I used the comments here on 43 places on a recent trip to Phoenix, and found them to be really helpful!

Overall, I found the city to be a wacky cross between (my admittedly limited impressions of) Los Angeles and Dallas. You drive a lot, people seem to spend a lot of time inside air-conditioned malls… there’s lots of space but perhaps that leads to a bit of sprawl. The landscape is beautiful. I really liked driving around the “peaks” of what I guess is known as “Paradise Valley”, definitely recommended.