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Marin IS the quintessential Bay Area location for pretentious and superficial, although not in the "big hair"/how-you-look sort of way. It's more about what you drive, your social views of the world, etc. People in Marin are very physically active, however. Everything can also be said for San Francisco, Berkeley, and parts of the Peninsula.
If you're looking for a wealthier community that is active, less pretentious and less superficial, at least compared to NJ or the rest of the Bay Area, try some of the outer East Bay communities (Orinda, Lafayette, Moraga, Danville, San Ramon). Or try the South Bay (Los Gatos, Los Altos, Cupertino, Saratoga).
And to the above poster recommending SLO and the Central Coast: there are plenty of cool, unpretentious places on the coast. Monterey and Santa Barbara are touristy and pretentious, however, and SLO is just plain pretentious IMO, but plenty of places in the counties of Monterey, SB and SLO would be great places to live and cheaper than the Bay Area.
Marin IS the quintessential Bay Area location for pretentious and superficial, although not in the "big hair"/how-you-look sort of way. It's more about what you drive, your social views of the world, etc. People in Marin are very physically active, however. Everything can also be said for San Francisco, Berkeley, and parts of the Peninsula.
If you're looking for a wealthier community that is active, less pretentious and less superficial, at least compared to NJ or the rest of the Bay Area, try some of the outer East Bay communities (Orinda, Lafayette, Moraga, Danville, San Ramon). Or try the South Bay (Los Gatos, Los Altos, Cupertino, Saratoga).
And to the above poster recommending SLO and the Central Coast: there are plenty of cool, unpretentious places on the coast. Monterey and Santa Barbara are touristy and pretentious, however, and SLO is just plain pretentious IMO, but plenty of places in the counties of Monterey, SB and SLO would be great places to live and cheaper than the Bay Area.
Hm, I'd have to disagree about SLO being pretentious. It's a college town, and the vibe is really relaxed. You don't see a lot of wealth flaunted there. And I would say Danville/Blackhawk, Alamo, and surrounds is MUCH more pretentious than Marin. I grew up in the Walnut Creek area and have been to those neighboring towns often. You don't even find this sort of real estate in Marin: 228 S Ridge Ct, Blackhawk, CA 94506, $13,500,000, Blackhawk, California real estate for sale It's fake boob central out there.
Let's put it this way: as early as the 60s Marin Co had a reputation for being a party county, very liberal and maybe not the best place to raise kids. In fact Sat Evening did a story in about 1968 entitled "where money has more fun" I have always loved driving around Mill Valley, San Anselmo and some of the other great small towns in Marin County. We lived just south of Novato for 5 years. It is really beautiful, but it really isn't particularly small town atmosphere like many think. It certainly is liberal, progressive though. Would I raise my kids there, if I had it to do over again? Probably not. We really didn't raise them there, but they all started school there. Most of the families we knew that remained in the area ended up with kids on drugs, booze or whatever. And we lived in the more conservative part of Marin County.
My spouse and I have now been in Marin close to 3 years. If you came to our house you'd think we were the luckiest people in the world. We live in a storybook house that is surrounded by acres and acres of redwood forest complete with babbling brook, Mount Tam as our front yard (literally) and a filtered view of the ocean through the trees. We are just an 8 minute stroll to one of the most quant looking towns you can imagine. It looks like a movie set it's so perfect. All this and we are just 10 minutes to the city via the Golden Gate bridge. Sounds perfect? Well it certainly looks perfect.
Now for the imperfect. We've met a handful of people, mostly our neighbours who are pretty nice. Marin is also known to be very liberal and it is but mostly in a smoke pot and hug a tree sorta way. There is very little diversity in Marin and what diversity there is are kept within the confines of two ghetto neighbourhoods that are way out of sight. Marin is known as the "whitest county in California". There is a large faction of "wannabes" and they are the worste. They are the ones who barely made their way into the county and now they think they are someone special because of it. They are the ones that fight hardest against anything that would invite more diversity into the county. They wear their conservatism and racism behind a tree hugger mask. They are pretty disguisting and they are trying hard to infiltrate Marin politics. They are basically Tea Party closet cases.
