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Apologies if this becomes a long post but I want to put as much info here as possible so you can get an idea of our situation, wants and needs etc. My husband and I and our two sons (2 and 4) live in Almaden in Silicon Valley. We've been here for about 18 months and I hate it. Before this we lived in Seattle for five years, which we adored and were sad to leave but had an offer from Google that we literally couldn't refuse. The things we miss most about Seattle (obviously not the weather) are being close to the ocean and skiing and just the overall beauty of the state of Washington. We love being outdoors and I especially am happiest when I'm near the ocean. If an opportunity arose to move to San Diego, my husband and I were talking recently and both agreed we would love to move there in a couple of years. We've visited a few times and fell in love with it, particularly the coastal towns, but of course we know that visiting somewhere and living there permanently are very different. I've read the sticky on house prices but I thought I'd also ask for the opinions of you lovely insightful people here.
The options to move would either be if my husband could transfer to a position within Google in SD; stay with Google but commute to Bay Area weekly; or accept a job in SD for a different company. He doesn't want to commute to Bay Area or leave Google for another company. At the moment, he is lucky that he has a great job with Google with a really really good six-figure salary, shares, bonus etc - enough that we can afford a large 5-bed house in south San Jose and he is obviously reluctant to lose this. (I run a non profit organization in San Jose, which I work pro bono for, so there's no income coming from me right now.) The areas we were looking at - Encinitas, Carlsbad, Del Mar, Solana Beach etc - would be our top choice for proximity to the ocean, good public schools, but of course are the most expensive.
As I see it, and feel free to add any I've missed, the cons of living in SD are exorbitant house prices, high cost of living, terrible traffic, and high crime and drug rates (my husband jokingly added the risk that our sons would want to join the Navy).
The cons of living in the Bay Area are exorbitant house prices, high cost of living, terrible traffic, and high crime and drug rates. Our local K-8 is good but the public high school is pretty sketchy. And did I mention that I hate it here.
I'm aware that this sounds like first-world problems and that we're privileged that we could even contemplate such a move, and maybe this is a grass-is-always-greener scenario, but for the sake of my mental health (and therefore the rest of my family's happiness), it seems like somewhere we could be really happy.
So I guess my question is this: is this just a pipe dream that we should give up on? Or based on our quality of living now, is it something that is actually achievable if a job opportunity arose that allowed us to move? I'm just wondering whether I'm getting carried away with the romanticism of living back by the ocean or whether I should keep researching in case we can actually make it happen. The market is so crazy in the Bay Area that I know we could rent or sell our house here in a heartbeat.
I'd love to hear from anyone who's lived in both Bay Area and San Diego and who could give an unbiased comparison of them. Would you do the move again knowing what you know now? Am I missing something? I fear my head is too far in the clouds to clearly see the reality of a move to SD. But I really really hate it here.
Your post made me wonder: what's the real reason why you aren't happy in the Bay area? I ask this because you have the ocean right there in your backyard, and you're closer to great skiing at Tahoe than we are to great skiing here in San Diego. And many would argue that there's oodles of natural beauty in Northern California too. So, a lot of what you say you loved about Seattle can be found in the Bay area, or pretty close.
Most people who live in San Diego County like living here once they get settled in. San Diego County can be a great place to live and raise a family. But I could say the same thing about people in the Bay area. For some people, 18 months isn't enough time to "settle in" and feel like they've put down roots. Could that be the case for you?
You don't have to answer those questions here on a public forum (and in fact, I'd suggest that you don't), but it sounds like it might be helpful to think a bit more about your answers.
Of course, you and your husband ultimately are the only ones who can make this important decision for your family, but speaking just for myself, as much as I love living in San Diego, I personally would not choose to have my husband commuting to the Bay area during the week just to have warmer weather, especially if I had pre-school aged kids. So, my suggestion would be for your husband to test the waters and see what type of jobs and salary he can find here as a first step. If he finds a job he loves, and you and he decide that San Diego is a place you really could see yourselves living for the long haul, and where you might be happier than San Jose, then go for it!
I'm sure you and your husband will make a great decision --- Good luck!
Also, a lot of the cons you've mentioned don't ring true. For instance, the SD towns you've mentioned don't have "high crime and drug rates." SD probably has a less hyper-inflated housing market than the Bay area, so if you're able to afford a nice house in San Jose, chances are you'll find one here too, so I wouldn't put "high home prices" in the con side. We have good schools and bad schools here too. As for your husband's joke about your kids joining the Navy, that made me chuckle. The areas you're talking about don't have much of a Navy presence; indeed, the San Diego area is much less of a "military town" then it used to be. Traffic - yep, North County has that, but a lot will depend on where your husband is working here too.
So, again, perhaps give some more thought about how you hope living in San Diego will make you happier. Just guessing, but could you be looking for the same sense of community you had in Seattle, perhaps? How would you define that sense of community, and what would it "look" like here in San Diego? Figure the "what would make me happy" piece, and then see what the job market might be like for your husband, and I'm sure the two of you will make a good decision.
(P.S., your comment about your pro bono work made me wonder if perhaps your career isn't part of the equation. I know I had a hard time when my kids were pre-schoolers as I'd downsized my career and felt I lost some of my sense of self worth in the process. )
From Carlsbad down to La jolla, there are not high crime and drug rates.
