Do you consider San Diego a vibrant place for young professionals?

[Pedro2000]

Originally Posted by bloom

Related, Pedro2000, can you makes analogies between San Diego area neighborhoods (and schools (do you have children?)) and those in Seattle area, since you seem pretty familiar with both (me just know SD)?

Honestly, I didn't have any kids when I lived up in Seattle so I never really needed to look at schools. I do know people who did have children and most people thought areas like Bellevue had the best schools, but I can't say from first hand experience if that were true or not. I think the better school systems were east of Lake Washington around Redmond, Kirkland, Bellevue, etc. You go further south to places like Renton Tukwila and Kent they were not as nice.

It also felt like Seattle and surrounding areas was so much bigger than San diego. Many people who move to San diego or live in San diego rarely ask about El Cajon or Alpine or Fallbrook. And there really are no businesses out that way. Same goes for Chula Vista. Yes, there are places, but in general, for most professionals, there are only a few places you work in San diego. And a lot of that is around the Sorrento Valley area. Is that for everybody? No, but for a lot of people that is where people work or think of working.

Whereas up in the Seattle area, I worked on projects and interviewed for jobs from Auburn to Kirkland to Bellevue to Everett to Issaquah and so on. There are also far more jobs and corporate headquarters up there than San diego. You have thousands of professional jobs and people who work for companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Costco, Expedia, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Microsoft, Fred Hutchinson cancer research center, and more. There are also offices for companies like Google/Facebook/Yahoo and more. THere is also no state income tax.

Seattle is like many cities in a sense where you have downtown like areas that are more known for young professionals and those without children and businesses and then you have a lot of suburb and rural areas where people work and play.

I do think there are certain areas with more crime though as some parts over near Lake Union and downtown were just dumps. If you think east of east villiage in San diego, there are far more areas like that in Seattle. There is also far more middle of nowhere places. If you take a ferry or drive out to the Olympic Pennisula, it's pretty much great to visit, great to have a vacation home, but not much work out there if you're not some lumberjack.

Same goes up north in places like Port Townsend. I love Port Townsend and honestly would buy a house up there if I could, but I wouldn't really live there. And there are a lot of places like that in the San Juan Islands, but most of those places you wouldn't live unless you had unlimited funds. And in the winter they aren't that fun. It's not a 10 degrees and snowy kind of place, but it's windy and cold.


I think that's the difference. Southern California you have a lot of the hype over reality when it comes to some many different things to do and different places. Seattle and the Pacific Northwest really have far different places and cultures. San diego will have one of those Encinitas vs Coronado conversations. Different, but it's nowhere near like talking about somebody who lives in Issaquah vs somebody who lives in Sequim. it's almost like being in a different world in some places up there and they are all spread out.

I guess I got off the point, but to me, I would imagine sending your kids to Bellevue schools would be like sending your kids to the del Mar and carmel valley schools. But I don't know from first hand experience because I didn't have any kids when I lived up there.

[sacite]

Originally Posted by Pedro2000

I always find the 'outdoor' life a bit of a joke. I lived up in Seattle and there are far more outdoor activities going on up there than in San diego. People in San diego and southern California in general just like to throw out the "surf in the morning and ski in the afternoon" nonsense that nobody actually does.

I've lived in many cold weather places, grew up in the NY/NJ area and the reality is, if you love the outdoors, you are going to find things to do outdoors no matter where you live. Yes, there will be times that you hate life in the winter in those places, but it won't make you a couch potato. There are plenty of people in California who sit on the sofa and watch TV all day. They would sit on the sofa all day in NJ or NY. People don't just suddenly become active because they moved. It's the dumbest argument I've ever seen.

I love the year round nice weather in San diego. It's never that hot and never that cold. No snow, no ice, hardly any rain and so on. But San Diego can't compare to the lakes and sound and beautiful outdoors of places like Seattle. There is very few things like seeing Mt Rainier on a sunny day. But it's also colder and it rains up there and is pretty much overcast most of the year.

But again, I never stayed inside because it was a little misty out. Most of the time in Seattle it's light rain or mist, it's not torrential downpours every day. You adapt, and you explore. I had far more fun exploring the Cascasdes, the Puget Sound, and so on. There is far more outdoor activities and an outdoor lifestyle up there than in San diego. But San diego has the beaches and sunshine. Seattle doesn't really have beaches besides Alki beach and that's nothing like Southern California beaches. You could go out to Long Beach, but those Washington state and even Oregon beaches are kind of empty and cold. Great to just explore, not so great to live the beach life.

