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OK, back to the original discussion, my 2 cents. I'm a born and raised Southern Californian for over half a century AND lived in the Inland Empire and San Diego County and worked & have friends still in the Temecula/Menifee/Murrieta area. No one is going to care one way or another about tattoos, body piercings, etc.
OP, your biggest problems will be 1) Having enough money to live, 2) Traffic. The End.
Thanks for the input! We've been looking at Austin quite a bit, it seems like what we are looking for. My wife grew up in San Diego, lived there for 16 years, and really misses the area, so we were just hoping there may be an option there as well. We have at least a year left in graduate school so we have time to figure it out.
I live in Murrieta, and I was just in South Austin. I never saw so many tats in my life
as I did in Austin. I can't imagine you'd feel out of place there at all.
So after working a long shift last night, it seems I have some catching up to do so I'm going to reply to a bunch of posts at once. First, of course, thanks for getting back on track as I didn't really want any arguments to spur from this post. We are not completely closed off to the idea of an attached home, but after living in Alaska and renting a home in Pittsburgh, we have gotten used to the idea of having our own dwelling. That is why these areas caught our attention, because of the price of unattached homes. As far as the cost of things to do goes, yea I've been told the area can be pricey. Luckily it's the cheap things to do that is driving us to the area, aside from it being my wife's home. We are addicted to the outdoors, so the proximity to the beach, hiking, biking, camping, mountains, etc. is the major draw. This plus the year round weather that allows one to do so. Austin, because of the lifestyle and cost of living has been a plus, but we long for the beach, and 8 months out of the year with over 100 degrees and high humidity and high dew point sounds a bit rough, so it's more of a second option for us. We've also looked at Escondido, but have seen limited options under $350,000.
OK, back to the original discussion, my 2 cents. I'm a born and raised Southern Californian for over half a century AND lived in the Inland Empire and San Diego County and worked & have friends still in the Temecula/Menifee/Murrieta area. No one is going to care one way or another about tattoos, body piercings, etc.
OP, your biggest problems will be 1) Having enough money to live, 2) Traffic. The End.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goin' Coastal
I live in Murrieta, and I was just in South Austin. I never saw so many tats in my life
as I did in Austin. I can't imagine you'd feel out of place there at all.
Best responses^.
I love how people who don't even live in CA are arguing with the OP about life in CA, and personal choices and obligations to society. Good grief.
Just looking for something other than people outright telling us we don't deserve to have children because we have a sleeve, which is commonplace in Pennsylvania.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sadinpgh
...a woman dressed to the hilt with her child approached us outside of a movie theater and said to my wife people like us shouldn't be having children.
So a woman, singular, said that you shouldn't be having children, and all of a sudden it's a common occurrence in a Commonwealth of nearly 13,000,000 people? An F5 tornado touched down in Pennsylvania in 1985. Does that make F5 tornadoes common in Pennsylvania?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sadinpgh
In a somewhat unrelated note, I wore a Cubs hat into a coffee shop about a week after moving here and a guy told the barista not to serve me, then told me that I was not welcome in Pittsburgh and needed to move back to Chicago where I belong.
And you didn't contact the Better Business Bureau, or leave a negative review on Angie's List or Yelp?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sadinpgh
The overall Pittsburgh mentality is that if you are not a Pennsylvania born and bread White Anglo Saxon Catholic who bleeds black and gold, then you have no right being here. I've spoken to many transplants that feel the same way.
That means you haven't talked to anybody on the Pittsburgh forum here. There are two transplants from New York, two from Connecticut, two from Illinois, one from Michigan, one from Tennessee, one from South Carolina, one from Florida, one from California, two from Canada, one from Great Britain, one from Australia (via Washington), and three from elsewhere in Pennsylvania, to go along with the eight or so native Pittsburghers. None of them think Pittsburgh is perfect, and a couple of them miss some of the amenities from the much larger cities they came from, but they're all generally positive about the city, and more than one has said that transplants to Pittsburgh seem to be more positive about the city than the natives. In fact, the only people who are consistently negative on the Pittsburgh forum are a couple of the natives.
