Santa Cruz STILL sucks!!!! 2011 version (San Francisco, Oakland: middle school, camping, to live in)
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Well....I've spent the last two years in the "great" City of Santa Cruz for school (From the East Coast). First things first, like other posters have said in other threads about Santa Cruz, if you're an outsider, don't expect a fruit basket. Fortunately for me, I don't care if you were born at Dominican Hospital or if you've lived here your whole life, and I wasn't gonna suck up to locals just to make a friend. I actually made a lot of friends and gained respect with that mentality but ultimately, making good friends doesn't justify living in a city.
This city has a HUGE (And I'm using that word lightly) Drug problem. And I'm not talking about weed. If the problem was limited to marijuana, there probably wouldn't be much of a problem at all, but I'm talking about cocaine, heroin, meth, and various prescription drugs. Also Alcoholism. It's sad to see that the majority of the locals Here are dependent on substances to get through the day. It seems like everyone has some sort of vice in this city.
I find it annoying that you can't walk to a local store without a homeless person asking you for money. I think it's fair to point out that many of the homeless in Santa Cruz are like this by choice and are not looking to get better. If you live in Santa Cruz then you know about the homeless shelter that enables most of these locals and transients to trash this city during the day, sell drugs, then have a nice cozy bed to sleep in at night.
In the past year, we had an "Anarchist riot" Downtown that vandalized many of our businesses. This riot was sponsored by a local Anarchist coffee shop (I like to call it the B.O. Factory). This coffee shop is still in business. That shouldn't be the case. For "locals" That are so enthusiastic about Santa Cruz, I find it strange that you don't do a thing when someone trashes your "Sanctuary City". I believe one guy was arrested, and he wasn't even the main culprit.
There is also a very weird approach to other races and cultures in this city. On the East Coast, we had neighborhoods that were very diverse. I don't think Santa Cruz locals are racists, but they aren't very fond of other races because they don't know about them. I was just talking a local female the other night who said she didn't hate African Americans but she wasn't very welcoming of them either because they're a "A mystery in Santa Cruz". This is coming from a woman who's family has lived in Santa Cruz for generations. Obviously, you hear a lot of jokes towards Latino's as well but I assume that's simply a 'California' thing. I'm an Eastern European guy who encourages and appreciates diversity in our community, but I don't get that vibe in Santa Cruz. For a city that's supposed to be so open minded, it's really closed minded towards anyone that's not white.
I rent, so I can't comment much on housing, but I do follow the market. In my opinion, you will be fleeced for any house you buy here. You'll never get a fair value. That might be the case for the entire state of California (Unless you want to live in Fresno or Bakersfield), but it's very high pricing for a city that offers very little in terms of anything. Sure, you can use the Ocean argument but the Ocean is very cold. You're not gonna see a lot of people in the water even during the hottest Summer months. If I want to hear the sound of the Ocean, I can buy a relaxation cd for that. I can go biking, hiking, and do everything I do in Santa Cruz in any other city. The best spot to bike in Santa Cruz, The Pogonip trail, is now a haven for heroin sales, so it's not worth it anyway. When you receive your degree in Santa Cruz, relocation is almost a must because this city has a limited job market which is hurt by the fact that the city will never expand. What you see is what you get in S.C., it will never improve, and the locals are fine with that.
Finally, I gotta commend the locals in Santa Cruz because they truly believe they live in paradise. How could you hate that? The Boardwalk is now gang territory, tourism is at an all time low, and the city is VERY broke, but again, the locals don't care. I'm now 3 months away from graduation and finally seeing the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. I'll probably move to San Jose or San Francisco, two cities that offer a much better quality of life than Santa Cruz at the same price.
To anyone who wants to move here, please, think again. These locals are very close minded, they don't want you here. I hate to be blunt but that's the case. If you do decide to move here, don't take sh*t from them ever. They are harmless. And no one can tell you where you can and can't live. They don't have that right. I've done more for this city in two years than most locals will in their entire life, and I'm proud of my accomplishments in Santa Cruz. I appreciate the good friends that I've made that actually had goals in life (Very hard to find in this City), but this is no place to be happy. If you're retiring, maybe. But if you've got any life left in you, don't come to Santa Cruz. This city will just suck it right out.
Tigerblood is right on many points. The locals are extremely close-minded. I suspect that's because projecting the image of being open-minded is so important to everyone. Image becomes everything, substance gets left in the dust. Image vs substance is not isolated to any town, city or state in the US. It's just sort of concentrated in Santa Cruz. Sort of an Industrial-Strength Hypocrisy culture.
The whole "I accept all races equally" thing is the same, and it's true for the entire Bay Area. Everywhere you go you see people from a wide variety of cultures - all gathered together in racially divided clumps. Try starting a friendly conversation with someone whose ethnic background is visibly different from your own: 90 percent of the time you will be met with suspicion and hostility. The 10 percent are really cool to talk to though.
