But, its a dry heat…
Not really … although there is more interest since Covid in the Hawaiian islands, though I think that’s more at the high end of the market. Lots of people think of Hawaii as a great place to visit but are horrified by the prospect of full-time residency.
Do remember, Oahu is only one of the islands in the state. I live on the Big Island and you can DEFINITELY buy a decent house here for $400k or so - or less, depending on what you want.
Every day (well, a lot of days … some days I’m lazy or it’s raining) I run or walk a 5k on breathtakingly beautiful, isolated country roads. It’s not too hot where I live (Hawaii Island has lots of microclimates, so there is much variety in weather patterns depending on where you live - right now it’s cold enough to require electric blankets or hot water bottles at night where I live.) Asian food, particularly Japanese and Thai, is the norm here. We have an awesome volcano nearby! Aloha really is a thing - everyone is pretty good about mask-wearing.
Yeah, there are downsides. Food can be super-expensive, depending on what you like to buy. The art scene sure as hell ain’t New York or LA (although here in East Hawai’i, if we ever get through Covid, we are about to have truly amazing theatrical programming thanks to a Broadway/Hollywood writer and director who had started taking the community by storm when Covid hit). If you have family or friends on the mainland that you’d like to see from time to time, better hope somebody has the wherewithal for shelling out lots of cash in airfare. The schools are pretty terrible, something to consider if you have or want children. And while medical care on Oahu can be excellent, routine medical care on the neighbor islands is scarce.
Almost everyone I know who has moved here from somewhere else loves it and has no regrets. The only couple I know who is sorry they moved here are kind of assholes. So don’t be too quick to write off Hawai’i - maybe it isn’t for you, but don’t assume that without a bit of research. Who cares about high food costs when you save a fortune on clothes (we’re super caz, appearance-wise) and gym memberships!
Gracious, sounds like that’s assuming a rather short walkability radius? In my city of 60+K people I can walk from my residential street with single-family and two-family homes to the heart of downtown in about 40-45 minutes. Two miles or so doesn’t seem unreasonable to walk on residential and shopping streets.
Same for me but cut all the figures in half: 30K people, 20 minutes walk, about one mile max for the great majority of people. (Now whether you WANT to go downtown is another matter…)
We may very well be dealing with different definitions of “walkable.”
“Can walk there” is not the same thing as “walkable”
This (corner of Van Buren and 5th) is not a walkable city. It’s a landscape of parking lots and fenced-off greenery, very much centred on the cars. Nor is this (1st and Washington). Despite the handful of pedestrians you see not getting mowed down by cars. And those were just a few of the many, many places like that I saw on a quick flythrough.
Yeah, yeah “You don’t live here…” Naah, it’s pretty easy to roughly assess walkability just from a Google Street View scan like that, though. How many pedestrian-only streets does Phoenix have, for example?
That’s pretty clear.
Oh, don’t be ridiculous.
I could find an infinite number of similar street-view photos in any “walkable” city in the world.
I assess it by, wait for it, walking there! And seeing how many people are out and about any given day or evening.
You can pick and choose any corner to “prove” you point. I can find a google street view of the South Bronx with burned out cars and scary drug dealers snd “prove” NYC isn’t walkable.
I’m not even sure why you think that specific corner isn’t “walkable”. It’s not even five blocks from Central Ave and downtown. Just because there’s nothing on that speciifc corner, I really don’t know what you are expecting to prove. See the sidewalks? See the tall buildings to the east? Your corner is a twenty minute walk to Chase Field, less to Symphony Hall and the aforementioned Fry’s Supermarket.
Try again.
I don’t know why no one can grasp this. It isn’t 130 here every day. It’s a gorgeous day today with highs in the low 60s.
And your story is exaggerated. It wasn’t too hot to fly. The planes could have flown. Stop spreading ignorance. The airport hasn’t been closed for heat since that day (in 1990!).
Get back to us in August! 
Right now in Chicago, temps are in singe digits, and it has snowed something like 14 of the last 17 days. The fact that we might get lovely weather in May or June doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck right now.
I agree. I grew up in Wisconsin. (I’ll take rattlesnakes over tornadoes any day!)
But no one is saying “don’t move to Chicago because it’s freakishly cold.” But they do say the opposite about Phoenix.
I picked two, I could have picked any of them in downtown. The point isn’t that I found the horrible ones, it’s that I couldn’t find ones that had good walkability.
The only “walkable” bit I found turned out to be the uni campus…hardly a public street.
Thereby proving you have no idea what walkability actually is.
Find me one for Venice 
And not the train station parking lot, a street in the heart.
Yeah, no cars.
But, I’m not sure I’d call this walkable.
(BTW, I loved Venice. But, it would be a nightmare to live there).
