KathyM,

I can tell you for a fact that living in a large city, whether it's in Phoenix, or in the midwest (Kansas City, Chicago, St. Louis) is a lot different than living in a medium size city or smaller size city. There are communities that have lush green grass and friendly people, communities where people care about their neighbors and care less about how light or dark their skin is. But I can tell you Phoenix and Chicago aren't two of them. The community I spent most of my adult life in was in the middle of Kansas, was around 50k people and was exactly how you described it. I would move back there in a second.