Differences between Arroyo Grande and San Luis Obispo.... (Atascadero, Morro Bay: apartments, renters)

[the city]

Besides land is more affordable is Arroyo Grande. What are some other noticeable differences? Pros and Cons to each.

Thanks. How much of San Luis Obispo's population is actually college students? If the city has 45,000 population, then how many are college students?

[eureka1]

LOOK at the box above the forum that says "Search the Web". Type in "Cal Poly SLO" and you'l find that they have around 20,000 students. I know from personal experience that not all of them can find housing in SLO so they end up in garage apartments in Morro Bay, scenarios like that.
My knowledge of Arroyo Grande is stale.

[LDH]

Originally Posted by eureka1

LOOK at the box above the forum that says "Search the Web". Type in "Cal Poly SLO" and you'l find that they have around 20,000 students. I know from personal experience that not all of them can find housing in SLO so they end up in garage apartments in Morro Bay, scenarios like that.
My knowledge of Arroyo Grande is stale.

I believe the lack of college housing changed this past year as Cal Poly built an abundance of housing and many places in town are hurting for renters (according to the news).

[buffalobrandon]

I grew up in neighboring Atascadero. Attended both Cuesta and Cal Poly. Currently live in SLO. I would say, while I don't know how many of the 45,000 residents includes Cal Poly and Cuesta students, their is an obvious abundance of college aged kids that can be seen scattered all throughout SLO. The Albertson's next to my apartment has literally probably a 25-1 ratio of customers younger than 30 to older than 30. I also believe SLO has a much more dominant down town area. And the down town area is great for food/shopping from early in the morning till late at night.

[dknapp1]

I think that a lot of the differences have to do with your commute/where do you work, and your lifestyle.

AG has a trader joes, walmart, and many fine restaurants, and is close to the ocean and has more AG than SLO.

SLO has more stuff and more people, is central to more things, like the wineries that are up north - more in Paso than in SLO or AG, SLO is generally warmer than AG.

I live in Paso, which is great, except that I work in SLO and my son is in AG, so I do a lot of driving.

Cal Poly has roughly 16-17k FTE students, so I agree with the about 20k students estimate. I think CP added about 1k dorms in the last few years, so I also agree with the housing situation, though it was really hard to find rentals before they built the dorms, so I think that the dorms also alleviated the rental issue in a lot of ways.

Driving from SLO to AG at 5pm on Friday usually sucks enough that many people take the back road and/or leave early - it can take 45 min or more if there's a crash, for a commute that usually takes 15 min.

[buffalobrandon]

Originally Posted by dknapp1

AG has a trader joes, walmart, and many fine restaurants, and is close to the ocean and has more AG than SLO.

SLO also has a trader joes (South Higuera) and is getting a Target (finally!) in about a month. I agree that SLO is pretty much the most Central location in SLO county which is probably another very nice benefit.

[the city]

I think Arroyo Grande is more of a farming town with it's old downtown charm, closer to the ocean, larger high school, and the Wal-Mart center.

[,highnlite]

AG has ...... many fine restaurants, .

Not to quibble excessively, but what are these fine Restaurants? I can only think of Gina's and the Mediterranean Kitchen.