Employment Centers in the OC (Los Angeles, San Diego: real estate, apartments, city hall)

[stvincent]

I live in Atlanta. While California is very nice, I most certainly can not afford to move there. I was wondering though where all these wealthy people in Orange County work. It seems that commuting to San Diego or Los Angeles would be hell, especially when looking at the time spent in traffic. Is there some major employment center in Orange County I don't know about with a surplus of high paying jobs? I guess what I am really getting at is what do people in the O.C. do to be able to afford thousands upon thousands of homes priced above 2 million dollars...

[hgclyde]

There are! Newport Center in Newport Beach is home to many major corporations including Fortune 500, Forbes 400 companies. This is Newport Beach's central business district although city hall is on Balboa Peninsula a mile and half away.

Irvine has several corporate centers in the city. The redeveloping the eastern half of the John Wayne Airport Business Complex into a Downtown Irvine( adding thousands of apartments and Condos and bring high end restaurants,shops and nightclubs in non mall locations to the area.) West Irvine has offices and warehouses just above the New Downtown Irvine. South of Downtown is University Research Park next to University of California, Irvine a smaller office area. On the east side is Irvine Spectrum which is also being developed to mixed use area bring condos, apartments, town/row homes to the area which is home to major corporations and the Spectrum Center Mall. In the North Irvine will be two additional corporate office and industrial areas. Tustin Legacy, most of which is in Tustin plus a small area is in Irvine is built on the former US Marine Corp Station, Tustin and in Northeast Irvine is The Great Park formerly the US Marine Corp Station,El Toro and a very small portion is in Lake Forest(a/k/a El Toro),Ca; which will bring more corporate firms to the city.

Costa Mesa: the South Coast Metro Center complex Major national and international firms have offices there. South Coast Metro Center is shared by the City of Santa Ana.

Santa Ana is the center of Government of Orange County (a/k/a the county seat) City of Santa Ana, County of Orange, State of California and the Federal Government are located in Downtown Santa Ana.(also Santa Ana Unified School District is there as well.)

Huntington Beach isn't all about surfing, Aerospace, energy(oil and electricity) are major employers too.

City of Orange has a corporate centers just west and of it's historic Downtown. Many offices are found at The City office complex. Another area found on the Main Place St. Joseph Hospital Town and Country area South of Downtown on the Santa Ana / Orange city limits.

Anaheim incudes Downtown(soon includes the Platinum Triangle area around Anaheim Stadium.) Also a few Business centers in Anaheim Hills. Aerospace and defense is entrenched here.

Office parks in Brea in are Downtown and along Lambert Rd.

In Fullerton it's around California State University Fullerton and the Former Rockwell Aerospace facility(Amerige Heights office park)

La Palma has CenterPointe business park. Cypress has several office and industrial parks. Mission Viejo, Laguna Niguel, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Hills, Lake Forest and San Clemente have very, very small but vital office and industrial areas that pay well.

Most of the action however is in Newport Beach, Irvine, Costa Mesa, and Santa Ana.

[stvincent]

WOW!! Your post was very informative! Thank You so much for all the information. I guess Orange County has become one of the new "Edge Cities" where people no longer have to work in the city center, where they can now live, work, and play in their suburban communities.

The only things I know about Orange County is from what I have seen on T.V. and read online. I have been to L.A. several times but never thought to journey down to the O.C. As an outsider I find the place to be very intrigueing, with the exception of what I've read on the threads concerning rascism in the area. But, anyway thank you so much for the feedback and satisfying my curiosity.

[Daleburks]

Why not consider working for yourself and building a business that goes where you go? You could look into MLMs - ugh! Or starting a business where you can practice your skills - landscape, court reporter. But these don't travel well.
My suggestion is what I'm doing. I work using the internet and telephone. I have clients worldwide. My business is online marketing. And although it takes time and energy to build a clientele, you could read any book written by wealthy people and they all say the same thing: run your own business. I like the online businesses because they travel well. So when you move you don't have the additional stress of finding a $100,000 a year job. Again, real businesses take your time, energy, money, skills, but you build and build and over time you can develop a substantial income.
Here, check out mine. Prosperity Nation. I offer a 3 day vacation giveaway for people who look into it because time is expensive. Once you get to the site, you can read a bit, watch the video, and decide for yourself if it suits your personality. As you can tell by this entry, this is one way that I promote my business. And it's important as more and more jobs are replaced by other means (robots, remote workers, other efficiencies.)
Realistically, not many people are cut out for working from home because it requires work. So take a look. It is not a get rich idea. It's not one of these all hype, make a bazillion dollars by tomorrow. We're 4 years old, debt-free, and an international company.
All the best in your move.
Dale

[NaplesRes]

Actually LA / OC is the small, medium business capital of the world. There really aren't that many brand name, fortune 100 corps compared to other cities.

There are some high paying jobs in Irvine and Costa Mesa but lots of people who live in OC commute to LA. Just take a look at the freeways going north in the morning. Newport Center is mostly law offices. The people in $2M homes typically own their own business or they bought it 15 years ago and it appreciated.

Actually a lot of OC's economy specifically has been driven off the real estate and mortgage industry over the last several years so it will be interesting to see what replaces it.

The net is, there are high paying jobs in LA / OC just like any other metro area but the folks in the expensive beach houses are typically business owners.

[xJanx]

this person has written " the OC " i dont see them getting looked down at or recieved any really rude replies off people! lik i have for writing the O.C instead of JUST O.C !
sorry i havent replied properly to your post! i just wanted to get that out to the people who have been rude to me!
xx