Working in Redlands - Please help fellow IE'ers! :) (Fontana, Newark: colleges, living in)

[QIS]

ESRI is the industry leader in GIS, they are doing great things with imagery, and their BAO & CAO products; its just a very big company and big company challenges probably exist in a variety of manifestations.
DO NOT commute from Pasadena to Redlands. CALTRANS intentionally created a bottleneck in the 210 traffic from Baseline in Highland south to the I 10; it is not fun. Riverside or Claremont are good options,however, SOCAL commuting is the best reason to look for local employment.
Don't be afraid to at least stick your toe into the home buying scene; some of my clients have gotten some great deals in the last year with only a relatively small amount of agony...it would depend on your own $$ situation....miracles happen!

[bumpersignal]

Originally Posted by David Aguilar

Anybody that wants to spend 2+ unnecessary hours in a car each day is welcome to do so, that just ain't my gig.

If you are going to move to a completely different environment, you have to accept it. I'm not going to move to Norco and complain about the horses, I'm going to learn to love the smell.

Agreed on all counts. I'm not saying I would personally do the same commute, I'm just basing on OP's own statement that he'd do it if it's within ~1hr 10 min drive. I personally wfh so my office is 100 feet from my bed but honestly a 1 hr commute each way wouldn't be a bad commute. When I lived in the South Bay, my work was only 7 miles away and took me 45 minutes.

I'm just throwing some other ideas out there - what about living in downtown Los Angeles and taking the metrolink to the San Bernardino station (the last stop) and buying a bucket of car to leave at the station to commute to work the rest of the ~10 miles. I've done this before (while working in LA) and it worked out splendidly for me. The metrolink would take about 1 hour and would cost OP about ~$280 a month.

OPs significant other might have a hard time finding a serious job in Redlands. IE is not exactly a treasure trove of economic opportunity and jobs are very scarce other than hard labor and possibly retail. Quite frankly , even if OP won't be miserable living in Redlands I guarantee you his stay at home wife without kids will be bored to death and will hate him for it.

[Dunbar42]

Originally Posted by bumpersignal

60.5 mi, 1 hour 1 min In current traffic: 1 hour 1 min
I-210 E and I-10 E

The start and end points Google maps uses are literally right off the freeway. I seriously doubt you could do that commute under 75 minutes door-to-door. Probably once every week or two it's going to take 90+ minutes due to an accident. Which means arriving at work 30 minutes early most days just to be safe.

Some people seem to fall into this mental trap of thinking they can live 50+ miles away from their work in LA and somehow try to rationalize their commute as being "manageable." It's just not possible. The sooner you realize this, the better. If you have the freedom to select where you live don't sign yourself up for a horrendous commute. IMO, Claremont isn't different enough from Redlands to warrant a 65-70 mile R/T commute every day.

[Tristan_Davis]

The commute from Pasadena to Redlands is AWFUL. I have relatives who live there and I go at 7AM on a weekend morning to miss the traffic. Rancho Cucomonga is nice, similar to Redlands in my opinion. And there's more to do there-Redlands is pretty sleepy as far as bars and nightclubs go. GOod luck!

[bumpersignal]

Originally Posted by Dunbar42

Some people seem to fall into this mental trap of thinking they can live 50+ miles away from their work in LA and somehow try to rationalize their commute as being "manageable."

I don't disagree with the jest of your statement however 50+ miles from your work *to* LA vs *away* from LA are nowhere near being the equivalent of each other in terms of time management so let's not mistake the two as being the same.

[markspe34]

Okay so i've learned a few things:

1. Pasadena is OUT. No way I can make that work.

2. I want to live somewhere where my girlfriend has the highest probability to find work (something I would be worried about in Redlands, because of the lack of corporations).

3. It seems Clairmont is a serious contender and is the "best of all worlds". For me, it looks like it is coming down to Rancho Cucamunga and Clairmont at this point.

4. I really don't expect NYC, or anything even remotely close to NYC. My main focus is finding a place where they have 6-7 laid back bars where we won't be bored as sin at night.

Anything else to add? Any thoughts between Clairmont and Rancho Cucamunga head to head?

[bumpersignal]

Claremont hosts 4 prominent colleges (which probably mean there are bars around) and is upper middle class and safe. R.C. is more 'big box' like someone else mentioned with big franchise bar/restaurants that are sort of fun but with that comes a lot of the riff raff from surrounding ghetto cities. I guess in that way not unlike NYC but just think less upscale. The Victoria Gardens mall is modeled to be similar to that of NYC and I think you'll enjoy that.

[Dunbar42]

Originally Posted by bumpersignal

Claremont hosts 4 prominent colleges (which probably mean there are bars around) and is upper middle class and safe.

It also means many of said bars will be populated by college aged students. At 27 I know that I had no desire to hang out with college kids anymore. Hell, when I got my first job out of college I know I was over the college bar scene.

[markspe34]

So my choice is either 19 year old kids with fake ID's doing funnel's and shotgunning beer at a Claremont college bar or ghetto riff raff at a local applebees in Rancho Cucamunga....decisions decisions...

[bumpersignal]

R.C. is a little better than AppleBees but still very franchise-like. It has a Yard House and Toby Keith and then the Ontario Mills has a Dave & Buster and Rainforest Cafe which is a fun novelty BUT the riff raff element is yet even higher in that area. There's a lot in between as well when I used to live there was a club called Twins and few more dive bar type places in older R.C. It's fun but you will get bored of these places pretty quick. It's not a scene per say like you'd see in big metro areas.

FWIW, when I was 27 (yet successful and single) I very much enjoyed hanging out at college bars. College girls are a lot of fun Claremont isn't big on partying though. The 4 colleges there are very prestigious and considered part of the "West Coast Ivy League" so they're serious business.