Santa Barbara, Santa Maria or San Luis Obispo? (Orange, Santa Cruz: best cities, rental)

[Westward]

Originally Posted by Surferjd

Diamond girl,

I think that you hit the nail on the head about tastes. You just don't fit into the central coast. Actually, not only SLO, but SB either I would say. There are other cities that support your ideology. I think you would fit in really well in South Orange Co. The problem is that people in the central coast like the lack of rules regarding what to do with your property. I personally hate manicured lawns. It makes me think about all of the chemicals people put on them to make them that way. I can imagine it all pouring down the gutter on the way to the ocean. I much prefer to see some creative landscaping using native plants or other plants that don't need much maintenance. Not that I like my neighbors to have a junkyard in the front lawn or anything, but I'd rather have that, than have a bunch of laws about what I can or can't do with my lawn. As far as progress is concerned, I think that you and central coast culture have opposite opinions on that as well. My idea of progress is people getting together and buying undeveloped land for a land trust or conservancy so that developers can't make a new strip mall. Maybe you would call it a "lifestyle mall" and be happy about all of the new stores and creative look that the developer picked. The central coast is a place where the people who are wealthy enough to afford it have chosen to live the California lifestyle minus all the progress that makes metropolitan areas crowded, polluted, and gridlocked with traffic. You sound like a big city girl, why did you think you wanted to move to a small town?

What do chemicals have to do with property upkeep and rusting cars on the lawn? You don't need chemicals to mow a lawn. And you don't need to have a lawn to get rid of the cars and trash in your yard. There are lots of ways to zeriscape or otherwise prevent the waste of water and use of chemicals without being the neighborhood blight.
Apparently you support the idea that every single lawn in SLO should be covered with a junkyard. Because if one can do it, all can do it. That is the purpose of zoning laws, to prevent the whole place from looking like one big junkyard.

Pride of ownership comes from owning property. I hope that one day you will have forgone enough potato chips, fastfood, sodas, meat, movies and all other pleasures in life to afford that SLO property you want to junk up. That will change your perspective on the subject.

[Surferjd]

Originally Posted by Westward

I hope that one day you will have forgone enough potato chips, fastfood, sodas, meat, movies and all other pleasures in life to afford that SLO property you want to junk up. That will change your perspective on the subject.

I don't aspire to have a junkyard in my front yard, nor to have one in my neighbors. I was simply stating that i'd rather live somewhere where my neighbor could do whatever they like with their lawn as long as it doesn't hurt anyone.

You have some Interesting assumptions. As it turns out I am a health nut, and I will be purchasing my second property within the next year. I am looking in the 2M dollar range.

[Woof]

So now rusty cars and junk aren't cool anymore in the front yard? Sheesh .... next you'll be telling me that my toilet planters with the flowers and vines wouldn't be acceptable in SLO.

[eekwine]

ok i just read the early pages of this thread- interesting discussions about old vs new wealth

i grew up among the old wealth, the families - they are the names you'd recognized as the titans of industry

it is true, their homes & dress & cars were very understated for the most part

and diamond girl, interesting pov from you- when you said you were from ohio i had a big aha moment

[LDDiamondGirl]