As for sports allegiances, I attended a Steelers game at Heinz Field against the Falcons five years ago, and all the Falcons fans I talked to that weekend said they had a good time. I also saw a Vikings fan, a Lions fan, a Cowboys fan, a Bears fan, and two Giants fans at the game. None of them were harrassed, though the Cowboys fan got some minor heckling. And during baseball season, when the Phillies, Mets and Cubs go to PNC Park, roughly a quarter to a third of those in attendance are fans of the road team. The worst I've heard any visitor say about Pittsburgh is that taxi service is bad and the highways are too narrow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sadinpgh
Let's put it this way, transplants who come here from more open minded areas of the country commonly refer to the Pittsburgh region as "Pennsyltucky"
No, I haven't talked to anyone on the Pittsburgh forum silly. I live here, I work two full time jobs here and attend school here. I talk to people from this city every day why talk to them on a forum when I can see them in person? And these were two isolated incidents. It's been a consistent issue in PGH for the past three years, and in various parts of PA throughout my life. The ignorant attitude that is. My family is just as much to blame as anyone else. Hell, I used to think this was a decent place to settle down until I actually got out for 5 years. But I do get tired of the trash filled streets, and not a cigarette butt here and there, but the piles of garbage everywhere. You can't walk down a sidewalk without stepping over garbage for more than 10 feet. This goes for the city as well as the burbs. The people are definitely, in general, abrasive in my opinion. You can't talk about anything other than how much Pittsburgh is the greatest place on earth or you never hear the end of it. Not everyone is like this. My next door neighbors are great .... but then again they're not native. The weather, in addition, brings me way down. And this is coming from someone who's lived in Alaska where winter is 8 months long. They say we get 59 sunny days a year .... I find that to be an over statement. And it's not like in Seattle, where when it's overcast it's at least warm enough to be outside. No, it's grey and wet, cold, icy, windy, the gamut. Then in between the 6 days of spring and 6 days of fall you get summer, which is 95 degrees and 100% humidity every day. I have a feeling this may contribute to the over all attitude I find here. Let's not forget that the entire city smells like cigarette smoke, everywhere, always. I currently live in a middle class suburb, teach at a very poor inner city school and wait tables at one of the more upscale eateries, in what is one of the most affluent parts of the city. I interact with just about every demographic in the city on a daily basis, and yes, wear long sleeves all day. I still get treated like an outsider as soon as people find out I'm not competing for Steelers season tickets or something of the like. And I'm super happy You had a great time at a Steelers game, nothing worse than a wasted trip. But in addition to my many experiences that have caused to me stash away half my wardrobe, I've had a co-worker tell a story last football season how a him and a bunch of his friends booed a women and her son until the kid cried and they left the restaurant they were in. All because they were wearing ravens clothes. Everyone else at worked seemed to find this justifiable. Perhaps it's just the company I'm around and the places I work and the neighborhood I live in. Perhaps people in other parts of the city are super nice and everything is clean and relatively safe. But I've been here three years and haven't found it, and I can't spend any more time searching for it.
And yes, the highways are narrow, and you can literally download the Uber app and get a ride to where you are going in less than half the time it takes for a taxi to pick you up, but that's not something I'm concerned about.
I digress, however, and I'm not here to be in a fight about whether or why I like PGH. Lots of people do, great for them. Stick around and enjoy life. I'm here to find a place to relocate to, and if you aren't willing to assist me with this, then please find another forum to troll on.
Temecula/Murrieta is deeeep exurb. Take a look at a map and you can see it's not close to anything--neither LA, Riverside, Palm Springs, nor San Diego.
From the 15 freeway, you look out of your car and onto the tract homes, and you will be amazed how far the homes go on and on and on.
It's really an area for families and retirees who don't want any urbanity nor CA-style liberalism in their lives... they just want to get away and live as far and as isolated as they can. There is a reason people live out there.
Temecula's city slogan says a lot: "Old Traditions, New Opportunities."
I don't know I think that the bigger draws in the last 20 years have been - cheap(er) housing as the prices in SD made a SFH unrealistic, better schools, and low crime. We are pretty conservative in appearance and somewhat liberal in thought, and agnostic in beliefs. It is a pretty religious area out here - lots of Jesus fish bumper stickers and the like. Yesterday, when I drove over to Sprouts - there was a guy holding a "One God, One Woman, One Man = Marriage" or something.
I have a young child - she is enrolled in a local preschool and does soccer, various dance, art, swimming , etc lessons. There is a different "look" to the parents (and their kids) that has less to do with race than income levels. More about a conservative appearance and having the right stuff (clothes/handbags/toys/cars)
I had my hair done the other day and even though I brought in a picture of the color and style I wanted - I somehow walked out with the "Temecula mommy 'do"
I don't think the original poster and his wife would have issues per sec. But they would definitely get the "stink eye" at most child/parent activities around here which would trickle down to their kids.
I think to - people here are very aware of the problems that some of the neighboring cities have with drugs/gangs/meth manufacturing and are VERY worried about it spreading here so anything that looks "sketchy" is viewed with suspicion. I keep an eye on the local crime report for my area - there are a shocking number of reports of police responding to "report of suspicious looking person" vs. the number of actual crimes that are reported, LOL
I hope you find the perfect neighborhood. FWIW, downtown Riverside is a tad-bit more urban than Murietta, kind of more eclectic because of the college, and still in your price range. It's not as new, so the neighborhoods are more diverse, but their are some really charming spots. Good luck to you!
Thanks again for the informative post! Some of the things you have mentioned are some of the reasons we don't like the burbs here. Keeping up with the Joneses. The right car, the right garb, the right handbag. My wife an I are poor, not going to sugar coat it, I work 95 hours a week to keep my kids in a relatively safe neighborhood. Unfortunately the relatively safe neighborhood does not welcome us. People don't allow their children to play with our daughters at the playground because of our tattoos, and possibly because we are the only ones around without a BMW or Mercedez. Unfortunately, the city is a mess with crime and, from experience at work, a very rough school system. Even with great teachers, the environment is not ideal. Stuck between a rock and a hard place we are, but from that post it seems like some of the menial superficialities we see here, we may see in Murrieta, per Bakeneko. I'll look into Riverside, as I first thought it was just a county not a town. Thanks again everyone!
Chula Vista would be perfect, but out of budget. The plan is to get a starter home in a good area for 3 - 5 years, and once my wife enters an administration position or we get raises or save up, either way, to move closer to the city. I just can't do two jobs anymore I miss my family too much.
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