With a run of positive pieces about Tucson in the media lately (seemingly all of which mention Hippie Gypsy, so ok), there had to be some balance provided by the universe, so today, we get an article in Slate by smart weatherguy Eric Holthaus remarking upon our impending drought-induced doom!

Holthaus interviews Mayor Rothschild to discuss what the heck we're going to do about the general unsustainable nature of living out here in the desert, but I guess because he lived here once ("my home for two years and my wife’s home for six," he mentions), he gets the knives out as well:

Before the housing crash, Tucson was one of the hottest real estate markets in the country. Since then, the area has seen some serious reversion to the mean. Tucson is now one of the poorest big cities in the country with a per capita income of slightly more than $20,000. Tattoo parlors, seedy dive bars, and gas stations seem to make up the bulk of the retail establishments. There are few sidewalks, so The Walking Dead—esque scenes of people stumbling through the street at all hours of the day or night are commonplace. Tucson is off-the-charts poor and getting worse.

From the city’s reviews on Yelp:

I have never felt more depressed by the environment around me as I have been living in Tucson. A strong runner up would be Baku [Azerbaijan].

Honestly, the piece is totally worth reading (despite a sponsorship by Arizona State), but man, Holthaus would feel right at home shittalking our town on one of our right-wing talk shows (outside of believing in climate change, obvs):

Tucson was recently named one of the top cities in the country for twentysomethings. But the overwhelming feeling my wife and I got from living in Tucson was that most people there were transient. It didn't feel like a permanent place at all, or that it even should​ be a permanent place to live, at least not in its current state. Maybe it was an effect of living in the desert—it's a place you go to visit, not to live.