I keep reading things about artists on these posts regarding the coastal towns of California. Since I am a painter ( mostly a hobbyist) I thought I'd make some comments. First of all, I wonder if anyone has seen any of the last few years PBS presentations entitled, Art:21. This is "Art in the Twenty First Century." It's very informative, and anyone commenting on Art today or Artists and what they are like and where they are living in THIS century, should see at least one of the series of 4. Another one will be done this year as well. My point is that times have changed and a lot of what I read on these posts here regarding artists does not reflect that. The Art World has moved on from the Abstract Expressionist lifestyle of the mid century. Young Artists today don't seem to be aspiring to living an austere life in poverty in a shack along the coast in the middle of nowhere, or in a huge cold warehouse in the downtown with barely enough to eat, angst ridden, neurotic, drinking and chain smoking through life. Go to any gallery opening in the major cities, and you are likely to see quite spiffy looking young artists who are driving quite expensive cars and carrying designer handbags. They are graduates of Ivy League schools and many have patrons (wealthy parents). Many of the coastal "artist" towns of the early part of the 20th century people talk about here were rural and underdeveloped back then, and not where anyone else would really want to live. Hard to imagine Laguna Beach being that way, but it was. I'll bet if someone offered to give my parents a house for free in Laguna Beach in 1950, they would have turned it down if it meant they would have to go live there full time. My point is that that was then, this is now. I go to many of the Open Studios tours along the entire California coast. I see many "classifications" of artists. Some are single and austere in their living style, and some work where they live. Some are married and quite successful and live in gorgeous homes in high end areas. Some are funky and dress like typical earthy, "artsy" types. Some look like they are anything but your typical "earth mother" hippie. Supporting the arts is wonderful and it is definitely a plus for a community to have them. Having Mixed-use communities and work/live space is essential to encouraging young artists to come and live in a community. I, too, would like to see more of that in our cities along the coast. However, today, artists have to get on the band wagon with every one else or be edged out, too. We would like to nurture and protect them, but this is a democracy.......and it is ultimately a capitalistic country........so they have to join the rest of us in taking care of themselves. Co-dependency just doesn't work in America. That's what most of us warn our kids when they tell us they want to be "artists" of any kind. We tell them to finish college first, get a degree in something else to fall back on. We tell them that for a reason. Only a teensy tiny percentage of very talented young people will ever be able to make a living being an artist.....let alone live in Santa Barbara on what they earn as one. That's life in America.....and Artists aren't the only ones who have to face up to it.

[LDDiamondGirl]

To "Westward" whose brilliant comment about Chemicals having nothing to do with Mowing a lawn:

Thank you. Couldn't have said it better myself. I don't even have a lawn. I don't like them either. They are bad for the environment, and birds, and they use too much water. I have ground cover for a lawn. It's funny that people might think ground cover is the easy way out. Not if you don't want weeds, and not if you want it to look nice. Took me 2 years to grow it in. But it's fabulous, and worth it. I like it better than a lawn, it's prettier, has texture and flowers. Wish all those people back east with their acres of green lawn frontage would change over. But anyway....I'm diverting....

This is about Toilet Planters. My god. What is it about the Central Coast and Toilet yard art? Is it the Madonna Inn thing here? Personally, I'm sick of Kitsch. I feel about Kitsch like someone would feel about Bananas after a year long diet of nothing but Bananas and milk. Just thinking about it makes me want to puke. Cambria has "Nit Wit Ridge" and that is embarrassing enough. Apparently, the Village idiot from 1862 built a whole house out of toilet parts....and car parts, and crud in Cambria. Some brilliant Cambria Mayor or something christened it "Nit Wit Ridge." And this, the Cambrians are proud of. When you ask a Cambrian if there is a Museum, they proudly point it out. It's on the list of "Historical Places" in California. Personally, I never tell anyone who comes to visit me about it. Okay, but then, just about a week ago, the Tribune publishes their little Friday magazine with a cover shot photo of a woman (who looks like she belongs on Saturday night live) standing in her back yard, somewhere in SLO, (looks like the 50's) watering her flowers in her toilet which is planted smack dab in the middle of her huge dirt back yard.

The caption underneath said this "Art Exhibition" of photos of the Central Coast would be on display in the CalPoly "Art" museum. If this is art.....I need to move. Where's my Zantac?

[LDDiamondGirl]

"You sound like a big city girl, why did you think you wanted to move to a small town?"

Santa Barbara is a small town. What does small have to do with clean, convenient and modern?

[LDDiamondGirl]

I goofed....I wrote the above post to Westward instead of you. You asked me a question about my choice to move to a small town. And I answered above. Now I'd like to comment on your suggesting that OC would be a better fit for me. Actually, I lived in Newport in the mid 90's. It was lovely then. Too crowded now. In case you were wondering about me and people like me, we have opinions about you and people like you as well. But you know that. I could easily say to you: Since you don't give a rat's behind about the integrity of nature's beauty, and you would rather move into it, mess it up, leave your human debris and garbage and rust all around it, why don't you just go move into an ugly part of the world so you'll blend in better? Isn't that what "natural" is all about,? Blending in???

[eekwine]

i don't know any artist who has aspired to poverty & that has been my world for many decades

santa barbara is not a small town, it used to be around 1970, but now it has grown into a small city

[eekwine]

ps i meant art, not poverty, has been my world although i have known poverty & it is not inspiring