Which city in CA is right for us?

[loveautumn]

Santa Cruz, beautiful area, very expensive, college town, lots of drugs.

Poway, very family oriented, suburban, pretty pricey, good schools. You will feel out of place there if you don't have kids.

Why do you think SD or California in general is more family oriented than Pittsburgh??? the weather thing I get, but I don't see CA being more family oriented. Personally, CA is the last place I would want to raise kids, but that's just me.

California is a huge state as I'm sure you know so you are going to have to narrow down what you are really looking for. We have every kind of town you can imagine.

$800 a month is really not going to get you any kind of decent area to live in or around a major city, where you will need to find employment. Late 20's you don't want to be out in the sticks somewhere.

[Shellso]

Originally Posted by mrp5150

And I forgot to mention the Vista/Oceanside/Carlsbad area. It seems perfect, so we would love some opinions on that tri-city area.

I live in Carlsbad and it's a great city. It's generally considered the nicer of the three cities you listed. There's a lot of military kids in Oceanside and Vista is a lower income area with a large Hispanic population. Both have a higher crime rate. Carlsbad, however is very nice. There are nice pockets to both Oceanside and Vista that are nice but you just have to find them. I highly suggest Carlsbad first.

WARNING though - look on the eastern side of Carlsbad. A few miles from the beach. In the summer we get a coastal fog layer and the beach is gray many days out of the summer

[earlyretirement]

Originally Posted by loveautumn

Poway, very family oriented, suburban, pretty pricey, good schools. You will feel out of place there if you don't have kids.

Why do you think SD or California in general is more family oriented than Pittsburgh??? the weather thing I get, but I don't see CA being more family oriented. Personally, CA is the last place I would want to raise kids, but that's just me.


$800 a month is really not going to get you any kind of decent area to live in or around a major city, where you will need to find employment. Late 20's you don't want to be out in the sticks somewhere.

I'm also curious how you came up with Poway out of all the areas around California? Especially if you are in your 20's and don't have kids. It seems a bit of a strange choice amongst all the areas if you're younger and don't have kids.

Don't get me wrong..it's a nice area but many people that live there or buy there are motivated by the excellent schools for their kids. It was the motivation for us to be in the Poway School District when we were buying our home. But if I didn't have kids I'm sure I'd be more open to other areas.

I agree that $800 per month isn't much to spend on any nicer place in a large city. I'm not saying it's impossible but it's not too much these days in a good area.

I'd actually disagree about California not being family oriented. We purposely moved here because we wanted to raise our kids here. San Diego is a fabulous place to raise kids as long as you can afford it. But if you're living within your means and not leveraged to your eyeballs, have a great job and live in a nice school district, I think San Diego is an amazing place to raise your kids.

There is so much for kids to see and do in the area, great beaches, great weather, many attractions geared towards kids that you won't find in other cities. I know people get tired of hearing about the great weather, but we find due to the great weather, we spend much more time out and about with our kids doing fun stuff, going to fun places, etc.

I think you can be "family oriented" no matter which city you live in. San Diego is a total dream for most kids. I know I would have LOVED growing up here.

San Diego is a wonderful city but I agree with some of the others to have a job lined up before you move out. At least one of you anyway.

Good luck.