Heroin: The DEA has a map of California, with different colored "pins" to represent the severity of the heroin problem in each city. Red is the most severe color. There is only a single red "pin" in all of California. One would expect LA or Oakland would have that dubious honor. But no, it is Santa Cruz. "The Heroin Capital Of California" probably would not be a great slogan for the tourist brochure. But it is quite accurate.
The homeless: I've spoken to quite a few homeless people here. The more rational ones tell me they rarely utilize the homeless shelters because they are afraid to. They say the few times they've gone, they were threatened with violence or outright attacked and robbed. It seems the shelters are dominated by the heroin and meth addicts. I am guessing that fact extends to the homeless in general: the majority are addicts, and addicts are generally violent (the myth that heroin addicts are non-violent has been around for decades). Do the shelters lack the staff to keep them safe? Or is it simply that violent addicts are so numerous that the problem is insoluble? I mean, they cannot post staff members in every bathroom and sleeping area.
The homeless and the gang zones surrounding the boardwalk kind of ruin going there. Outsiders have no clue that they are parked a block or two from gang territory, so for them it is a great place. But once you know, it makes it a bit creepy.
After nearly a year, I cannot think of many positive things about Santa Cruz. Nice boutique shops with some unique items. A few spots with nice ambiance. I suppose if you stick to those areas you'll be happy there. Travel by car, always lock your doors, make sure you have AAA to call if you break down (keep the doors locked until they arrive), and carry lots of pepper spray.
thank you for the update! now i can cross that one off the list of thinking it might be a nice place to move. already knew there weren't jobs there and it used to have some iffy areas but sounds like it has seriously declined. what a shame.
what do you want me to do? Get in my birthday suit and run around downtown in a party hat so you know I'm not mad? Sheesh.
And I would suggest you re-read your history of Santa Cruz. First of all, if the yuppies couldn't expand this city, then how did they ruin it? By doing absolutely nothing? Most people that live here don't deal with these "goobers" because simply put, they're not here.
Santa Cruz in the 60's was very popular with tourism. The boardwalk was the heart of that tourism. This was also the time that the drug culture in San Francisco was very big. By the 70's, San Francisco's leaders were desperately trying to clean up the city's image. They couldn't root them all out, but they did the best they could. Keep in mind that Santa Cruz's drug culture was very minimal at this time. A lot of "hippies" from San Francisco relocated to Santa Cruz. The Grateful Dead praised Santa Cruz and even recorded an album in the SC Mountains. This was the beginning of the end of Santa Cruz. What you don't know is that government officials in SC in the 60's wanted to make Santa Cruz "Miami West". They wanted to build, expand, and make this city VERY profitable. When those hippies arrived, they showed complete disregard for this city. The hippy culture literally burned Santa Cruz to the ground. What you see today is the aftermath of that, and it's not going to improve. Ever. in the 60's, the people who lived here were open to expansion. There was no argument or protests regarding that. Fast forward a few hippy generations later, and that obviously isn't the case anymore.
Are you implying that development and mindless population growth would have improved Santa Cruz? I can't side with that at all. If "hippies" kept growthism in check, more power to them. A scenic place becomes just another depressing mob scene if it's too built over.
Damned hippies. A few Walmarts, concrete, and freeways, and Santa Cruz could have blossomed into the next Orange County. Replace UCSC with UCJesus, and you could have had a veritable Dittoheadville, USA! Such a lost opportunity.
Damned hippies. A few Walmarts, concrete, and freeways, and Santa Cruz could have blossomed into the next Orange County. Replace UCSC with UCJesus, and you could have had a veritable Dittoheadville, USA! Such a lost opportunity.
I agree completely, Man!
I did as much as drive through Santa Cruz and wanted out immediately.
In the late 80s and early 90s, Santa Cruz would be the hip place to go on a warm summer afternoon. Growing up in San Jose, we would take the 30 min trip to the beach and boardwalk to meet girls and just have fun riding the rides and playing video games in the arcade or just lay out on the beach. I was in Santa Cruz last weekend and I could not believe how "run down" and "ugly" this place is today. Its too bad the city government has not stepped it up and make it a true beach destination for all of Northern California.
In the late 80s and early 90s, Santa Cruz would be the hip place to go on a warm summer afternoon. Growing up in San Jose, we would take the 30 min trip to the beach and boardwalk to meet girls and just have fun riding the rides and playing video games in the arcade or just lay out on the beach. I was in Santa Cruz last weekend and I could not believe how "run down" and "ugly" this place is today. Its too bad the city government has not stepped it up and make it a true beach destination for all of Northern California.
The Hurricane rollercoaster is being dismantled tomorrow for a new one called Undertow. Some kind of 50-foot tall spinning coaster. Surely the advent of a city-wide rejuvenation...(?)
