“Is Tucson in Arizona?” John Lennon requested Paul McCartney as they labored out a place of origin for Jojo in “The Beatles: Get Again” documentary. McCartney’s solution: “Yeah, it’s, yeah — it’s the place they make ‘High Chaparral.’”
Greater than part a century later, Tucson’s antique TV-Western identification lingers within the public creativeness, and to be honest, that is nonetheless the type of position the place you’ll in finding running ranches, as many pickups as sedans, and citywide faculty closures all the way through February’s Rodeo Spoil.
However some issues have modified. Since Jojo’s day, the metro house inhabitants that has greater than tripled, to about 1,080,000. More or less 547,000 reside within the town correct, even supposing locals believe themselves rightful Tucsonans inside of or outdoor the town limits. Lately, Tucson could also be the type of position that boasts the primary UNESCO City of Gastronomy designation in america, sufficient optical sciences expertise on the College of Arizona to provider sone of the biggest telescopes on the earth — and such a lot of native observatories, an legitimate astronomy trail introduced this 12 months.
Location: Pima County in southern Arizona, about 70 miles north of the Mexican border and 110 miles southeast of Phoenix
Inhabitants: 547,239 within the town and 1,080,000 within the metro house
House: About 240 sq. miles within the town and 500 sq. miles within the metro house
Homeownership: 52 p.c within the town and 65 p.c within the metro house
The vibe: Aerospace hub meets outdoorsy faculty the town with a definite Mexican taste.
Having grown out of a 1775 Spanish presidio, Tucson is set an hour’s power north of Mexico within the Sonoran Wasteland, the place mountains encompass a saguaro-studded valley that has sustained other folks for more than 10,000 years. That precolonial historical past accounts for the “+” within the 250+ Anniversary celebration at the town’s 2025 calendar — person who’s already full of crowd pleasers such because the Tucson Festival of Books and the Tucson International Mariachi Conference. Even the century-old Tucson Rodeo Parade — by which Linda Ronstadt, a place of origin heroine, used to trip as a kid — attracts an estimated 200,000 spectators.
“It’s a large town that seems like a small the town,” stated Mayor Regina Romero, the primary girl and primary Latina elected to the workplace. In spite of residing in Arizona’s second-largest town, she added, “we nonetheless every so often see ourselves as a little bit pueblo.”
Certainly, Tucsonans’ nickname for his or her town is the Outdated Pueblo. And after many years of sprawl expanded the bigger metropolitan house’s footprint to about 500 sq. miles, the town’s older central neighborhoods — maximum famously, the adobe-filled Barrio Viejo — are regaining reputation.
One key issue is the Sun Link, a unfastened electrical streetcar that connects many of those puts: An estimated 100,000 Tucsonans reside or paintings inside half of 1 mile of the direction. “This is a easiest instance of a public funding that leveraged billions of greenbacks of personal funding,” stated Mayor Romero. For the reason that direction’s inception virtually 11 years in the past, new eating places, companies and housing tasks have thrived alongside the once-ailing hall.
The plan is to extend speedy transit all the way through the town over the following a number of years, partly to inspire extra mixed-use walkable communities — and partly, stated the mayor, “to make certain that if any person needs to reside, paintings and play in our town, they are able to in truth get at the bus or streetcar and move any place.”
The place some Tucsonans generally tend to move, in fact, is a ways away — no less than in the summertime, when triple-digit temperatures are a truth of lifestyles. Like a lot of the Sunbelt, the town loses a variety of snowbird retirees to their different houses within the Northeast or Midwest.
Retired or now not, house patrons are opting for Tucson over pricier puts. “Curiously, the marketplace that’s in point of fact jumped up so much in the previous couple of years has been the prime mountains,” stated Kevin Kaplan, leader working officer of Lengthy Realty. “Puts like Denver have turn out to be very, very pricey,” he defined, and Tucson gives comparative affordability — and not using a scarcity of mountains.
And that ring of peaks is greater than a bodily characteristic, stated the mayor. “It’s serenity.”
Getting There, Getting Round
Tucson is in large part a automotive (and pickup truck) the town, however there are alternatives.
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Streetcar: The unfastened Sun Link connects Mercado San Agustin and issues east to the College of Arizona, alongside a 30-minute, just about four-mile direction.
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Rail: Amtrak has a downtown station with provider to Phoenix, Flagstaff, San Diego, Los Angeles and extra.
Neighborhoods
Properties vary from unmarried to multifamily, relying at the community.
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Barrio Viejo A remnant of a bigger Nineteenth-century barrio that’s coated with conventional Sonoran adobes. Stuffed with personality, attractiveness, nice meals, drink and artwork; but in addition vacationers and non permanent holiday leases.
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Blenman Elm is anchored through the venerable Arizona Inn, and dates to the early 1900s.
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Sam Hughes Nationwide Historical District additionally dates to the early 1900s, and is understood for family-friendly facilities, together with Himmel Park.
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The Mercado District is a deliberate neighborhood anchored through the retail- and restaurant-focused Mercado San Agustin and surrounded through apartments and single-family homes.
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The Catalina Foothills is at the north facet of the town, with most commonly single-family houses continuously with expansive town and mountain perspectives.
Faculties
There are 335 public colleges and 92 non-public colleges serving 155,763 Ok-12 scholars (2024-2025) within the Tucson metro house.
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