Marin is filled with adorable towns. They are never ending and each is unique and picture perfect. There are plenty of BMW's, Benzes, Teslas, Bentleys, Porches, they love their expensive cars here. The people aren't very flashy as the lifestyle is extremely casual. The women are kind of hippy chic and the men look like hell. The men of Marin obviously rely on their money because they don't put a lot of effort into how they look.
If you love nature, boating, quiet, asthetic beauty and white people, Marin is the place you want to be. Don't expect much in the way of mental stimulation or excitement. Sipping or downing a bottle of wine is about as exciting as you will find. Also, the people are really old and along with that goes the driving, the waiting forever when you get behind them in line, etc.
Location: Overlooking the vineyards, olive groves, cattle and horses in the hills of San Miguel CA
167 posts, read 313,689 times
Reputation: 253
Quote:
Originally Posted by capoeira
Please reveal the secret route from Novato to Mill Valley that does not involve the 101. I know it is theoretically possible but I have never heard of anyone who tried it.
So there's no direct secondary road route between Novato and Mill Valley... and? That's like saying you can't use a knife for a hammer so it's useless... let's get this straight- AT RUSH HOUR from Novato to Mill Valley it's an EASY run on 101- faster than any EMPTY set of secondary roads between towns of roughly approximate distance- say, between Petaluma and PRS. I know because when we lived in Point Reyes Station I had to get between Novato, where I consulted at DriveSavers to Mill Valley, where I had an associated client- all the time... 15, 20 minutes tops, no matter what. Whether I used my pickup or my motorcycle, morning or afternoon, northbound or southbound, that run is a piece of cake.
It's generally easy, fast and safe getting around Marin, whether using Hwy 101 or local surface roads... for example- if you look at the road between Petaluma and Point Reyes Station on a map... it looks slow, dangerous, possibly in poor condition and prone to the dreaded 'one-lane-country-traffic'... it is instead beautiful, fast, safe, and in great condition... a fast run to everywhere from Novato to Fairfax to Olema to Bolinas stems from it as well. Once you're in Petaluma Hwy 101 is pretty fast and very safe southbound, slower but still safe north to Rohnert Park or Santa Rosa for example.
The one bottleneck in Marin is the 101 between Petaluma and Santa Rosa... unless you hit it outside of 'rush hour', it can be slow going even lane-splitting on a motorcycle... if one absolutely HAS to commute daily to SF from Marin, Personally, I'd say San Rafael is the max distance before the Law Of Diminishing Returns (and sanity) kicks in... but people do it all the time from the Novato area, even from Bolinas using the wild ride over Mt. Tam every day then through Mill Valley to Hwy 101.
We lived in Point Reyes Station and Fairfax for a time when I worked in IT Consulting from a home office there... we have friends all over Marin County who commute to SF from Fairfax, Mill Valley and and friends who work from home and friends who work elsewhere in Marin/Sonoma Counties, from Bodega Bay to Bolinas to Point Reyes Station to Rohnert Park to San Rafael to Mill Valley... almost all of our friends in Marin County have pre-school to high school age children. A few home-school, but most use the public schools in Marin. They have had mostly positive experiences... in fact, a few of our friends *teach* in those schools.
There's a broad spectrum of folks living in Marin- from the West Marin dairy farmers out on Point Reyes and between PRS and Tomales to the doctors, lawyers and other traditional pros in San Rafael to 501c3 honchos in Bolinas to craftspeople running their own small businesses in Fairfax.
Unlike Santa Cruz County for example, Marin County has a REAL professional, civic and community infrastructure that WORKS. There are several good hospitals, clinics and specialists (staffed by people who choose to live in Marin as a viable alternative to the Bay Area proper) in Marin proper and the Bay's formidable medical infrastructure is not too far away, either.
Many folks claim with some justification that much of Marin is simply an overpriced, isolated exurb of SF... but it takes awhile to get under that assumption and see the Marin County beyond Stinson Beach, Mill Valley and Sausalito. It's an easy place to pigeonhole, no doubt. But from George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio to the Straus Family Creamery in Marshall it's more than the sum of its geography, people and communities. Marin County is the birthplace of mountain biking AND THX audio... simple to characterize it ain't.