Regarding the Hurricane, interesting and good to know. I still love the beach boardwalk, I don't care what anyone says. Lots of good memories and still a fun place to visit. I love Mariani's candies, been going there for years. Chocolate covered bacon as featured on the Travel Channel! I was just recently in Santa Cruz and the wharf is still fun with all the restaurants. We love to bike around and stop and do oyster shooters at various places. Riva's is my favorite wharf restaurant, while Gilda's makes one of the best shrimp louies I've ever had. The Beach View Inn is a great place to stay, although it can be very pricey during holiday weekends. Also the Chaminade Resort and spa off of Soquel Avenue is a great place for business meetings. Fantastic food and view. My company just had an offsite there.
In the late 80s and early 90s, Santa Cruz would be the hip place to go on a warm summer afternoon. Growing up in San Jose, we would take the 30 min trip to the beach and boardwalk to meet girls and just have fun riding the rides and playing video games in the arcade or just lay out on the beach. I was in Santa Cruz last weekend and I could not believe how "run down" and "ugly" this place is today. Its too bad the city government has not stepped it up and make it a true beach destination for all of Northern California.
That was the exact same impression I got of Santa Cruz (i.e. run down and ugly) I got a few months ago. That and the crowded, congested, roads of the entire state of CA are bound to drive someone insane.
In the late 80s and early 90s, Santa Cruz would be the hip place to go on a warm summer afternoon. Growing up in San Jose, we would take the 30 min trip to the beach and boardwalk to meet girls and just have fun riding the rides and playing video games in the arcade or just lay out on the beach. I was in Santa Cruz last weekend and I could not believe how "run down" and "ugly" this place is today. Its too bad the city government has not stepped it up and make it a true beach destination for all of Northern California.
Really? Because I was alive back in the day and Santa Cruz is veritable gleaming gentrified yuppie paradise compared to what it was in the early 90s.
I was born and raised and spent most of my youth in Santa Cruz up until I left for good around 1999--though my family still resides there. In the years after the Loma Prieta quake downtown resembled a German city circa 1946 with the destroyed buildings and the tent city of businesses. It wasn't until later that downtown started getting rebuilt, but up until the late 90s downtown still hadn't become the more gentrified downtown you find today. Even then, for most of the 90s Santa Cruz had significantly more homeless downtown, plus you had places like lower Pacific Avenue that were really shady(the Kinko's parking lot was a drug market)--there was just as much if not gang violence(though never that much), Beach Flats was much worse, and Pleasure Point was still a working class surf ghetto.
People act like Santa Cruz somehow just recently went downhill--but it's always had a shady side. But despite the revolving cast of misfits that show up in SC(along with a few home-grown losers), it's not a run-down or ghetto town for the most part. Hell, housing prices take care of that--and believe me it was different when there wasn't a Whole Foods downtown or before there was an Urban Outfitters on Pacific Avenue. But it's nothing compared to a rough area in the Bay Area. I mean it's still news for the most part when someone gets murdered in that town. Despite the sketchier spots in town and the aggressive nature of many of the surfers or posers, it's still in most parts a fairly sleepy, middle-class beach town in many areas(though more uppper middle class these days).
Quote:
Originally Posted by iabhornc
That was the exact same impression I got of Santa Cruz (i.e. run down and ugly) I got a few months ago. That and the crowded, congested, roads of the entire state of CA are bound to drive someone insane.
What did you drive to the Boardwalk and get lost in Beach Flats or Lower Ocean and get scared because you saw some Mexicans? Or maybe the bums out on Pacific Avenue were a little loud that day? Maybe you should stick to Myrtle Beach then... But I'm willing to wager you really didn't see much of Santa Cruz.
When I go back to Santa Cruz, I go get a burrito at my favorite taqueria(Tacos Moreno) head down to West Cliff Drive for a walk, then maybe drive up the coast to one of the beautiful beachs up to the north off Highway 1(the one's tourists don't know about) and maybe go for a bike ride up around Wilder Ranch. Then maybe go over to Moe's Alley to see a band play or downtown to 99 Bottles of Beer On The Wall for a pint. And when I go in mid-winter and it's 65 degrees out and clear, it's as beautiful as anywhere...
But growing up in Santa Cruz, you quickly learn that it's image is determined by outsiders, whether they be college students from Southern California just hanging out for four years before they drift over the real world, weekend tourists from the Bay just out for a beach trip, foreigners searching for the "Mys-ta-ru Spot", hippie drifter kids looking for a buck and a place to crash, or dot-com millionaires moving down from the Valley and trying to be surfers. But I could care less---I know that to the Bay Area, Santa Cruz is considered just a hick town only good for it's beaches, and I know that to a lot of tourists expecting a perfectly manicured little beach town it's always going to be a little too weird for them. Though many of the people I grew with only left because it just got too expensive.
Last edited by Deezus; 09-11-2012 at 04:29 PM..
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