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SD and the east coast have nothing in common. I live in SD now and I was born and raised on the east coast. They are totally different. Public transportation in SoCal pales in comparison to big cities on the east coast but SD has better weather. SD is more expensive than the east coast due to the HIGH TAXES. The people are more friendly in SD than they are on the east coast. But jobs pay more on the east coast than what they due in SD. Most jobs here pay very little when you consider the cost of living and HIGH TAXES that support the welfare state. But SD is not a bad place to live a few years. Its the best place in this state in my opinion and the only place I will live on the left coast.
I find it odd someone living on the east coast in New York would complain about San Diego having high taxes considering on average, New Yorkers pay more in taxes than Californians.
we're not urban enough, pace of life is too slow, but these people are from place like Philly or NY.
True. But there are other trade offs we consider.
One typically over-looked is the general attitude of the populace. San Diegians are generally a nice, happy and an accepting bunch, who usually will live and let live, minding their own business as they go about. No one is typically hostile in your face talking smack.
Customer service here generally empathizes with your situation and works with you for a comfortable resolution; places like philly, customer service likes to exaccerbate any given situation and work against any agreeable solution.
Simply by removing myself from philly and this mentality, I've increased my general life happiness immeasurably.
Sure I can't jump on the $10 China Town Bus and take a weekend trip up/down to Manhattan/DC. But I can buy a Southwest FunFare and fly cheaply to Seattle, SanFran, or Vegas. Or jump on Greyhound or MexicoCoach for cheap trips south into Baja.
The weather too, I hate the winter and just being able to get some sun and having the ability to enjoy the little bit of daylight we have during the winter goes a long way with me. Back east too, the summers are so hot, sticky and humid they suck and will keep you indoors with the AC on. SD weather on the other hand, there is something to be said for it; who doesn't love the weather?
The club scene may be subpar, there's no cart food in the city, and public trans is ill thought making us a commuter city. But there's little attitude here, the weather is awesome and you can live next to the beach next to an urban center with such amounts of commerce & industry you'll have a fair amount of certainty in regards to your employment and/or next re-employment.
The United States, this package of Sunshine/Urban Center/Ocean is reserved to three geographic locations: the SD area, The Costa Mesa/Long Beach/Huntington Beach suburb of LA or Miami. If you are a full time English speaker, Miami is out. If you don't care for traffic and urban density of a megatropolis, LA is out. Leaving only SD.
And someone mentioned taxes and SD being so expensive compared to east coast. I can only disagree. Before making my decision to move here, I researched the price of renting 1br apartments in NYC, Philly* and DC to that of SD. This was huge and one of the clinchers as I realized I could rent in any of the above spots for the same price. I was like, live on the beach for 950 or stay near the Fam for 950; sorry moms, the beach won.
*Philly taxes: I paid more in city taxes living in Philly than I paid in state taxes to PA. Federal/State/City taxes were taken out of each paycheck, and I had to file yearly returns with each. Businesses in philly on top of all the other taxes they pay, have to pay a yearly bribe for their commerce - Business Privelage Tax.
We are not taxed as bad as Philly taxes you. And no worse than VA, DC, MD, NY. Jersey now, they have taxes for sure. And NYC, they are probally taxed more than SD.
My two cents!
Last edited by mossomo; 04-07-2009 at 06:34 PM..
Reason: pronouns suck edit
For the most part I think San Diego is a suburban type city. Much of the growth that took place in San Diego came after the rise of the automobile, and the layout of the city is indicative of that. There are pockets of urban type areas, but San Diego does not feel like a place that has a cohesive urban feel to it. Downtown, the older neighborhoods closer to Balboa Park, and the areas heading southeast from Downtown toward National City are what I would consider the urban parts of the city. I would also throw in Mission Beach and downtown LaJolla as urban type neighborhoods. These areas can't stand up to the old school urban neighborhoods you will find in the cities of the Northeast, San Francisco, or Chicago; but they hold their own against a lot of other places. Overall San Diego has more urban character than most of the sunbelt, but is not up to par with the Northeast, much of the Midwest, or the Pacific Northwest. Downtown San Diego is actually pretty good though, and I would rank it as one of the better downtowns when compared to similar sized metros.
I'm a native East Coaster with family in San Diego. Obviously, some core parts of San Diego (Downtown, Hillcrest, North Park, downtown La Jolla, etc.) are urban but I find most of the incorporated city (and metro region) decidedly suburban. Suburban neighborhoods in San Diego (and in most of California) are more densely-populated than comparable neighborhoods back East because of the tendency to sandwich homes next to each other on postage-stamp lots.