I don't know your politics or what community attributes you're looking for.
But as a native Seattlite, what I don't like about San Diego beach towns is their conservatism. Everyone strives to be just like everyone else, just like Orange County and scottsdale. From West LA and north on the coast, it's more liberal and laid back IMHO
As I see it, and feel free to add any I've missed, the cons of living in SD are exorbitant house prices, high cost of living, terrible traffic, and high crime and drug rates (my husband jokingly added the risk that our sons would want to join the Navy).
Besides what you mention, the biggest con of San Diego is the extremely limited job market especially in the area your husband is in. San Diego can be OK for hardware, and defense related positions but not for business services, internet, web etc. From a career and income perspective, as well as tax and housing, you would be about 1000 times better off just relocating back to Seattle.
Google has no office in San Diego...the closest is in Irvine in Orange County which would be a heck of a commute and I am pretty sure Orange County is not what your looking for.
Besides what you mention, the biggest con of San Diego is the extremely limited job market especially in the area your husband is in. San Diego can be OK for hardware, and defense related positions but not for business services, internet, web etc. From a career and income perspective, as well as tax and housing, you would be about 1000 times better off just relocating back to Seattle.
Google has no office in San Diego...the closest is in Irvine in Orange County which would be a heck of a commute and I am pretty sure Orange County is not what your looking for.
OC has similar beach cities to the ones OP mentioned and a Google office, so I am not sure why anyone would conclude OC wouldn't work.
From Carlsbad down to La jolla, there are not high crime and drug rates.
I don't know your politics or what community attributes you're looking for.
But as a native Seattlite, what I don't like about San Diego beach towns is their conservatism. Everyone strives to be just like everyone else, just like Orange County and scottsdale. From West LA and north on the coast, it's more liberal and laid back IMHO
Santa Barbara my favorite.
I am not really sure what you mean by conservatism in OC or everyone being like everyone else. If you mean fiscally conservative in OC, I will grant you that and will remain very proud of that fact. OC is very purple politically, but remains, happily, fiscally conservative. If you think there are, for example, no gay people, no counter culture, no artists in OC, etc., you would be very wrong. Don't listen to people who claim, for example, that since they have visited Ladera Ranch, as an example, and spent time at say the tot lot there, that people were "conservative". Ladera Ranch is OC's Poway and it has just what one would expect to find in a place like that. As it stands now, areas closer to the beach have plenty of "different" (read: interesting) folks but there is a sort of decorum that I have found with different people here that is quite nice and dignified.
For example, south OC has tons of gay people and artists in South Laguna and Laguna Beach (and increasingly, all over and near the beaches). These gay people are not like North Park people (or even Long Beach) with ten million piercings etc. Why? I think that is self evident. People here tend to be more successful financially and need to blend in more than one circle.
Interesting.
Why don't you look into moving back to Seattle if that's where you were happy?
Or, why don't you look into living closer to the ocean in the bay area?
North county SD is great for the beautiful weather and beaches and laid back lifestyle. But imo central/northern coastal California has much more natural beauty and easier access to a much greater variety of scenic places.
Location: Miami (prev. NY, Atlanta, SF, OC and San Diego)
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tough call....I have lived in both areas--Mill Valley/Marin County and presently San Diego. It's tough because based on Google's location and traffic in the Bay Area you are confined to the South Bay/Peninsula, which would not be my first choice of where to live in the Bay Area (yeah, Palo Alto, Mountain View and Burlingame are nice but a little too sleepy for me)....and living as you do in San Jose, it's not as though driving on a regular basis to SF to take advantage of all the cultural amenities, restaurants, etc. 2-3/week is an option either......if Marin were an option I would say stay there, but it is not. Whereas SD will satisfy your beach requirements, there is no Google option here, tech options are limited, and you will find the area less sophisticated than where you are living now.
Besides OC, you might also have a look at the Playa del Rey area in LA, where Google has an office, which would make living in Manhattan Beach, Marina del Rey, or Santa Monica viable options for you. Of the three, I would definitely lean towards Santa Monica (in between Montana Avenue and San Vicente Boulevard would be ideal).
Both San Jose and San Diego actually are pretty safe areas overall.
Another thing I'm kind of surprised about is that you loved the skiing and natural beauty of Washington but want to be in SD over the Bay Area. The skiing is MUCH better in Northern CA and the natural scenery is more similar to Washington than Southern CA is. Inland Southern CA is pretty dry, brown, and barren in comparison. I prefer Coastal SoCal to Coastal NorCal but prefer inland NorCal to inland SoCal.
If you guys can make a lateral career move then San Diego is a much better value than the Bay Area and especially Silicon Valley. IMO the quality of life and lifestyle along coastal SD is superior to much of the Bay Area, especially the suburban sprawl rat race of Silicon Valley with its insane housing costs.
I absolutely loved living by the ocean in San Diego and miss it all the time, the Bay Area is pretty much walled off from the ocean and it's probably a good thing because of how cold and foggy it is much of the time. But like I said the skiing and mountain scenery up here is better and more like WA so you're kind of making a trade there.
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