Unfortunately, Mesa, despite its size, is a near-nonentity. A benighted city council focuses on redevelopment of a dreary downtown that died 35 years ago; library service is barely adequate, only 3 branches for a city of nearly half a million; "virtually nothing of interest to the tourist exists since Jack Adams' Alligator Farm closed" unless you count great scenery (the Superstition Foothills Mountains on the way to New Mexico via Payson) and excellent arts centers (including the Broadway Palm West Dinner Theatre) that attract top-notch talent from all over the globe.
A decaying urban core features a decaying 1970's megamall whose time has come and gone, and the city's far east side features what must be America's greatest assemblage of mobile homes. (It is featured in a Canadian "snowbirds'" musical entitled, appropriately, Mesa by Doug Curtis: “Brilliantly written...Mesa is a warm, wonderful and funny play.” —St. Thomas Times-Journal)
The affluent portions of the city -- which are considerable -- constitute many square miles of cookie-cutter upscale homes, known colloquially as "McMansions." (You'd think they'd have run out of red roof tile and stucco by now.)
Like Gertrude Stein's Oakland, in Mesa there is no there there.
"Mormon Mesa"
The Mormon Temple grounds are nice. Mesa has the largest population of Mormons outside of Utah.
Get in
Otherwise, you drive or fly into Phoenix. If you happen to be coming from an "Easterly" direction (a.k.a. New Mexico), that means you'll probably be taking the State 60 highway right through the 17 exits that comprise Mesa, as part of the Greater Phoenix metropolitan area.
Do
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A mesa (Spanish and Portuguese for "table") is an elevated area of land with a flat top and sides that are usually steep cliffs. It takes its name from its characteristic table-top shape. It is a characteristic landform of arid environments, particularly the southwestern United States. Many examples are also found in Spain, North and South Africa, Arabia, India, Australia, and the Badlands and Colorado regions of North America. The largest mesa in the world is considered to be the Grand Mesa in western Colorado in the United States. Urraca Mesa in northern New Mexico is particularly famous for being "haunted" in local tradition.
Formation
Mesas form in areas where horizontally layered rocks are uplifted by tectonic activity. Variations in the ability of different types of rock to resist weathering and erosion cause the weaker types of rocks to be eroded away, leaving the more resistant types of rocks topographically higher relative to their surroundings. This process is called differential erosion. The most resistant rock types include sandstone, conglomerate, quartzite, chert, limestone, lava flows and sills. As the underlying shale erodes away, it can no longer support the overlying cliff layers, which collapse and retreat. When the caprock has caved away to the point where only a little remains, it it is known as a butte.
