Carson (San Diego, Long Beach, Torrance: appointed, crime, safe area)

[jlfinchum]

My husband and I are moving to Carson in September. Can anyone tell me anything I can't look up online?

[jlfinchum]

I'd like to elaborate a little more;

My husband and I are from the Bay Area in CA. We left 3 months ago to move to FL and have found it to leave a very unpleasant taste in our mouths. My company has offered me a position in So Cal, and we have a place to go to in Carson, so we will be heading back to CA ASAP. Any thoughts on how different So Cal is going to be from the Bay Area would be very much appreciated.

Is it as nice as Long Beach sounds? It seems to be very industrial, but otherwise a decent place to live.

[Josh22]

Carson can be so-so. I guess it just depends on the area? It can be nice, or it can be ghetto. It really depends on just where. It's got quite a few gangs (this is part of LA county) and it's no-where near as nice as any place in the Orange county.

[jlfinchum]

Thanks for the response. :-)

[Paula Lynn]

Don't move to Carson. Torrance has very nice areas - on the expensive side, tho. You may want to drive a bit further south and look into Long Beach.

[bigdaddy5]

I've encountered Samoan gangs in Carson, first hand but this is LA so expect to run into some every now and then. Heck, I went to college with a few ex-gang members. It's just part of life. To survive you need to adapt to your surroundings. Are you working in Carson? If you don't mind commuting it's not mandatory to live in the same area where you work.

[Twinkle Toes]

Carson used to be Wilmington, which is where my mother grew up. My granny & gramps had to move out of Wilmington/Carson a few years back because of the gang activity and street thugs. It just wasn't a safe place for a little old white couple to hang anymore. And yes, it's like the only place (besides Oahu) where I've seen a boatload of Samoans!

[Josh22]

Carson does have some safe areas, every city has certain parts that are safe.

For example, Torrance is very close to carson, and if you live in the right part of torrance, it's pretty safe.

Just live in the west side of torrance.

The east part of torrance is bad, so stay away from there. They have drive-bys occur there, and they don't even list them in the crime rankings on this site (or any.). Why? Because they say it's in the "incoporated area", or "harbor gateway", which, really, it's still in torrance. It's just east torrance. So stay away from East torrance.

Otherwise, torrance, carson, gardena, wilmigton, harbor city... what city around here isn't... questionable? expect palos veredes, or maybe redondo beach.

Unlike cities in the OC, like irvine, lake forest, mission viejo, etc, those cities are safe everywhere. (and other nice cities all over this county, most are safe throughout the entire city). But in los angeles county, a lots of cities are divided up into "safe areas" and "ghetto" areas.

It's hard to find out about carson though, unless you know what part of carson it's going to be in.

[grram1]

Grew up in Carson/Long Beach area and it's ok. There are some areas that you have to watch out for. Torrance has much nicer looking areas, great schools, and safe neighborhoods.

[jmc]

Hi jlfinchum. I'm curious...were you the one who posted about how you moved to Jacksonville only to be disappointed there? What is it that you don't like about JAX? We're moving there in a few months from San Diego and plan to possibly live in the Southside or Julington Creek areas of JAX. I can see how JAX would be different and less exciting than the Bay area but overall what makes the area so disappointing to you? Regarding Carson, it seems pretty industrial and kinda ghetto. I agree w/ the others about living elsewhere and commuting into Carson for work.