Where do you live in OC? (Santa Ana, Anaheim: condo, house, neighborhoods)

[MommaMel33]

For those of you who live in Orange County, where do you live at, and what are your thoughts on the area?

[EscapeCalifornia]

Costa Mesa. Very crowded and kinda dumpy.

[Coldjensens]

When I am in OC I usually live in Santa Ana, althgouh sometimes I am in Orange, Irvine or Newport.

Santa ANa is very Hispanic. It has good areas and bad areas, it is ecletic and has some great architecture. It is hard to tell whether it is improving or decaying at times. Lateley it seems to be improving. Howevr th government is a mess and police enforcement is nto what it was. Still it is a decent place.

Orange is wonderful. I stay near old town. OTher than being a bit crowded at times, Old town Orange is a great place to walk around window shop, hang out chat with friends.

Irvine? Usuall i just sleep there when I am in Irvine. If I go somewhere I drive and it is generally outside of Irvine, but sometimes I do not know whether I have crossed out of Irvine or not.

Newport? Balboa is wonderful if you are not worrying about kids and do not need quiet. Parking stinks, but once you are settled in, it is a great place to be.

[PA Born]

CDM, off PCH.

I'm fortunate to live here, and generally happy, but, honestly, it isn't worth it. Too expensive. Schools are good, but not great (underfunded), summers suck with the visitors, and too many idiots with too much money in NB.

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by PA Born

CDM, off PCH.

I'm fortunate to live here, and generally happy, but, honestly, it isn't worth it. Too expensive. Schools are good, but not great (underfunded), summers suck with the visitors, and too many idiots with too much money in NB.

The market is decent for sellers right now, Sell your CDM house, and bu a home in Orange and a condo in mammoth with the proceeds.

[PA Born]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

The market is decent for sellers right now, Sell your CDM house, and bu a home in Orange and a condo in mammoth with the proceeds.

Yep, I'm cash poor but house rich. I have the crappiest house on my street, but I could sell it in two seconds. But the wife likes it here, so we're staying for now.

[Coldjensens]

I can certainly understand both the plusses and minuses of CDM. Really neat place, but it would get annoying after a while I think. The tourist crowds drove us out of balboa. We got tired of fighting through traffic and crods and occaisionally coming home and finding people sitting on our porch (once they were cooking on our barbque). Plus no one woudl visit us on weekend because there was no place to park. Still CDM is areally awesome. You will mss the dolphin bushes if you ever leave

[mrsltd]

Anaheim, currently--live downtown and like it quite a bit. Right near Pearson Park and pretty much whatever I need.

It is hard to categorize Anaheim as a whole, seeing it comprises over 40 sq. miles and 340,000 people. In an earlier post I went into a fair amount of detail as far as each of Anaheim's areas by zip code.

One thing; the residential neighborhoods are typically far better than the scenes on the main roads would indicate, especially on the west side of the city.

A lot of Hispanic immigrants and natives here, especially in my zip, but a lot of other folks as well.

[portlanderinOC]

I live in La Habra. There's not enough open space here, so it feels oddly crowded for a suburban city. Also the fact that we are surrounded by hills on the north and south and flat to the west makes it easy for dirt and pollution from LA to come in. There's really not a lot here, you always have to drive a ways to get some place better.

[mrsltd]

Originally Posted by portlanderinOC

I live in La Habra. There's not enough open space here, so it feels oddly crowded for a suburban city. Also the fact that we are surrounded by hills on the north and south and flat to the west makes it easy for dirt and pollution from LA to come in. There's really not a lot here, you always have to drive a ways to get some place better.

As someone who grew up in La Habra, I have to say that "not much there" is the charm of the place. But you have to admit, the views coming down the hill on Gilbert/Idaho, Euclid and Harbor ARE pretty cool.