Southern California vs Southern Florida? (public schools, college, wages)

[tman7117]

I'm possibly looking to move to one of these areas after college. Tired of the cold weather in NY, and I have family in both areas (Fort Myers and Jupiter FL, and Irvine CA). Which would be better for:

Public Schools
Job Opportunities
Weather
Cost of Living
Shopping/Dining/Entertainment/etc

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

South FL for Cost of Living (though not by much, the Miami-WPB metro is still expensive), Southern California for everything else

[Buckeye614]

Originally Posted by tman7117

I'm possibly looking to move to one of these areas after college. Tired of the cold weather in NY, and I have family in both areas (Fort Myers and Jupiter FL, and Irvine CA). Which would be better for:

Public Schools
Job Opportunities
Weather
Cost of Living
Shopping/Dining/Entertainment/etc

-Public Schools? Are you planning on having children or are you in the educational field? Both metro areas have great suburban districts, failing inner city ones, privates, charters etc. all of varying quality so it's kind of difficult to say which area has the best.

-Job opportunities will depend on your major/field. Although the Miami metro and SoCal are significantly larger than Fort Myers so I'd expect there would be higher wages/more opportunities potentially.

-Weather. Can you deal with humidity? Florida has much better beaches in terms of being able to actually swim comfortably and much nicer winters. The summers are dreadfully humid.

-Shopping/dining/entertainment. It's going to come down to where you live in Southeast Florida or in SoCal.

Overall I'd give Fort Myers the boot. The only thing it has on Jupiter or Irvine is cost of living but it seems like you'd be better off in a larger metro area.

[theurbanfiles]

Public Schools: Irvine
Job Opportunities: Irvine
Weather: Irvine
Cost of Living: Fort Myers
Shopping: Tie (Jupiter/Irvine)
Dining: Irvine
Entertainment: Irvine

COL may weigh heavily though since you can only have so much fun if you can't afford to have a roof over your head.

[saybanana]

SoCal is a huge area - 5 counties -
LA County 10 mill people
Orange County 3mil
San Bern and Riverside each about 2 mil
Ventura over a 1 mil people.

Plenty of places to choose from. Good schools in each county esp in many parts of Orange, Ventura or LA County.
Populations are huge so possible good jobs as there is lots of growth. But I feel housing costs will determine if it will grow more. Weather is predictable in SoCal. Sunny most of the time. Bad air in summer. Cool but never freezing winter. Little Rain and little humidity. Lots of dining especially of ethnic foods. Lots of shopping especially niche shopping in the LA part of SoCal. I agree COL is a really bad. Hope that gets addressed.