It is eminently walkable. It is built around walking - the traghetti and vaporettos are nice-to-haves, but walking is very well catered for. Bridges everywhere, and little campi to rest at. As long as the tides play along 
The only nightmare would be all the tourists. I’m glad I stayed there before they started letting the liners in.
Outside of the walkability requirement, Houston pretty much checks off every box on your list in excellent fashion. So does Dallas, although with less ethnic store and restaurant abundance.
Albuquerque might meet your criteria:
- Walkability (incl. ability to do it safely): Easy to walk since there are sidewalks everywhere, but stuff is spread out so you may need to walk a bit
- Asian supermarket within 15 minutes of travel: A few markets spread around. You’d have to live in the right area
- good ethnic restaurants: not the best selection. Most restaurants will be NM style, but there are some good Thai, Japanese, and Indian restaurants
- appreciating property value: Yes
- Decent airport: Yes
- Affordability (mainly housing + income/property taxes): Yes. A 600k house will be pretty nice. Property and income taxes are low, but you get what you pay for. NM is a poor state and won’t have the best roads or services.
Temps in ABQ are relatively moderate. It’s the high desert. The summers may get into the 90’s, but the humidity is so low it doesn’t feel bad. Winters will occasionally be cold, but if the sun is out you feel fine being outside. Snow generally evaporates pretty quickly and doesn’t create long lasting issues. But ABQ isn’t the most cosmopolitan city and may seem kind of boring compared to cooler cities. It’s good for living and working, but it’s not a city with a lot of gotta-see attractions.
NO ONE has made a case here what they believe “walkable” is. I’ve even asked.
If you go downtown Phoenix, get off the light rail, you can walk to two ballparks, Symphony hall, two different live theaters, a speaker hall, the courthouse, more restaurants and bars than I’ll ever go to,
art galleries, the Civil Plaza, museums, a multiplex movie theater, stores, the library, churches, and then when you’re done you can hop on the light rail and go back home. Not to mention First Fridays, when thousands of people take to the streets for an open air even of art galleries and festival atmosphere. There’s so many people downtown on those days they actually block traffic. Please find me a definition of “walkable” that that doesn’t fit into.
I can’t imagine why this insistence on being wrong so permeates this subject. To deny downtown Phoenix is “walkable” is to deny NYC or Paris is “walkable”.
Atlanta sounds like a fit for your requirements. Caveat: “Atlanta” is an enormous sprawl that covers all sorts of communities. Some promote walkability (Decatur, Midtown), and that does demand a price premium unless you’re willing to get a little adventurous in the gentrifying fringe.
If you can be satisfied living in a town with a walkable center, as opposed to walkability from your front door, the neighborhoods just outside Decatur are great. There are all sorts of ethnic markets and restaurants in that area. The airport is world-class and highly connected (direct flights to Europe, South America, and the Pacific rim.
I’ve heard many people tell me that there are lengthy periods in AZ when people do things outside in the early a.m. or eve - spending the majority of the day inside in AC. Many folk told us that when we were in Phx/Sedona a blazing Aug a couple of years back.
Certainly a lifestyle one could sustain - if they wished to. Same way someone could tolerate Chicago’s cold and snow. But they should sure take into consideration if they WANTED to.
If I could move anywhere in the US, I think I’d choose someplace more temperate than EITHER Chicago or Phoenix.
My personal concerns about AZ would also involve water availability, and some aspects of state politics being somewhat more conservative than my personal tastes.
Notes about Asheville:
- We have an airport, but in general it’s cheaper for me to drive to Spartanburg on the rare occasions I need to fly somewhere. Asheville’s airport is not minuscule, but it’s got a relatively limited number of direct flights (all international, mostly east-coast, none west of Denver).
- We have cheap housing. I bought my 2200 sq ft house in 2003 for $115,000, roughly; now it’d probably sell for around $300,000.
- We have expensive housing. As housing prices increase, more and more locals are being forced out of the city and into neighboring smaller cities. I couldn’t afford to buy a house on a teacher’s salary in Asheville these days.
- Housing prices are increasing in large part because people are moving here from other places where they earn higher salaries. Our economy is largely tourism-driven, and we have a tremendous disparity between incomes and costs of living.
- Our city talks a really good game about not being racist–check out the international news we made for declaring our intention to pursue reparations for past racism. Below that talk, though, the city’s very different. It’s the most segregated city I’ve ever lived in.
Ultimately, I’m pretty happy to live here, but I encourage folks to be mindful of our population trends and how new transplants affect the local community.
The one where you’re not at 5 times the risk of death compared to a New Yorker?
“Walkability” is not just a measure of how much stuff is within walking range. It’s a measure of how pleasant is it to walk to them. And how survivable, it seems.
And not just on special street party days. But all the time.
Both those places make lots of accommodations for pedestrians in the public space. My experience is only of Paris, but it had a lot of car-free space. Phoenix just does not compare. “Not even wrong” comes to mind.