Best place for a recent college grad? (Anaheim, Riverside: apartment, to rent)

[Smitty211]

Hello everyone,

Long-time lurker, first-time poster here. I graduated college in the spring and am pursuing a potential job in the San Bernardino area. I've heard from friends who are former CA residents that San B is pretty high on crime, and that other places nearby would be better to live.

Being a recent college grad, I have little money, and would be moving from a relatively rural area in the PNW. I'm not looking for anything close to fancy...just a one-bedroom (possibly studio) apartment in a decent area, that's affordable. Again, I'm looking for a place that's serviceable and reasonably safe, nothing high-end/glitzy but nothing where I'm constantly afraid of getting jumped/mugged/etc.

Also, the job itself would be in San B...so if the best place for me to live is outside San B, I would prefer a relatively short commute so gas doesn't burn a hole in my already-thin wallet.

Any help is much appreciated, I'm not familiar with any SoCal city farther inland than Anaheim!

[Berrie143]

OP, what would your budget be to rent a place? The best piece of advice I can give you is this: DO NOT MOVE TO SAN BERNARDINO! My God, I know several cops who've told me that SB is WORSE than downtown L.A. My husband also used to work at the government buildings in downtown SB and the things that he saw and told me about made my skin crawl. SB isn't called the butthole of the IE for nothing.

In your case, you should look into Riverside, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga or possibly Redlands. Yucaipa is a nice city that still has a lot of rural-ness to it, which would be familiar to you. Check into those cities and then if you find an apartment that you like (I'd even look into guest houses and back houses if I were you) head over to one of those websites where you can type in an address and you will get all of the recent crime stats on that exact area. You can also call a city's local police department (non-emergency number, of course) and ask some questions, too. Good luck!

[hidarez]

SB is the most ghetto of the ghettos. Do not move there you will be miserable. I rank it on the scale of Newark NJ in comparison.

[Smitty211]

Thank you for the input. Unfortunately the job prospect fell through, so I most likely won't be working there anytime soon after all.