of like Arizona's version of Fresno. (Which in this context is not a good thing.)

[colin]

Yeah, Yuma's a bit of a sh**hole.

It gets up to 120 in the summer, it's humid because of the river and surrounding farms, and I've been told that they have a major white fly issue in the summer.

It's well over 100k in metro area, but it surges quite a bit (not sure how much) in the winter when the snow birds fly down in their RVs in about October to remind locals how much better the Midwest is.

It's basically retirees and marines. I've spent the night there a couple of times. The highlight of the town is the historical Yuma Crossing, the old prison, Brownie's and a wi-fi cafe. They built an enormous mall out there about 2 years ago. Prior to that, the "mall" seriously had about ten stores but was still packed with people (most of them just sort of wandering around).

Yuma is named for a local Indian tribe. It was established around a ferry that crossed the Colorado, which was one of the few places to get across the river at the time. They built a federal prison as well in the 19th century which is now a national historic site and the only tourist attraction in town, although they're redeveloping Downtown so that it will have something else to offer.

If it wasn't so damned hot, it might be a nice place.

Also, if you're interested, look up the old Plank Road, which started near Yuma. It has an interesting history.

I'll post pics, but I think I posted some of these in a thread previously:

Downtown:

Marine Corps Base (where much of "Jarhead" was filmed):

Date farm across the river in Winterhaven:

[MJLO]

I'm trying to find out more information on Yuma, and i'm not finding out much exciting, I know that the city has roughly 80k people in it. That it has a land area of about 107 sq mi. Thats almost no density at all. You guys got any tidbits at all?

[colin]

On the way back from San Diego yesterday I noticed that they've built a fairly large golf-oriented housing development just south of Wellton. Wellton is about 50 miles east of Yuma across the mountains, in the Lower Gila Valley.

If there's a place in Arizona more inhospitable than Yuma, then it's Wellton. Plus, there's barely a grocery store and a couple of cafes (only one of which is open year-round) in Wellton. It did appear though that they're building some sort of large chain hotel near the development, unless that was some sort of 5- or 6-story apartment building.

http://www.glencurtisinc.com/CoyoteWash/

[colin]

Citizens force annexation reconsideration in Yuma

I believe the area they're referring to is the "Foothills" area of Yuma, on the east side toward the Gila Mountains along I-8. The area has been growing heavily in the past few years, and it seems like it was only a matter of time before this area became part of Yuma proper.

[MJLO]

I am starting to believe that the only real reason that cities in Arizona are growing by leaps and bounds, is because they keep expanding their borders. I has nothing to do with people moving into the municipalities. Soon Enough Phoenix will be the second largest city inthe country with a population of six million people, and a land area of 105,000 sq mi. You'll cross in to AZ from NM and it'll say " Phoenix city limits".

[convulso]

You'll cross in to AZ from NM and it'll say " Phoenix city limits".

[colin]

Yeah, there's already signs up for a planned community off of Wickenburg Road, which is around Tonopah and 355th Avenue. That's the Hassayampa Plain, and, although it's ugly enough that I'm not overly concerned about it being developed responsibily, I am concerned about all of those people coming into Phoenix every day.

[MJLO]

does anybody have any stats on Yuma? City pop. Metro pop. sq mileage of the city.

[Manolos]

From wikipedia:

Yuma has around 160,000 people (metro)

City has 84,688

and 106.2 square miles.

No offense: the pictures of Yuma look...boring haha. I have never been out there.

[colin]

A rare mention of Yuma development. Could bring a hockey team in. It seems like an even more unlikely place for hockey than Phoenix.

Developer confident Yuma arena has enough support for approval

[convulso]

welcome to bizarro world. population? climate? strong hockey demographic (well, with all the golf courses from there on to wellton, maybe the snowturds have the hockey demo covered....)?

i'm not complaining. towns in arizona do interesting things, and that makes them...interesting.

[colin]

I think that's exactly what they would get: snowbirds.

Hockey is so big in the Midwest that I'm sure a $5 or so ticket to a game in a comfortable, new stadium, only to step out to the 70 degrees outside, would appeal to them. I don't see a lot of interest from locals.