West Coast vs. East Coast (Los Angeles, San Jose: find a job, transfer, rooftop)

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

I just got back from visiting family in NYC suburbs (Long Island)

I can tell you that California's economy is visibly much, much worse than the NYC area right now. You do not see the decay, foreclosures, or vacant businesses in NY that are all over CA right now.

I spoke to two couples on the flight back to San Diego who said they are looking to move back to LI from San Diego. I might be considering joining them!

Would you move back to LI due to something other than your individual circumstances (job, career, housing, etc)? Meaning, if your job situation on LI was about the same as in CA, would you still move back on account of the decaying and foreclosures, etc of California? Are those reasons enough to move? Or, if your job is going OK, and in a reasonable amount of time you can expect advancement, then why leave? Why am I asking? I realize your folks are back there and with kids there are huge emotional reasons to live there. We're in the same boat - considering returning to CA some day. But, there are big risks moving to CA.

Just an aside, we visit CA three or four times a year and we can't see too much difference in the Conejo Valley and the west San Fernando Valley from ten years ago. In fact, my wife and I were a little surprised to see a strip mall being constructed - not much - but it wasn't what we expected to see.

However, in Orange County this thread was posted and it knocks the wind out of you:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/orang...ession-oc.html

Probably has to do when things where built. OC had a lot of homes built at the height of the bubble inflation (places like Ladera Ranch). The Conejo Valley was built up maybe ten years earlier. Homeowners in the Conejo didn't get hammered as bad.

[Sassberto]

Originally Posted by Charles

Would you move back to LI due to something other than your individual circumstances (job, career, housing, etc)? Meaning, if your job situation on LI was about the same as in CA, would you still move back on account of the decaying and foreclosures, etc of California? Are those reasons enough to move? Or, if your job is going OK, and in a reasonable amount of time you can expect advancement, then why leave? Why am I asking? I realize your folks are back there and with kids there are huge emotional reasons to live there. We're in the same boat - considering returning to CA some day. But, there are big risks moving to CA.

I would only move to LI to be closer to my family, send my kids to better schools, and to live in a *stable* middle class area. LI still has a vast middle class that at least Southern California does not.

[Mach50]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

I would only move to LI to be closer to my family, send my kids to better schools, and to live in a *stable* middle class area. LI still has a vast middle class that at least Southern California does not.

Going back to NY is always in my mind as well Sassberto, living in or near NYC is probably the only place besides California that I really love. Our daughter is 18months, so we have time (I know my wife loved living in Manhattan, it's different with a child though).

Like I said, I miss the toughness and long-term friendships I had on the East Coast, the rudeness and the weather I can do without. But for NYC, it is worth dealing with those things.

[Widowmaker2k]

Originally Posted by thrillobyte

If only, if only the West Coast had the east Coast's rugged coastline!!!! The WC is essentially one straight line running for over 2,000 miles from the Olympic peninsula all the way down to Cabo San Lucas in Baja. There a few tiny exceptions like San Diego Harbor, Newport and of course San Francisco. But then Frisco lies on one of the most dangerous fault zones in the world. At least with a hurricane you have warning. In Frisco, particularly, but most all of Cali in general, a devastating 9. can strike without warning killing thousands and leveling an entire county. I digress. The rugged coast of the eastern seaboard has always fascinated me, with Chesapeake, the Outer Banks of NC, the intracoastal waterway, to name a few--a boater's paradise!!! too bad the sh*t muggy summer weather ruins it all.

???? I don't think "rugged" is the word you're looking for. The West Coast of the United States (particularly California) is one of the most rugged coastlines in the entire world. On the East Coast you have a large, mostly flat coastal plain. The West Coast, on the other hand, is where the ocean meets the mountains, with no intermediary (largely because of the dangerous faults you mentioned). There are far fewer navigable waters out here, precisely because the change from mountains to sea is so abrupt. If you want beautiful, swim-able beaches, head for the East Coast, if you want jaw dropping scenery and breathtaking vistas, that's the California coast in a nutshell. Or, to put it a different way, the East Coast is better for relaxing, wholesome good times and warm summer fun, and the West Coast is for poets and dreamers.

Some quotes (about San Francisco):
"Somehow the great cities of America have taken their places in a mythology that shapes their destiny: Money lives in New York. Power sits in Washington. Freedom sips Cappuccino in a sidewalk cafe in San Francisco."
~..Joe Flower

"The Bay Area is so beautiful, I hesitate to preach about heaven while I'm here. "
~Billy Graham

"Let us go and talk with the poets. (on arriving in San Francisco)"
~Joaquin Miller

[angelbug]

Originally Posted by dscott2009

Does anyone regret moving from the East Coast to the West Coast. would you ever move back to the East coast.?

No. I left the DC area in 1985 and never looked back. When I go back to visit my family I feel like I'm driving around in a foreign country - one that's nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there again.

[thepinksquid]

Originally Posted by dscott2009

Does anyone regret moving from the East Coast to the West Coast.

