Tucson's got a lovely "art district" downtown, lots of artists... it's a compact city by comparison to my Albuquerque NM and especially by comparison to Phoenix (which has been described as East Los Angeles), and it's still got a bit of Old West flavor...I have especially enjoyed the little mountain, just outside town, for quick exercise day hikes...much like Tamalpais in Marin County in SF Bay Area. South of Tucson there's Organ Pipe National Monument, which is a little-known gem but unfortunately has suffered from increases in cross country drug "mules" which in turn has been a gold mine for various Fed police agencies.
I'm in Albuquerque.... more of a city than Tucson and it's reliably 10-15 deg cooler in Summer. Tucson's a good town by comparison to Phoenix. Flagstaff is another world, a nearly entirely wealthy/student town now, mountainous tree country, LOTS of snow.
Ethnically, Albuquerque has a lot more Indians than Tucson (Pueblo and Navajo) and a large percentage of our perhaps-40% Hispanic population traces their roots back directly to Spain, not Mexico, earlier in some instances than 1600 (Cabeza de Baca)...whereas Arizona's Hispanic population mostly comes from Mexico..apples/oranges culturally.
I strongly urge Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony," a novel dealing correctly I believe with experiences of returning Navajo WWII POW (Bataan...their taboo experiences were echoed in Vietnam) and also "Almanac of the Dead" a much bigger book that mixes Tucson history, SW real estate development, Arizona's mafia, drug trade, Apache wars, the possible multiple Geronimos, and other remarkable connections..all of it at least somewhat grounded accurately. The "Marmon" in her name connects through her grandfather, who ran a trading post, and the Marmon automobile. She's a brilliant writer who happens to come from the Laguna Pueblo, half way between Albuquerque and the AZ border, one of the Pueblos that revolted and drove the Spanish out for a couple of decades, allegedly due to issues involving their children and Spanish priests.
http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Silko.html
Since you'll be living among Indians and might want to learn a little about them without the paranoia that creeps into Silko's work, I also strongly suggest anything by Tony Hillerman, an 80+ yr old Albuquerque icon, journalist, and novelist who has spent a lifetime socializing with Navajo people...Indian police procedural/mysteries (Sergeant Jim Chee and Leutenant Joe Leaphorn, Navajo Tribal Police), easy reads, great fun. But what's even better, if you're driving to AZ, are the audio tapes...Hillerman's a great reader...several have been made into movies for PBS. Some suggestions "Dance Hall of the Dead," "Skinwalkers" "The Blessing Way," "Coyote Waits" etc...they're sold in all Southwest airports...and knowing some Navajo people a bit, I can say he's more realistically in tune with them than people who study them academically (they've suffered too many anthropologists in the past hundred years).
I'll add this: negativity about people in the SW comes entirely from people in isolated communities (Intel, USAF etc) who have not tried to connect with people who are rooted here....the SW consists substantially of wonderful, generous, entertaining, white, native, and Hispanic people. There are pockets of very traditional black people, as well, though not many Asians . If people don't like outdoor life, don't like Indians, aren't interested in other cultures or people in general, they should stay in the Midwest, where nothing in particular exists (in my experience anyway). :bang:
