Downtown Phoenix

Downtown Phoenix is the dense, walkable heart of the whole metro. Two of the city's major venues sit right downtown — the downtown arena that's home to the NBA's Phoenix Suns and WNBA's Mercury, and Chase Field, the retractable-roof ballpark of the Arizona Diamondbacks — so on a lot of nights the streets are full before and after a game.

Roosevelt Row (RoRo) is the arts district: murals, galleries, indie boutiques, and one of the country's best-known monthly art walks, First Fridays, when tens of thousands of people fill the streets on the first Friday of every month. The adjacent food-and-bar scene runs from craft-beer halls to some of Arizona's best fine dining.

Downtown is also the cultural anchor: the Heard Museum (one of the world's premier collections of Native American art), the Phoenix Art Museum, and Heritage Square's historic homes are all close by. The Valley Metro light rail runs straight through, making downtown the rare metro-Phoenix neighborhood you can genuinely do without a car.

Daytime in summer is hot, but downtown's density means shade, AC, and indoor culture are never far. Fall through spring, the patios, festivals, and game-day energy make it the single liveliest stretch of the metro.