Out in the sticks... sort of

I am now living out toward the eastern end of Tucson. There is a lot of open land in the area, both within the city limits and east of here toward the nearby eastern section of the Saguaro National Park. Two major cross-town streets, one north-south, one east-west, neck down from from six lanes to two lanes not too far away. You'd think there wouldn't be much in the the way of choice of stores anywhere near. It's not even a particularly new neighborhood. My house here is a few years older than the one I had up in Phoenix. But there are actually all kinds of stores nearby. The major streets are closer together here than they were in Phoenix. So the places you'd want to go that seem farther away on the map are no farther away in reality. Stores are closing in older, denser occupied parts of Tucson. Out here in the sticks, the stores are busy and prospering.

The openness of the land feels a lot like where I lived in Missouri (without ubiquitous bright green trees, of course). But it's definitely city.