Location: Overlooking the vineyards, olive groves, cattle and horses in the hills of San Miguel CA
167 posts, read 313,689 times
Reputation: 253
Quote:
Originally Posted by yaletownman
My spouse and I have now been in Marin close to 3 years. If you came to our house you'd think we were the luckiest people in the world. We live in a storybook house that is surrounded by acres and acres of redwood forest complete with babbling brook, Mount Tam as our front yard (literally) and a filtered view of the ocean through the trees. We are just an 8 minute stroll to one of the most quant looking towns you can imagine. It looks like a movie set it's so perfect. All this and we are just 10 minutes to the city via the Golden Gate bridge. Sounds perfect? Well it certainly looks perfect.
Now for the imperfect. We've met a handful of people, mostly our neighbours who are pretty nice. Marin is also known to be very liberal and it is but mostly in a smoke pot and hug a tree sorta way. There is very little diversity in Marin and what diversity there is are kept within the confines of two ghetto neighbourhoods that are way out of sight. Marin is known as the "whitest county in California". There is a large faction of "wannabes" and they are the worste. They are the ones who barely made their way into the county and now they think they are someone special because of it. They are the ones that fight hardest against anything that would invite more diversity into the county. They wear their conservatism and racism behind a tree hugger mask. They are pretty disguisting and they are trying hard to infiltrate Marin politics. They are basically Tea Party closet cases.
Marin is filled with adorable towns. They are never ending and each is unique and picture perfect. There are plenty of BMW's, Benzes, Teslas, Bentleys, Porches, they love their expensive cars here. The people aren't very flashy as the lifestyle is extremely casual. The women are kind of hippy chic and the men look like hell. The men of Marin obviously rely on their money because they don't put a lot of effort into how they look.
If you love nature, boating, quiet, asthetic beauty and white people, Marin is the place you want to be. Don't expect much in the way of mental stimulation or excitement. Sipping or downing a bottle of wine is about as exciting as you will find. Also, the people are really old and along with that goes the driving, the waiting forever when you get behind them in line, etc.
True... Marin County seems tailor-made for being the butt of cynical jokes and sturdy but myopic presumptions. But all is not what it seems, particularly on the surface of this deceptive-looking Marin community. And the area of Marin where you live doesn't represent the rest of the County by any means... hence the actually 'diverse' nature of the County as a whole.
The politics of Marin are on display in the traditional and alternative local and regional newspapers... County politics more interesting, nuanced and comprised of MUCH higher stakes than one would assume... from the significant-in-number and varied-in-occupation Hispanic population to the Novato Service Station owner to the home-schooling family in Tomales, it's a County community with a LOT of irons in the fire... the 'sleepy, rich, white exurb' placard across Marin County's identity has become as outdated as it is deceptive. People who work and think for a living are alive and well in Marin County... and whatever amount of money they make in the process does NOT go into a Clothier's pocket... THAT much is true!
For example, there are PLENTY of rich-to-working-class Conservative, reactionary, hard-core Libertarian folks in the County who make Tea Partiers look like the ACLU... they are valuable to Marin not least because they keep the political discussion frisky and the Liberals on their game... and there are many good 'ole boys who ranch, build, milk and fish and always have... and many of THEM are FAR more perceptive and trustworthy members of their community than those who invade and try to subvert the goals of communities in Counties from Marin to Chittendon and try to grab the local politics by the nether regions and pull until everyone sees it THEIR way... anywhere worth living in this country has THOSE characters swaggering around boring+amusing the locals to death- not just Marin.