I've only been in CA for about 3 months now, but no... I really don't intend on ever moving back to the East Coast. I'm originally from Boston, but was raised mostly in Florida (Ft. Myers/Naples area). Most of my extended family lives in the Boston/NYC metro area.

I don't mind the northeast so much, but the winters get to me, honestly. If not that, there's the humidity of the east coast. Florida is just... a strange state. Where I grew up was mostly a retirement mecca, now facing serious economic problems being one of the highest foreclosed areas in the country. I lived in Orlando for 4 years during college, and that city is just a cesspool to be honest. I hate the culture of the American South, I know to each their own, but it's just not my thing.

I had been to the west coast/California many times before moving, so I knew what I was getting into out here. The better weather, the scenery, the more progressive (excluding the northeast) ideals... I love it here. However, realize that it IS more expensive, and be prepared to pay much more in housing/taxes in comparison than you would in many areas of the east.

[EU20]

I've lived in both and it's hard to generalize compare East Coast vs West Coast since people who live in San Diego rarely if ever visit San Francisco or Portland or vice versa and they are the fact that they are completely different areas. New York City is a far different city than Boston or DC, for example. Los Angeles and San Francisco might as well be in different states.

There is no city the West Coast that rivals New York City, so I would take NYC over anywhere in California or the West Coast.

I would take San Francisco over Boston or DC. I would take Boston over San Jose. I would take Seattle over Philadelphia. It is city dependent for me.

[jman650]

Originally Posted by EU20

people who live in San Diego rarely if ever visit San Francisco or Portland or vice versa and they are the fact that they are completely different areas.

Well you just exposed yourself for having never lived here. Your statement here was the polar opposite of truth. Man, probably 25% or more of SFSU is from SD. When the Chargers come to town people from SD travel up here en masse. There are tons of transplants up here from SD and visitors from there are here all the time. And VICE VERSA. Why even bother speaking if you nothing of what you are talking about?

[jman650]

Originally Posted by Mach50

+100000000

A few examples:

1) Traffic, East Coasters have this thing where they will see a car trying to merge and instead of allowing the car in, they speed up and hug the bumper of the car in front of them, to block the merge. Just doesn't happen out here.

2) There are things like just randomly arguing with someone behind the counter of a deli, to the point where someone spits out something vulgar.

3) On the East Coast, guys who don't know each other, think it is gay to say hello to each other or even a simple "what's up man?". (Probably why NYrs think guys from California are all gay lol)...

4) If you are waiting for a bus in Manhattan or Miami, there might be a line of passengers at the stop and people off to the side. When the bus arrives the people off to the side RUSH in to cut in line and get on the bus.

5) Oh and back to traffic, I couldn't count how many times I have been flicked off, yelled at, high beams flashed or honked at for doing nothing.

This kind of stuff, along with initial rudeness is what some people call "the East Coast attitude". Which is basically trying hard as possible to be impolite.

Things like this, just don't happen out here. So this guy who spent 2/3 of my life in Miami, Orlando, D.C. and NYC, thinks California is VERY "LAID BACK".

Man you seem to live in some bizarro version of CA. All that stuff you've described happens here to me EVERY DAY, and I have not even experienced it in my limited time driving in DC and Maryland. I couldn't disagree more with what you've posted on almost every point, except for the East Coast impoliteness. That impoliteness is the "East Coast attitude" that people out here don't care for. And the whole supposed toughness of East Coasters from my experience usually consists of them being loud and telling you how tough they are w/o ever actually backing it up. I'm sure there are plenty that are tough, but I have yet to come across one in person. That's one thing I've found to TRULY be a myth.

As for any laidbackness in CA, I've found anywhere I've been in the East Coast to be slower and more laidback than SF, with the exception of NYC. I originally traveled over there expecting to have to be on my toes and ended up finding it to be no big deal. And I feel that SF prepared me very well for NYC b/c it didn't end up phasing me in the slightest my first time visiting there. So SF, particularly in the Financial District, is hardly laid back. Even suburbs in the Bay Area are at least on par with much of what I've seen in the East Coast. Sacramento is what I would call laid back. Much of the Central Valley as well.

[absurd_planet]

Previously Quoted :
".... Freedom sips Cappuccino in a sidewalk cafe in San Francisco."
~..Joe Flower

I don't believe this description of S.F is anything more than a hysterical obsession people have with locating some form of a ''Mecca'' or more ''Real'' city to aspire to live in.
Complete ignorance of the bay has these people fooled into thinking the society is the same as where they're originally from. That is not the case when you look at the cities surrounding S.F and how different they are from the city itself.
Oakland isn't the Brooklyn of the Bay.
Other than the inner bay area, the region is mostly covered with suburban growth that lightly covers the gap between S.F and Sacramento, which is considerably far away.
San Jose to the south, in truth never a ''city'' to begin with, has not done much to shake the image if an overgrown farm town. Immediately north of the city is Marin county which is an incredibly beautiful piece of land that always reminded me of ireland in the winter. It has some of the highest real estate value in the nation.