Should I stay in San Diego or move to LA?

[Mezi]

San Diego isn't nearly as diverse as Los Angeles. For example most foreign backpackers don't see anything remarkable about san diego enough to make a special trip down here. There's Russian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese districts up there, tons of nightlife and a massively decentralized music scene that caters to just about everyone's tastes.
Ive lived here in SD (well Coronado) for a majority of my life as well as seattle, australia, and montana but find san diegans to be somewhat boring for the most part. People in Coronado that I grew up with, the ones still here at least, don't know their city all that well and have little curiousity getting out of the bubble. Also alot of young people are too busy working just to get by on low paying service jobs, running them down to the point that they barely have any cash or energy left over to go out and enjoy themselves.
Maybe the military, biotech, and family oriented tourism industries don't attract the same kind of artsy weirdo eccentric personalities that make a city vibrant. Most of those people move away to cooler places like SF for instance.
San Diego is a city that had so much potential, squandered by the elite with massively over priced condo towers that only a small percentage can afford, poor public planning, inefficient public transportation and massive generic suburbias such as the entire mission valley area. Creating areas that people really don't care about.

of course people will tell you if you don't like it, just leave. and sadly thats what people do instead of trying to change things for the better. It's especially hard for me to leave as I have family here which always brings me back as well as the mexican food which is the best in the country. The problems with san diego aren't all that unique as Southern California is evolving into one giant megalopolis.

There's a video essay called "Los Angeles Plays itself" on youtube that explores the differences in portrayal from various directors foriegn and local, how they differ from reality and how movies from the past show the thriving downtown Los Angeles of the 30's 40's and 50's that once was.

[jj970]

Wow, a lot of generalizations going on...

I just moved from LB (downtown) to SD (Little Italy).

Honestly, Long Beach isn't all that. There's more to do in SD and it's easier to get around.

Long Beach IS NOT LA though...

If you are talking about living up in West LA or Echo Park or downtown, then that's a different story. But you can't say you live in LA if you live in LB. In fact, all of the generalizations that people made in the previous posts apply more to West LA, Hollywood, downtown LA area and NOT LB. LB is just regular people going about there day. Ain't no models or actresses there...Long Beach is poor.

There's a lot of nightlife up in LA...depends on what you want. If you want nice, giant clubs that's in Hollywood...Long Beach doesn't have any of that. There are more dive bars and chill bars in LB rather than clubs.

Long Beach is about 30-45 minute from LA, Hollywood, West LA etc, depending on traffic. There is always traffic. I hate the 405. 91 is evil too.

Anyway, here in Little Italy, I can go to the beach, the park, Asian areas (Convoy), Gaslamp all in 15 min or less. Or I can just walk around here and have a bunch of nice cafes and restaurants. Downtown Long Beach had a little of that feel, but it's not as nice and there aren't as many spots.

2nd street in the Belmont Shores area of Long Beach is cool though. A lot of bars and restaurants/shops to go to. It's pretty close to campus too.

Just remember things are way more spread out up there and there's a lot more traffic.

As to the generalizations about people...you can't do it...There are as many different people there as here, you just have to find your niche. Go out, do stuff and you'll meet people you like. ****, you're in school dude, go talk to people on campus. I have no worries you won't find like minded people.

Please feel free to ask more questions...