Trust me: Scottsdale has plenty of stress
Don’t believe that WalletHub survey that claims Scottsdale residents are the sixth-least stressed in the nation.
The survey was based on factors like a low unemployment rate, high median income and lower-than-average divorce rate. Because if everyone has a job, plenty of cash and 2.3 children, life is peachy, right?
Never mind what they say about “mo’ money, mo’ problems.” Hm. I think there was a song about that.
But anyway. It’s abundantly clear that WalletHub has never been to Scottsdale or followed its politics, because let me tell you: There is all sorts of stress there.
❚ Stressing about what kind of car you drive.
❚ And how big your McMansion is.
❚ And whether you know the right people.
❚ Or hang out at the right places. Scottsdale on the weekend is the place to be seen. Not to chill out and act like yourself. Oh, no. There is more than enough makeup, posing and general mask-wearing to prove no one wants to see that.
The same attitude is present in city politics. Consider:
When I was temporarily reassigned to cover Scottsdale years ago, someone deeply entrenched in that scene told me shouldn’t mention that I had previously been covering Mesa and Tempe, because sources might look down on me.
I don’t stand for any of that “And who are you?” stuff, so of course I told people when they asked.
(And, oddly, people did ask a lot. I had no idea my background mattered so much to them.)
A city leader at the time called just after I arrived, having spoken to me maybe once before, to say she was going to put in a good word for me to get the Scottsdale job permanently.
I politely told her that I wasn’t planning to apply. I enjoyed covering Mesa and Tempe, and at the time, I lived in Chandler. I preferred a shorter commute.
She simply could not understand why I wouldn’t want to cover — or live in — Scottsdale permanently.
I could tell you lots more stories, but that attitude helps explain why there has been a revolving door of city managers and school superintendents. And decades of infighting on the City Council.
Not to mention a long list of zoning projects that played by different rules, depending on who proposed them and whether elected leaders loved or hated them.
It doesn’t matter whether you want to keep up with these Joneses or not. Unless all you do in Scottsdale is close your garage door after work and lounge quietly in your pool, you have their stress in your life.
Some of the chillest people in the nation?
Yeah, right.