What are your favorite and least favorite parts of living in SD? (San Diego: low crime, homes)

[WI55]

Curious to hear people's thoughts as I'd like to move soon - list em!

[Sharky8828]

Pros
- Best climate on globe
- Out door activities
- Relatively clean
- Relatively low crime
- Lots of immigrants/diversity
- Close to foreign country
- Suburbia so good schools


Cons
- Extremely spread out: Need car
- Lacks big city feel (gets boring)
- Lots of immigrants
- Close to Tijuana
- Suburbia so lacks culture
- Relatively expensive

[Mike930]

Originally Posted by Sharky8828

Pros
- Best climate on globe
- Out door activities
- Relatively clean
- Relatively low crime
- Lots of immigrants/diversity
- Close to foreign country
- Suburbia so good schools

This is a pretty good list. I'd add a world class zoo (x2) although I prefer the zoo to the Safari Park in North County.

Under negatives I'd say:

The housing is expensive
Lack of really good restaurants. There are a few jewels, but they are few.
Sea World
The fact that it's in California and subject to the state politicians. They are dolts on a mission to bleed everyone dry with taxes and care more about the citizens of Mexico than Californians.

[lrmsd]

You guys got it right.
I will add, related to the 'lacking big city vibe':
Cons:
No intellectual climate, very superficial, regardless of your political leanings.
Having in depth discussions is pretty rare.
Apathetic population.
No sense of community, city in the pocket of developers with no long term strategy or consideration for growth [not stunting it but actually planning intelligently for it=doesn't happen in SD].
The restaurants really are lame, as mentioned only a few gems. This brings me to the overarching con for me of SD: MEDIOCRITY. Not an ambitious place and everything is 'just fine' or 'nice'. Pleasant. Including the restaurants. 'oh, that was fine, it was decent'. The lack of sophistication in SD I think is related to its laid back lifestyle and lack of ambition. These are also pros, though can translate into cons, depending on the person viewing them.

Pros:
Very laid back.
Live and let live.
Many beautiful, free, easy to access public beaches-most very safe and clean. [CA beaches are ALL public! Love that and call CA socialist if you will, but it got some of its policies right, IMO].
Decent hiking and biking for a so cal city.
Access to the rest of so cal [joshua tree, big bear, LA, Santa Barbara, etc.]
Year round, very fresh and high quality produce, at cheap or very reasonable prices [food costs are lower than many and on par with most places around the US].

[Matador04]

Diversity, stable economy, relatively low crime, good-looking population, great schools, great beaches, weather, food, proximity to major cities (LA), Phoenix, Tijuana, Las Vegas, and CRAFT BEER.

Lack of big city Metropolis... need more high-end dining

[aboveordinary]

Originally Posted by Sharky8828

Pros
- Best climate on globe
- Out door activities
- Relatively clean
- Relatively low crime
- Lots of immigrants/diversity
- Close to foreign country
- Suburbia so good schools


Cons
- Extremely spread out: Need car
- Lacks big city feel (gets boring)
- Lots of immigrants
- Close to Tijuana
- Suburbia so lacks culture
- Relatively expensive

Contradictory much?

Threads like this are very subjective. What might be a con to someone is a pro to another.

[Sharky8828]

Originally Posted by aboveordinary

Contradictory much?

Threads like this are very subjective. What might be a con to someone is a pro to another.

Exactly why I listed it in Pros & Cons.

[daveyboy1225]

Originally Posted by Matador04

Diversity, stable economy, relatively low crime, good-looking population, great schools, great beaches, weather, food, proximity to major cities (LA), Phoenix, Tijuana, Las Vegas, and CRAFT BEER.

Lack of big city Metropolis... need more high-end dining

In what area?

[rgb123]

pros are similar to all of California - natural beauty, ocean, weather...though its more of a "pro" if you like to swim or be a bit warmer as the other coastal CA areas are colder. The beach towns are great and laid back culture can be very nice. Lots of cafe's and lots of healthy food. I haven't tried too much fine dining but what I have had is good. Compared to lots of places in America San Diego is actually pretty cosmopolitan -- compared to SF and NYC and Chicago maybe not as much but its a pretty great middle ground if you like to be near an urban center but also value open space and the outdoors. There is a good population base around to find all kinds of people and walks of life to identify with and the CA live and live let is here. One thing I really value about this are though (and OC) is that it actually IS more conservative than a lot of the bigger cities inside and outside of CA. I feel like there are more "out in the open" Christians here and that is really dwindling in a lot of places and I like that, especially for CA.

Negatives would of course be housing costs. That and the weather can be repetitive and boring, but if I really want thunderstorms I Can drive into the desert during monsoon season! San Diego is also a little farther than some more central parts of CA to some destinations like Yosemite or Tahoe...but gee you can't have it all.

It'd be nice if public transportation was little better for all areas...and there are some cultural issues here that are really all of CA that could be better but its really a function of the economy (i.e. new arrivals like me didn't have parents born in CA with a nice house, people my age who are born here are more likely to have inherited some wealth and have homes, etc) but most of the negatives here are negatives in all of CA to me.

[bloom]

climate / job market