Is it normal to have fallen in love with California? (San Francisco: condo, living)

[dalparadise]

Originally Posted by gaijin_samurai

There IS no better place to live in USA than California. The ONLY thing that keeps people away/ sends residents away is the high cost of housing, specifically the land. Imagine if somehow the central/ northern coasts of California suddenly opened up to development, and it became like the East Coast with near contiguous cities. Half of USA would move out here.

Other than that it is as close as you can get to paradise on earth.

Okay, but it would lose a lot of its appeal with contiguous cities all up and down that beautiful coastline. There are already 35,000,000 people here. We probably need fewer, not more.

[josh u]

I've had many friends visit CA from other areas. They all fall in love with CA for the same reasons you mention and talk about moving here.

Then the reality hits home. While the weather is usually nice, we do have a rainy season despite what non-Cali people think. Traffic is atrocious. Home prices in the desirable areas are ridiculous. CA consistently ranks in the top10 highest-taxed states. It is not the perfect paradise people say it is.

Move here for a year to "test the waters" so to speak but don't commit to anything yet. You will find out that visiting a place for a short time is different than actually living there

[CousinMaynard]

when i use to live up in sonoma co, it seemed like it was pretty common for new visitors to fall in love at/with the guerneville rodeo...

[nullgeo]

Originally Posted by josh u

I've had many friends visit CA from other areas. They all fall in love with CA for the same reasons you mention and talk about moving here.

Then the reality hits home. While the weather is usually nice, we do have a rainy season despite what non-Cali people think. Traffic is atrocious. Home prices in the desirable areas are ridiculous. CA consistently ranks in the top10 highest-taxed states. It is not the perfect paradise people say it is.

Move here for a year to "test the waters" so to speak but don't commit to anything yet. You will find out that visiting a place for a short time is different than actually living there

Define "desirable" please ... the truth of that lies entirely with the individual ... and there are millions of people living happily in not expensive parts of beautiful California.

Taxes? Taxes in California are highly progressive ... meaning that those high rates that detractors love to quote only affect very high earners (who can afford high taxes). California has one of the nation's very lowest state tax rates, as well as one of the highest. Name your bracket. Name your lifestyle neighborhood.

[Ruth4Truth]

Where is Herb Caen when we need him to wax poetic on California?

[ccm123]

Fremont:

Good: convenient to Silicon Valley, BART access, relatively safe, good city services, parks & lakes, some top schools (MSJ, Ardenwood, and Irvington High), conveniently located to other commuting destinations in the Bay Area, diverse.

Bad: Boring, no nightlife.

No, it is certainly not representative of California as a whole.

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Frankly, I was shocked when I first saw Fremont. It's so unlike the rest of the Bay Area, except maybe for Daly City. But my brother lives there, so I've been trying to learn more about the place. He likes it, because there's a walk/bike trail that goes to a big park on the bay, and he rides his bike there every day. Recently, I looked at a map of the city, and was surprised to discover it has a lot of parks and lakes. So I'm going to explore that the next time I visit. The atmosphere is a far cry from Berkeley or Marin, but I'm going to give it a chance, and see if I can find some redeeming features. I think they're there.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Frankly, I was shocked when I first saw Fremont. It's so unlike the rest of the Bay Area, except maybe for Daly City. But my brother lives there, so I've been trying to learn more about the place. He likes it, because there's a walk/bike trail that goes to a big park on the bay, and he rides his bike there every day. Recently, I looked at a map of the city, and was surprised to discover it has a lot of parks and lakes. So I'm going to explore that the next time I visit. The atmosphere is a far cry from Berkeley or Marin, but I'm going to give it a chance, and see if I can find some redeeming features. I think they're there.

Fremont more closely resembles Silicon Valley in character (pleasant, but dull, cookie cutter suburbia) than it does San Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley/Marin County.

I don't get the Daly City comparison. It's nothing like Daly City.

Its main pluses are: nice weather (warmer summers without being hot), low crime, and a BART station that connects it with other interesting parts of the Bay Area.

Its minuses are that it's dull and has bland housing stock.

[nightlysparrow]

No matter where you go in the civilized world, you can simply say, "I'm from California," and they know about it, and want to know more. I doubt that happens with people from, say, New Hampshire.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by mysticaltyger

I don't get the Daly City comparison. It's nothing like Daly City.

The cookie-cutter thing. No neighborhood shopping districts with locally-owned stores, unlike Berkeley, parts of Oakland and SF, Marin.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by josh u

Move here for a year to "test the waters" so to speak but don't commit to anything yet. You will find out that visiting a place for a short time is different than actually living there

^^This^^.

California generally works best for professionals with good incomes who don't have or want kids and who are ok with paying a lot for housing that isn't that great in terms of square footage. Once kids enter the picture, California becomes a real rat race for most. Even those who are well off can get worn down by the hassles and high costs of living here.