I would characterize places like Mission Valley, University Town Centre and Sorrento Valley as suburban sprawl.
You think CA taxes are higher than NY? Don't you have to pay city/county/state/federal? I lived in CT, worked in NYC and got KILLED in taxes.
He obviously is not aware of the city income tax, not to mention the commuter tax and the medieval fiefdom-type municipal tax system that is common throughout the northeast. California is like a carribean island compared to NY/NJ.
Location: Los Angeles-213.323.310.818/San Diego-619.858.760
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Having lived in both L.A. and S.D., San Diego seems very suburbial to me. The downtown area is GREAT, especially the gaslamp district but besides that, San Diego doesn't seem urban to me. L.A. is not a wasteland, and you're crazy if you think that the trolley system in S.D. beats the Metro rail in L.A. L.A.'s public transportations is MUCH better than S.D.'s. Comparing L.A. to S.D., L.A. is many times more urban than San Diego but it has many more problems along with it. As far as comparing S.D with other cities, I think its better than most and as exciting if not more exciting than most cities. Personally, I think San Diego is boring...but thats why I choose to live in Los Angeles but overall San Diego is beautiful.
For a city its size, San Diego is extremely suburban. Compared to mid-sized American cities i.e. Denver, Raleigh-Durham, Minneapolis-St. Paul, San Diego is probably on par, even slightly under par, as far as urbanism goes. This isn't saying much as America has very few true urban cities.
The area they call San Diego city has a population over 1 million but all of that is hardly urban; it includes suburban sprawl at its worst (Mission Valley), neighborhoods that are essentially suburbs despite being considered "core urban" (Clairemont, Kearny Mesa, Tierrasanta), the generic soccer mom central suburban stretch known as Mira Mesa, and neighborhoods that are not urban in the least (RB/RP & some unincorporated areas in east county and on the Mexican border.)
The urban areas (Hillcrest, North Park, Normal Heights, Kensington, Mission Hills, Golden Hill, South Park, Little Italy, and a few of the sketchy areas in SESD) all lack the urban charm that you find in places like NYC, Philly, SF, with the exception of South Park/Golden Hill, and the emerging area of North Park over by South Park. Kensington is not urban in the least, it's more like a charming upscale village that has a tiny main street. Even Hillcrest and the rest of North Park...not so much. Hillcrest is more urban compared to most of SD, yes, but it's hardly "true urbanism" so to speak. The smattering of storefronts is just slightly less spaced out in those areas than in others. 5th avenue lasts for what...two blocks? Before the stores start disappearing. Just about everyone that lives there has a car & uses it like everyone else, even to go a few blocks. Plentiful all-day parking is never a problem anywhere in the city except for downtown.
Also, while downtown is walkable, it's not really the heart of the city IMO. When they started refurbishing it, it was designed to be one big tourist trap (and is quite effective at it). There are a few businesses but nobody I knew when I lived in SD had a typical white collar job downtown; most of these jobs are located up in UTC or Sorrento Mesa, also stretches of generic suburbia. In fact, during rush hour traffic never seems to get bad until you leave San Diego proper!
I agree with just about every post above, you guys really nailed it! As for transportation between LA and SD, SD is more cohesive from our trolley use compared to LA metro system, the reason I say this is because, LA County is like 10 times bigger than SD County, us being a much smaller city, our public transportation works better than LA's. I mean you can't reach train stops in all parts of LA, only certain areas. LA is simply way to big to even consider public transit, you NEED a CAR if your going to live there plain and simple. I know LA is trying real hard to get people to take public transit, but in reality it will take you even longer to get to where you need to go, than if you had a car especially if you lived far east of the city so it's just not worth it. I also agree that SD is pretty boring, even with all of LA's problems, it's still a much cooler diverse city than SD. SD just doesn't have much going on, at least in La La Land you have Long Beach, Hollywood, Downtown LA, Santa Monica, East LA and other cool area's to party, shop, and eat so you never get bored. Unlike out here, we have a few locations and that's it.
Downtown SD was a dump for many years, and that is sad, because this city based itself off suburban sprawl and embraced it until recently. We as a city never truly encouraged urbanity, why? I wish I knew, downtown SD sits on a prime location and has for more than 200 years, and you would think that our urban sector would be much more developed over other California cities, but sadly we got passed up by LA and SF. From the lack of skyscrapers, to the lack of districts such as a Financial District, Fashion District, Jewelry District, Garment etc. The majority of metro cities have these kind of sectors in there downtowns that make them so great, but we don't. SD really does have identity crisis, it doesn't know what it wants to be. I mean does the city want downtown to be touristy ( which can have it's faults) or neighborhoodey, a business center? I feel like the city is relying heavily on the convention center to help bring in revenue, because they know nothing else down there is really pulling in heavy amounts of dough. What the Gaslamp? But that's another tourist trap, that's fun for about a full weekend, and then your done.
