coconino county is a liberal cesspool.
the people tend to be arrogant and self important. very few decent people, a whole lot of **** heads. appropriately enough, the mountains nearest flag are the "san fransiscos", fitting, no ?
their county admin and planing and zoning are nazis, absolute nazis. any and every modification of your land is subject to their judgement and scrutiny, but basically you'll be told no and subject to huge fines. former contractor(who used to install rain water catchments) and have seen it many, many times. just not worth the trouble or effort to deal with.
The NAU churns out liberal **** heads who couldn't pour **** out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. hippies, degenerates, over grown manchildren and other losers have sit ins, cry ins, die ins, parades, demonstrations and generally hate everything I hold dear. This attitude is palpable in the town, especially in closer proximity to the "university" (lol) . there are some nice and decent people there, but...they don't vote or not in sufficient numbers..
The surrounding area is heaven on earth. smallish town (flagstaff) with real 4 season weather. good hunting, fishing, skiing, winter sports, tourism, etc. really nice place...except for the liberal scum that flock there. they may as well be californians.
one post SHTF concern i see would be an invasion from Phoenicians, whether or not they have a destination in mind or not. Most of Payson, FLG, prescott would be inundated with phoenicians if a grid down happens in the height of summer. might be interesting if they appropriate your home or land before you get there.
ASHFORK- not indian or tribal. just isolated and rural. the area is slightly warmer than williams, summit, flagstaff due to it's lower elevation ~5000 amsl. most homes outside of AF proper are off grid. but tweekers abound and will absolutely rip you off. reports of cops being shot, homes broken into and then flooded, burned or horribly vandalized, even 1 where it was squatted until the rightful owner arrived and they fled. not a good place unless you're there fulltime to guard it. then if SHTF you may have to fight an adhoc tweeker army. too much wrong with AF. However it is in yavapai county, much friendlier to humans than coco.
WILLIAMS- very nice small town, tourism dependent jobs, nice people, more "arizonan" than the FLG residents. but still in coco. would love to make a BOL there...just cant do coco. don't need meddling in my affairs when it comes to a grey water or rain water system.
Ironically, a county supervisor once won an award for his rainwater catchment and wise water use home that he built. it was declared illegal by the coco PZ. kept very quiet. coco has huge water issues (water table 3500 feet thru solid rock. wells are a multimillion dollar enterprise). you'd think any wise water plan would be good, but he just built it and didn't seek permission from PZ first.