But to me, an active person who loves the outdoors is going to find great things to do no matter where they go. And places like the Pacific Northwest have some of the best outdoor activities in the country. Places like San diego have a lot of great outdoor activities, but nobody goes hiking in the desert in the middle of the summer unless you're a moron who wants to die. Same as most people aren't going hiking in the winter in the Cascades.

Good points. I've never been a "sun" person - at least not enough to seek it in lieu of other things I love (art, history, etc), but lately I have been thinking SD's weather would be great for a couple yrs. What turned me off about the city last visit was the lack of anything interesting outside of downtown. You leave downtown and there is no city - just houses and more houses. I like being in a portable city where I can walk here and there, look at interesting architecture, see and meet people. SD seems to lack in these respects.

But back to the weather, like you I love to be actuve and prob would be one of the people that actually hikes at Mt Helix and then explores the coast. So there would be some posititives to giving it a shot.

[Pedro2000]

Originally Posted by sacite

Good points. I've never been a "sun" person - at least not enough to seek it in lieu of other things I love (art, history, etc), but lately I have been thinking SD's weather would be great for a couple yrs. What turned me off about the city last visit was the lack of anything interesting outside of downtown. You leave downtown and there is no city - just houses and more houses. I like being in a portable city where I can walk here and there, look at interesting architecture, see and meet people. SD seems to lack in these respects.

But back to the weather, like you I love to be actuve and prob would be one of the people that actually hikes at Mt Helix and then explores the coast. So there would be some posititives to giving it a shot.

It all depends on what you love. A lot of people I knew back east were city people. They loved the city life and in places like NYC, it's hard for most other cities to compete with that. But many of those same people rarely leave the city that much. Their entire lives revolve around being in the city. You won't get that feeling in San Diego or Los Angeles. You might get it in San Fran a bit, Seattle a bit, but other than that, West Coast cities are spread out.

NYC has a huge metro where a lot of people who aren't city people live. But most people think of NYC as that small little section. Kind of like many people think of NY as NYC, but ignore the fact that it's a pretty damn big state and many of those places are middle of nowhere nature lovers paradises.


But back to the west coast, there are many places to discover. I love little 'downtown' main street like areas. Places like Hillcrest, North Park, University Heights, even La Mesa are cool. Go out to the coast and Coronado, IB, OB, MB, PB, La Jolla, del mar, solana beach, encinitas, carlsbad, oceanside and so on all have their little intricacies and personalities of their own. It's kind of cool having so much variety. When I was up in the Silicon Valley area, I loved placed like Palo Alto and Mountainview. Cool little Main Street like areas to visit and play. And the beach towns like Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz were far different than anything down south. Go up to Orange County and Los Angeles and you have so many different little towns.

The thing about California for the most part is most people live somewhere near the coasts. You go out to El Centro or up north towards Reno or Big Bear and its really middle of nowhere. Hell, visit a place like Lake Elsinore and its cheap, but it's far different than the coasts. And Lake Elsinore is only a long windy road through a mountain from Orange County.

But I enjoy visiting places in general. When I was down in Colombia, I was one of those people who stayed in a hostel and visited the areas people told me I'd be dumb to visit. I'm not the 'touristy' type. I go off the beaten path and one of these days it might be the death of me, but i'd rather get to know the real culture and real place, compared to staying in some 5 star hotel with a pool and huge gated fence. Yeah you visited such and such, but you never left the hotel. Not really a point to that to me.

The huge advantage Southern California has is that its pretty much sunny year round and nice weather. Yeah the desert areas get 125 degrees in the summer sometimes, but you avoid them at that time of year. I enjoy being able to not worry about Heat or AC ever. Whereas in Seattle, the rain and cold does get to people. They can claim it doesn't, but Seattle has a high suicide rate and a high heroin addiction rate. But Seattle has that, it gets dark at like 10pm in the summer time thing going for them. But in the winter it'll get darker sooner than San diego.

Anyway, no matter where you live, there should be things you will love and things you'll hate. if it's more about "hanging out for a couple of years" then San Diego will be a place you come to love. San Diego gets depressing when you see dumpy houses with no yard going for 1.5 million.