Downtown Living: West Coast (place, populations, Los Angeles, life)

[DJKirkland]

Let's rank (1-5) San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle when it comes to actually living in the downtown core, since most if not all major cities are attempting to bring traditionally suburban amenities back to the core where they started.

Base on:

Walkability
Available activities (concert halls, music venues, sports arenas, etc.)
transportation (can a person get around via bus, streetcar, rail)
things to do / see
restaurants
living options (condos, apartments, etc)
accessibility to grocery stores, drug stores, markets, shopping
cleanliness
downtown populations
jobs close to downtown (ease of living carless)

I'm not going to dive too deep into what the definition of 'downtown' is for these cities, but I've you've been to any of them you probably have a good idea; CBD and immediate environs. We aren't ranking whole cities/metros here, just downtown

[DANNYY]

1. San Francisco
2. Portland
3. San Diego
4. Seattle
5. Los Angeles

[grapico]

1. San Francisco
~
~
big gap
~
~
2. Portland
3. Seattle
4. San Diego
5. Los Angeles

[DJKirkland]

For me personally:

1. San Francisco
2. Seattle
3. Portland
4. San Diego
5. Los Angeles

[erin3465]

Originally Posted by OmShahi

1. San Francisco
2. Portland
3. San Diego
4. Seattle
5. Los Angeles

I dont see how San Diego is ahead of Seattle in the categories mentioned by the OP.

[PDX_LAX]

Portland's is definitely the most walkable.

Over all though, San Francisco takes it no contest.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by PDX_LAX

Portland's is definitely the most walkable.

Over all though, San Francisco takes it no contest.

Ya know, if you think about, SF, Seattle, Portland and San Diego all have very nice downtown areas overall.

Los Angeles' downtown has also seen a lot of activity in recent years-and its certainly not boring.

[DANNYY]

Originally Posted by erin3465

I dont see how San Diego is ahead of Seattle in the categories mentioned by the OP.

I don't see why my opinionated list should bother you, I mean last I checked it is my list and my opinion...

If you don't think San Diego should be ahead of Seattle, then perhaps you can put it below Seattle in your own list, instead of trying to correct mine.

Lol, I stand by what I said. I'm not making any changes.

[matt345]

Here's my list (the number of spaces between each entry represents the gap between the cities; ie how many notches below the next city is).

1.) San Francisco


2.) Seattle

3.) Portland
4.) San Diego


5.) Los Angeles

[pwright1]

All are pretty nice imo. Dt Portland and dt LA were the biggest surprises. Dt Portland is sooo nice. Dense, walkable, clean with great shopping, eating, public transportation and all. Dt LA has skyrocketed to the most improved. It is so unbelieveable what is taking place there. Some of LA's most beautiful old architecture is coming back to life along with new developments and cutting edge architecture like the Broad Museum Of Contemporary Art which opens in a few months.