long beach/oc vs. san diego (Orange: house, diverse, suburban)

[Skwurl]

i'll be moving to either the huge long beach/orange county area or the huge san diego area in december of 07. i've been to both, but i'm just looking for some outside opinions on the pros and cons of the two areas. i need to live close to the beach and will be getting around mostly by bicycle. Thanks so much!

[Sassberto]

Originally Posted by Skwurl

i'll be moving to either the huge long beach/orange county area or the huge san diego area in december of 07. i've been to both, but i'm just looking for some outside opinions on the pros and cons of the two areas. i need to live close to the beach and will be getting around mostly by bicycle. Thanks so much!

LBC - a city. Diverse. Walkable / Bikeable. Public transit optons including the metro to LA
OC - suburban sprawl. Affluent. Car culture.
San Diego - a city and suburban sprawl. Good public transit in the urban core, terrible outside of it.

[california_guy110]

I've lived in San Diego for a year and am actually considering moving to Long Beach to go to CSULB. I've been through southern Orange County a lot as I've heard so much about it I wanted to see for myself and it is a huge affluent suburb, I get the feeling that most of the people who live there are not from there (meaning the parents who bought the house) or if they are they have had money passed down to them as its very expensive with the exception of the areas where immigrants live.

The actual city of San Diego is different, the area south of the city is run down and gets worse the closer you get to Mexico. San Diego is hardly an actual city, it has an urban core but its very small and surrounded by suburbs, I get the impression that tourism has driven most of the development to make it seem more urban than it actually is. From what I understand the Gas Lamp area in downtown was only recently developed, I can't imagine what this place would have been like before that, during the winter the city feels really dead, especially the beach areas as the city is so dependent on tourism, the difference in the number of people around during the summer vs. the rest of the year is pretty amazing. As you go north of San Diego towards Orange county there are very wealthy suburbs, some of which may even be more expensive than areas of the OC.

I'd be interested to hear more about Long Beach as I don't know much about it but I like the idea of it being closer to LA and being more a real city.