Why do people hate California? (San Diego, San Francisco: high school, earthquakes, standard of living)

[80skeys]

Originally Posted by headingwest236

I wanted to get people's opinions on the downsides of California.

My view of California is very limited - 1.5 years living in Sunnyvale (the South Bay/Silicon Valley) - but I can think of no downsides except for the high cost of purchasing property.

[gone down south]

Originally Posted by geoking66

for impatient and stimulant-driven New Yorkers like me, it gets annoying really quickly.

It takes about 6 months get used to it, but most people do eventually figure out a new life/work/rest balance once they're here.

[mayorhaggar]

Originally Posted by geoking66

The stereotype of Californians, one that's relatively true at least from my experience, is just so dynamically opposite of what New Yorkers and the like thrive on, mainly that Californians seem to be very relaxed, slow, casual, and overly new-age to the point of almost ridiculousness. Now that's an exaggeration, but there's definitely some truth in that.

There's not much truth in that, in San Francisco. It's a very busy, noisy, crowded city. Is it Manhattan? No. But it's not Dubuque either. And people are way more likely to be yuppies than new-age, and if they like yoga and organic food, well, yuppies in NYC like those things now too. When I moved from SF to Oakland I was irritated at first by how slowly everyone walked, but after a couple of weeks I began to like the slower pace of life and the fact that I could go shopping for groceries without standing in long lines and navigating through narrow aisles past huge crowds of people. Just because SF gets quiet after 10pm doesn't mean it's laid back, most cities around the world that aren't NYC or Vegas aren't open all night either.

[redvelvet709]

Beauty aside, I don't like it for its' political climate and excessive liberalism.

[mayorhaggar]

Originally Posted by redvelvet709

Beauty aside, I don't like it for its' political climate and excessive liberalism.

you're from Texas

[goldenchild08]

Just because SF gets quiet after 10pm doesn't mean it's laid back, most cities around the world that aren't NYC or Vegas aren't open all night either.

This stereotype of NYC is actually not true. You can definitely catch "the city that never sleeps" dead asleep on a weekday night in the winter time. Last December, I took the bus from Maryland to NYC for the day to a visit a friend. I missed the last bus down back to Maryland. I figured that NYC was the city that never sleeps and that Manhattan would be bustling with action even in 45 degree weather on a random weekday in December because it was only literally a few days before Christmas. Boy was I wrong. I was the only person outside walking around in Chinatown in Manhattan around midnight. I walked around Manhattan all night and it was very dead and quiet. All the stores were closed except a handful of all night bars, diners and coffee shops and of course McDonald's. There were only a few people out and about walking (I could count all of the people that I saw the entire night on both fingers and toes), but the streets were definitely not packed like one might think. The round the clock nature of NYC can be very exaggerated. Even my friend who lives outside of NYC said New York is dead nowadays. The only people out in Manhattan that late were a few people at bars and the cops. We spent the earlier part of the evening in Brooklyn which was also surprisingly dead.

[80skeys]

Originally Posted by goldenchild08

This stereotype of NYC is actually not true. You can definitely catch "the city that never sleeps" dead asleep

I have to agree. When I lived in NYC a decade ago, the times I was out and about really late at night (> 2am) the streets were empty.

[zenjenn]

I hate California. Well, maybe hate is a strong word, but I was born there and lived there for the first 30+ years of my life, and made a deliberate choice to move to Alabama.

- EXCESSIVE population (and a population that far exceeds the area's resources at that.)
- Related to the excessive population is the horizon-to-horizon urban sprawl. YUCK.
- Superior/smug attitudes of many Californians. If I had a dime for every environmentalist bumper sticker on the back of some gas-guzzling SUV making its 90 minute daily commute....
- Cost of living

That said, there is much I like about California. Obviously, a beautiful climate and great diversity of environments, and most of what I say when I say "I hate California" involves its excessive population, which of course is not 100% of the state. However, every time I visit my home state and I am on a twelve-lane wide freeway and sitting in traffic, looking at the scraggly brown chapparal of the hills, I get agitated.

Every state has its drawbacks of course, as well as its advantages. For me, personally, the advantages do not outweigh the disadvantages in California, by a long shot.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by zenjenn

- Superior/smug attitudes of many Californians.

We'll take that over the, um, race 'relations' in 'Bama any day. Churchies everywhere insisting you're going to burn in hell aren't very fun, either.

[geoking66]

Originally Posted by mayorhaggar

There's not much truth in that, in San Francisco. It's a very busy, noisy, crowded city. Is it Manhattan? No. But it's not Dubuque either. And people are way more likely to be yuppies than new-age, and if they like yoga and organic food, well, yuppies in NYC like those things now too. When I moved from SF to Oakland I was irritated at first by how slowly everyone walked, but after a couple of weeks I began to like the slower pace of life and the fact that I could go shopping for groceries without standing in long lines and navigating through narrow aisles past huge crowds of people. Just because SF gets quiet after 10pm doesn't mean it's laid back, most cities around the world that aren't NYC or Vegas aren't open all night either.

The first thing I saw when I got off the plane in January was a giant booth selling "I [recycle sign] San Francisco" shirts. I know it's an isolated incident, but they're capitalising on it. If only the Bay Area were actually as environmentally friendly as it claims it is.

But seriously, I know that nowhere else in the US is like New York, so I don't even try to compare them; it would be stupid to and completely invalid. Everyone's got their own thing, and sure there are plenty of yuppies, but walking down Haight was just every stereotype in human form. Stereotypes and perceptions wouldn't exist if they didn't have some element of truth to them, and that applies for everything.