LB-the best kept secret in Southern California! (Long Beach, Anaheim: renter, condos)

[GregJ]

Is it my imagination or is Long Beach getting better than ever? I was born in the area and graduated from LBSU. We left 30 years ago to return to find my hometown looking better that it has since I was a kid! Of course we've been back hundreds of times to visit family, etc.

We're in east LB by the university. The houses are still well maintained and appreciating nicely and often occupied by the original owners, great sense of community pride, traffic congestion (at least on the east side) is no problem, schools are doing well, no graffiti or gangs, and the best part: downtown is looking great! Of course I don't have my head in the sand, the west side is still the pits and the north end is looking better but still far from where I'd want to call it home!

Loving Long Beach!

[Tom Williams]

Move here in 1963. Went to St Lucy's ,St Anthony's , LBSU. move away to
Orange County, ZOOport, Huntington Beach, Cypress.. Move back 20 years later ,naples don't want to leave ITs HEAVEN almost....love it

[scoobs]

Is it really that good?

[PotatoGuy]

yeah, Long Beach is awesome.. I was born in Long Beach, I live in Anaheim now and soon we'll be moving to Riverside ( ) but I love Long Beach. It's a really nice city, I grew there part of my life, its beautiful too

[jce82000]

I am planning on moving to Southern California after I graduate in one year. Would you consider Long Beach to be a safe and nice place to live?

[GregJ]

Long Beach is a great city. The far-north end (adjacent to Compton, need I say more!) and west side are poor and crime ridden but heck, there's no reason to go there anyway. Downtown, along the coast, and the east side are magnificent. LB has lived in the shadow of LA and has missed a lot of attention and notariety but we're happy to keep the place to ourselves. No, I'm not working for the Chamber of Commerce, just a guy (like thousands of others here) that love their town.

Long Beach has an unbelieveable collection of turn of the 19th century to 1950's architecture. Just driving around Belmont Heights, Bixby Knolls, and Bluff Park one is astounded to find street after street of lovingly maintained 75+ year old architectural gems. LB was (and is) an affluent city that flourished in the 20's. The old homes reflect this and are as gorgeous and impressive now as they were then. Downtown is being reborn and is a blast to wander around. Naples is really cool, great houses built along the canals. You can kayak among them or rent a gondola and be wined and dined as you cruise around the canals.

The city spends a fortune on maintaining parks, street trees and medians, golf courses, and infrastructure. Second to none for a city of it's size and complexity! The neighborhoods are stable and with an above average median income. Kids walking to school and riding bikes with their friends are a common sight still! Almost zero graffiti and no street crime to speak of. Amazingly, the city fathers planned well ahead in the 40's and traffic is unbeliveably bearable for a city in LA county!

Cal State Long Beach (Class of '74!) is consistently one of the top rated public universities in the country. We've got a great regional airport that you can park a 100 yards from the check in and show up 30 minutes before your plane leaves! No kidding!

Great old neighborhood boroughs like Belmont Shore, Bixby Heights, Bluff Park, Wrigley are clustered around their own little shopping districts where people know each other and patronize businesses that their parents and grandparents shopped at. It is common to find second, third, and in my wife's case, fourth generation Long Beach residents still living in town! Lots of original owners on the east side from the 1940's and 50's!

If your thinking of SoCal, you'd be blowing it if you didn't cruise down to LB and check us out! It's a wonderful, and very liveable place that people don't seem to want to move away from. I was gone for 30 years (chasing a career) and am back. The place is better than when I left it!

[kylie]

I have lived in Long Beach for 15 years as a renter and there is a concerted effort to gentrify and push moderate income and working class residents out.......my rent was just raised 8% but my income sure didn't rise by that much........the schools are losing pupils due to the high cost of living and the change from being a haven for working class people to now being hostile toward us...they are building these ridiculous condos where you have to live like a rat in a cage and they are selling them for 400,000 dollars...I make 46,000 a year but only take home about 30,000 by the time my retirement, etc is deducted from my check....................soon it will be like Santa Monica and working people will be forced to increasingly more dismal areas...............we need rent control ..we don't need any more havens for yuppies.....leave Long Beach the way is was without the Starbucks and cookie cutter condos

[socali]

Thats great that long beach is progressing !! and its also nice to see Kylie with so much civic pride.. I also hope it doesnt become "yuppie"

But then again I also doubt it will, Long Beach has deep business connections and port handling and I dont think it will become trendy..

[kmcx8]

I'm new to this forum. I work in downtown Long Beach, and have lived in nearby Downey for over twenty years. Yes, Long Beach has improved significantly. Finally, finally, the city is taking advantage of its Pacific Ocean location. It still has a lot of grittiness, which isn't all bad. As was mentioned, the Port of LB and the Port of LB and related industries help make Long Beach what it is. Elements of the city still remind me of Detroit, where I grew up.

[brian_2]

On a catering job in downtown Long Beach in 1995 we were unloading some chafing pans off our truck into the back room of a hotel when we came under fire. One of the rounds that ricocheted off the wall next to us is in my possession, and I keep it near my desk as a reminder of the danger of angry people with firearms & what can/could happen.

I had another episode in LB when I was walking near restaurant row minding my own business when three fellows tried to antagonize me by yelling vulgar insults about my skin color and parentage. These guys were youngish 20-30's blacks (they could have been any race/ethnicity, I'm basically a white liberal type of guy, but in this case they were angey black guys) - I ignored them as best I could and ducked into a shop for 15-20 minutes. I've heard other stories of course along a similar vein. There is alot of anger in this world, I'm glad most people are civil and firearm responsible. Who wants Iraqi style violence on our American streets? Human existence always walks a fragile line between civility and anarchy.