You get out of Marin, like most things, what you put in... we have friends for life all over the County of all hues, political and cultural stripes... amongst the folks we got to know and love while living in Marin are Kevin Kelly, a former Editor of The Whole Earth Catalog and Wired Magazine and Stewart Brand, the EIC and founder of The Whole Earth Catalog, co-founder of the WELL and CoEvolution Quarterly… we also got to know love and trust a host of fun-loving musicians both pro and amateur, farmers, Crazy Equestrian People, innovative local small business owners, professors, dairymen, fishermen, Oyster farmers, boat builders, Folks Of Letters And Ink-Stained Hands like the Editors of the West Marin Citizen Community Newspaper and The Point Reyes Light, activists, scientists, all stripes of scholar-athletes, fun-hogs and builders, tech savants, surfers and board-makers, architects and irascible entrepreneurs, doctors (both traditional and non), vintners, funny over-educated rednecks, bakers, lawyers and artists and ranchers, restaurant (try the Pine Cone Diner in PRS), bookstore owners (try Copperfield’s in Petaluma and Point Reyes Books in PRS) and many more folks that make up the *more interesting* end of the Marin County Spectrum… look for the type of folks and community you want and there they’ll be… right in plain sight.
Yeah, there’s a mess of clueless perpetually-lost-tourists, line-and-lane-clogging Crusty Old-Timers, Trust Funders, Idle Rich Boneheads, Trustafarians, Fallen Hippies, Bumpersticker Liberals, Road People, Cra$$holes, Little Old Rich Ladies With West Marin Scarves, saccharin B&Bs, twee shops, overpriced food, traffic by Mercedes-Benz, old rich white folks who Don’t Care Who You Are, yada yada….
it’s easy to let THEM obscure the *REAL* treasures of the Marin community, natural, cultural and human… put in some effort and you’ll see some results… there are a LOT of friendly, mentally and culturally active and politically involved folks out in the wilds and towns of Marin County- but like anywhere else worth exploring, ya gotta be willing to EXPLORE, TAKE CHANCES and GET INVOLVED… you’ll get a hand up in a hurry that way in Marin, believe me.
Last edited by threepounduniverse; 03-25-2014 at 11:51 PM..
Marin is a great place to live. I grew up there in the 80's in Larkspur. Back then, (now i'm 38) the county was affordable to the average person/ family. However, quickly, over a small period of less then 5-7 years home prices, and cost of living skyrocketed. The proximity to high paying jobs in San Francisco, and an invasion of East Coast families looking for better weather, and having cash, moved in. The area is amazing, however there is a high rate of alcohol and drug use by the youth. The truth is, there is so much money that the kids are allowed to do whatever they want, with their parents money fueling the situation. You can control that through your own family dynamic, and discipline, however the influence of their friends will cut into that regimen, as it could anywhere in the world. With that said, Marin is beautiful, but a high end liberal elite society-- which sounds like an oxymoron, but you got to see it to believe it. I now live north of Marin in Sonoma, and there is no way I can afford to go back there, but I would in a minute if I could.
Hiking, biking, proximity to major arenas hosting sporting events, concerts, good schools, I could go on forever. If you can afford it... and trust me that is the key, do it. Just be prepared for a $15,000 property tax bill that goes up every year cause they pass a prop or two on election day to tax your butt to fund everything from rare bird preserves to senseless projects. Remember this is Diann Feinstein/ Nancy Pelosi territory, so if you can swallow that pill, and some snobs then your good.
Recently one of my neighbours made a distraught post on our neighbouhood web-site. She had encountered a young, well dressed black man who had been canvassing the neighbourhood trying to get folks to sign up for AT&T internet. This young man was crying and when she asked what was wrong he said that he'd never been treated so nastily as he had during his afternoon in our neighbourhood. The saddest thing that happened were the responses to her thread. One person doubted the young man based upon the fact that his black, South African nanny had never been treated rudely by the neighbours. There were others that sounded like trailer park Tea Party rhetoric but this one was the most absurd. I felt like I was living in Mississippi. I can go weeks never seeing a black face and the only Latino ones I see are my housekeepers and the nannies and gardners that live in the neighbourhood. I also live in Larkspur which is in central Marin and probably one of the most middle of the road towns in Marin.
For sure you will find more truly open-minded people in Western Marin. More the type of Marinites that legends were made from but western Marin is also the least populated portion because it's not easy to access. We'd live there in a heartbeat if not for the difficult access.
Of course I'm probably harder than many on Marin because I expected a lot. We moved here from Vancouver, B.C. which is one of the most liberal, beautiful and highest rated cities for livability in the world. We chose Marin because we were told it would be one of the places most likely to be like our old hometown. Well, there are aspects to it that are but this is America afterall so one can only expect so much.
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