Not a civil engineer, but everywhere uses different materials spec'ed to withstand the environmental factors that occur there. You live in Arizona which uses as

Not a civil engineer, but everywhere uses different materials spec'ed to withstand the environmental factors that occur there. You live in Arizona which uses asphalt that should tolerate expected weather conditions in Arizona. It si probably a different asphalt than what gets used in Maine and a different asphalt that gets used in Florida because all three of those place need infrastructure that accounts for different weather conditions. There isn't really a one size fits all answer, each material has its pros and cons that works best for different conditions. Interestingly boring. Idaho has a podcast about their roadway system. If you listen to enough episodes, one thing you learn is Idaho uses different kind of asphalt in different areas of the state. Why is that? Some part of the state have the high desert climate and other parts of the state have a more colder and mountainous climate.