NYT: 36 Hours in Tucson, AZ

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TUCSON has worked hard to shed its reputation as a tanning salon for retirees and snowbirds. To complement its natural beauty — a national park in its midst and mountains on four sides — the city has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into its downtown during the last decade. Instead of adding strip malls and high-rises, older buildings were saved and retooled as movie houses and museums. And with a deep-rooted Hispanic community, tides of Mexican immigrants and students from the University of Arizona who never left after graduation, the city has now taken on a youthful and multicultural glow. read more