I mean the only time downtown gets packed is during Padre games, other than that it's mostly dead during the day. Not to mention we lack great architecture as a whole city, whatever early 20th and 19th century structures are left in the inner core city center, will eventually get demolished soon or a later. It just shows you that SD doesn't care much about preserving older buildings or trying to keep a historic look in older urban neighborhoods.
For instance, do any of you remember that old North Park gas station that stood on the corner of 30th and El Cajon Blvd? Well if you do, it's now been demoed, and some piece of crap little retail building now sits on the lot. But my main complaint is, why can't we get some cool, older design architecture than some plastic ugly stucco base garbage that totally ruins the look and feel of the neighborhood? I mean seriously, it looks like any other typical suburban style design, it really sucks, it's like this building is removing a part of neighborhood, I hate when this type of stuff happens.
Downtown SD was a dump for many years, and that is sad, because this city based itself off suburban sprawl and embraced it until recently. We as a city never truly encouraged urbanity, why?
Same exact thing could be said about LA.
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I wish I knew, downtown SD sits on a prime location and has for more than 200 years, and you would think that our urban sector would be much more developed over other California cities, but sadly we got passed up by LA and SF.
After SF it has the best downtown urban core in the state. Downtown LA is BEHIND San Diego it terms of revitalizing its downtown and is only recently getting people to live there. Downtown LA is NOT a destination for most Angelenos like Downtown SD is to our region. Our downtown scene is good for a metro our size while LA's is pathetic.
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From the lack of skyscrapers,
That thing called the AIRPORT might have something to do with that.
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to the lack of districts such as a Financial District, Fashion District, Jewelry District, Garment etc. The majority of metro cities have these kind of sectors in there downtowns that make them so great,
NO they do not, besides LA and NYC what cities have a Garment district, Jewelry district, Fashion District, etc.. The majority of metro's have downtown's no better than SD and many times worse. Maybe a dozen or so are better than SD.
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but we don't. SD really does have identity crisis, it doesn't know what it wants to be
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It certainly does NOT want to be LA but you seem to want it to be, that really wouldn't give SD a unique identity now would it?
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I mean does the city want downtown to be touristy ( which can have it's faults) or neighborhoodey, a business center?
All of it, but this stuff doesn't happen overnight or even within just a decades time frame. I don't get why some people expect Downtown SD to turn into Midtown Manhattan overnight and this need for instant gratification. It's better than it was 10 years ago and 10 years from now it will be even better. Would you prefer it go back to being a dump or continue its progression towards something better?
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I feel like the city is relying heavily on the convention center to help bring in revenue, because they know nothing else down there is really pulling in heavy amounts of dough. What the Gaslamp? But that's another tourist trap, that's fun for about a full weekend, and then your done.
Yes its a way to bring people downtown, what exactly are you complaining about? That we shouldn't be drawing in tourists? Downtown draws both tourists and locals as well, it shouldn't be geared towards one or the other but for everyone.
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I mean the only time downtown gets packed is during Padre games, other than that it's mostly dead during the day
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Plenty of people are out at lunchtime, during the rest of the day there are people WORKING in the office buildings. Every weekend night its packed too.
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Not to mention we lack great architecture as a whole city, whatever early 20th and 19th century structures are left in the inner core city center, will eventually get demolished soon or a later. It just shows you that SD doesn't care much about preserving older buildings or trying to keep a historic look in older urban neighborhoods.
Right b/c no other city, especially LA, does that. And I guess San Diego did nothing to preserve all those historical buildings in the Gaslamp or other parts of town. Not saying it couldn't be better but it's not that bad imo.
The problem with San Diego is some people who constantly try to compare to cities above it on another level like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and even NEW YORK. Places like Minneapolis, Portland, Cleveland, Phoenix, Tampa, etc..are better comparisons and NOT Boston, NYC, Chicago, or some major world class city like that. I get so tired of people trying to compare this city to places it should NOT be compared to at all.
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. And I guess San Diego did nothing to preserve all those historical buildings in the Gaslamp or other parts of town. Not saying it couldn't be better but it's not that bad imo.
