Last updated on October 29, 2025
If you are a young person, or if you have children, or if you are even considering starting a family, your research into Bisbee should stop right here. Cross it off the list. Put a giant red “X” through it. Because for all its marketing as a haven for free spirits, Bisbee is a profoundly hostile environment for children and a place where youthful ambition goes to die. Choosing to raise a family here is an act of generational malpractice, condemning your children to a future of limited opportunities and educational neglect.
Let’s begin with the schools, the foundation of any child’s future. The Bisbee Unified School District is, to put it kindly, struggling. Like everything else in town, it is a victim of a nonexistent tax base and a culture of managed decline. The ratings on public school review websites are abysmal, painting a grim picture of underfunded programs, low test scores, and difficulty in attracting and retaining qualified, motivated teachers. The curriculum is basic, the extracurricular options are few, and the facilities are often outdated. You are sacrificing your child’s educational future for the sake of a “cool” zip code.
Even if the schools were top-notch, there is simply nothing for a child or teenager to do here. There is no movie theater, no bowling alley, no mall, not even a modern, well-equipped public park or community center. The primary recreational activities for adults revolve around bars and art galleries, neither of which is a suitable environment for a 12-year-old. The result is a generation of young people suffering from profound boredom, a condition that often leads to less-than-desirable outcomes. Your children will spend their formative years with no healthy social outlets and no exposure to the wider world.
This leads to the town’s most tragic and predictable feature: the brain drain. Any young person who grows up in Bisbee and possesses even a spark of ambition understands that they must leave to have any chance at a successful life. They leave for college, for the military, or for a job in a city with an actual economy, and they almost never come back. How could they? There are no careers here for them to return to. The town actively exports its most valuable resource—its own children.
Raising a family in Bisbee means preparing your children for a life somewhere else. It means accepting that their connection to their hometown will be one of nostalgic visits, not of building a future. The “quirky” and “eccentric” environment that seems so appealing to an adult is, for a child, a deeply isolating and limiting one. They will not be exposed to diversity, to innovation, or to the myriad of opportunities that shape a well-rounded and ambitious young adult.
Bisbee is a town for endings, not beginnings. It is an excellent place to retire, to drop out, or to quietly fade away. But it is a terrible place to grow. It is a social and educational black hole from which little light, and less opportunity, can escape. Do not sacrifice your children’s future on the altar of your bohemian fantasy. They deserve better.