What do you love/hate about San diego? (Oakland, Corona: gated, taxes)

[malcorub16]

Originally Posted by NorthSDLifer

It's been a long time, and it may be hopping now, but my wife and I visited Phoenix once, in 1999 or 2000, to see the Kings play the Coyotes, among other things. Talk about a dead downtown at night, even with the arena there. (It was Nov., so the BOB was empty.) It was weird, after going out in the Gaslamp for years. At that time, concierge at our hotel, also downtown, said it was more of a business district.

True, even downtown LA today is dead after dark compared to San Diego. It wasn't until recently (5-6 years ago) with the completion of LA Live and Nokia Center and the opening of a few high rise condo's that downtown LA started being somewhat attractive for people "live, work, and play." But it is still not at the level downtown SD is.

I drive up there to Staples Center at least two or three times a year for basketball games and before 2007 or so it was kind of scary around there.

Originally Posted by JohnSoCal

I agree that the Gaslamp area can be very busy. The waterfront can be pretty busy also. Anybody who complains about downtown San Diego should have seen it before the mid 1980's when Horton Plaza opened. It was pretty bad then.

Even East Village around Market Street and Little Italy are very hustle and bustle even after 10PM.

[brad4143]

Originally Posted by earlyretirement

Yes. This is true. But then again, this happens in many cities in many states across the USA. So it's not specific to San Diego. I've had the same type of things in other places.

But still, yes in most cities it's above the 1% due to all these voter approved measures, as you mentioned. Besides the 1% property tax here is an example below in my area of all the other taxes we have. They CAN add up. But even considering these, the property taxes here in San Diego are still not bad compared to other parts of the country.


VOTER APPROVED BONDS:

PALOMAR COMMUNITY COLL PROP M 11/07/06, 2006A NET 0.00964 $101.99
PALOMAR COMMUNITY COLL PROP M 11/07/06, 2006B NET 0.00401 $42.42
SAN DIEGO CITY OPEN SPACE FACILITY DIST NO. 1 D/S NET 0.00000 $10.00
SAN DIEGO CITY ZOOLOGICAL EXHIBITS - DEBT SERVICE NET 0.00500 $52.90
MWD D/S REMAINDER OF SDCWA 15019999 NET 0.00350 $37.02

FIXED CHARGE ASSMTS:

BLK MTN RNCH S MAINT 619-685-1326 $150.00
VECTOR DISEASE CTRL 800-273-5167 $5.86
CWA WTR AVAILABILITY 858-522-6900 $10.00
MWD WTR STANDBY CHRG 866-807-6864 $11.50
POWAY UNIFIED CFD#4 877-250-1503 $942.92
SANTALUZ CFD#2 IA#1 949-955-1500 $3847.08
MOSQUITO SURVEILLANC 800-273-5167 $3.00

Wow! they added quite a few assessments since I was there in 95. I moved to 11 acres 3/2 home in the Ozarks by the lakes in MO. My property tax was $367.00/yr for home and land. Still visit San Diego every couple years now as a tourist..lol and visit Grandson.

[sour cream]

Let me be clear--- Downtown San Diego is dead when there's no baseball game and during the day. I mean now, not 1985 or before and not even 5 years ago! I'm talking about downtown today. San Diego's downtown is mainly quiet most of the time and quiet at nights outside the Gaslamp District during the Weekends. The waterfront is not good enough and is being spruced as we speak.

[sour cream]

Originally Posted by JohnSoCal

I agree that the Gaslamp area can be very busy. The waterfront can be pretty busy also. Anybody who complains about downtown San Diego should have seen it before the mid 1980's when Horton Plaza opened. It was pretty bad then.

I'm glad you mentioned Dt San Diego before mid 80's/more like 1979. I sure miss those innocent quiet essential surfing/military city with tattoo parlor and strip clubs downtown. Yeah, lousy downtown back then and a quiet city but a lot of very attractive and easy going women there back then. Still, even though redevelopment of downtown SD with office/hotels/ some residential and convention center at first and highrise housing/hotels with Petco Park later, downtown is still quiet most of the time with Gaslamp and parts of Little Italy springing to life on Weekends evenings. Little Italy is very dead except for few nights a week.

[oddstray]

Originally Posted by sour cream

Let me be clear--- Downtown San Diego is dead when there's no baseball game and during the day. I mean now, not 1985 or before and not even 5 years ago! I'm talking about downtown today. San Diego's downtown is mainly quiet most of the time and quiet at nights outside the Gaslamp District during the Weekends. The waterfront is not good enough and is being spruced as we speak.

Hmm ... it's not as bustling as downtown Chicago or NYC or London. Seems to me that that's about size of population, though.

I'm not there often (mainly for jury duty once a year or so), but I'd say downtown San Diego is far from dead. It's a flourishing business district, and it's increasingly residential as well.

[JohnSoCal]

We spend a lot of time in downtown San Diego playing tourist. We lived in San Diego for 20+ years and now live just an hour away. We own a timeshare in the Gaslamp area so we stay there on bonus time for 2 or 3 nights, several times during the year.

Downtown San Diego is definitely not like NYC ( Manhattan ) which we visit a lot but it is very nice. I love the fact that downtown San Diego is very walkable and I certainly wouldn't call it dead unless you are comparing it to NYC or Las Vegas, etc.

We are not interested in bars and nightclubs so I have no opinion on that part of it.

[sdurbanite]

Originally Posted by Pedro2000

And when you're a business traveler, it's rarely been how do I fly from San diego to NYC or Chicago. It' how do I fly from San diego to Little Rock or Bloomington or Rochester or Median or Bogota or Far off places in the Middle east or Russia and so on. Most of the time you wind up flying into Toronto to fly international. Or you wind up flying to Houston to get to Bentonville.

Hold on....You went from saying earlier that the only way to get to the East Coast from SD was to connect thru SFO and LAX, when in reality you were taking about flying to Little Rock, Rochester and Bloomington? You do know that there and no direct flight from the West Coast to any of those destinations, right? You probably think it's possible to fly direct from Atlanta (The world's busiest airport) to Fresno, Yuma and Bakersfield.

Please stop making things up and I'll stop calling you out.

[Huckleberry3911948]

not much to hate. been waiting since 1977 for winter to come, has not happened so far.
signed a chicago native

[sdurbanite]

Originally Posted by sour cream

Let me be clear--- Downtown San Diego is dead when there's no baseball game and during the day. I mean now, not 1985 or before and not even 5 years ago! I'm talking about downtown today. San Diego's downtown is mainly quiet most of the time and quiet at nights outside the Gaslamp District during the Weekends. The waterfront is not good enough and is being spruced as we speak.

Besides Vegas, name these downtown's that are bustling 24/7? I was in NYC recently and I promise you that most streets there roll up and die after a certain time during the week.

[sour cream]

Originally Posted by sdurbanite

Besides Vegas, name these downtown's that are bustling 24/7? I was in NYC recently and I promise you that most streets there roll up and die after a certain time during the week.

The Gaslamp/East Village are quiet during the days with few people. Where are people? I guess in North County. On Broadway, you see mostly court people, people with criminal cases and homeless people. You do see tourists there, but not enough to make downtown lively. You see very few professional people there. Where are the people after 1PM throughout downtown daily? They mainly walk along the waterfront on Weekends but in the heart of downtown.