My brother-in-law lived in San Diego until he was in his 60s. Couldn't wait to get the hell out. Now lives in Vancouver, Washington near Camas in a beautiful wooded area.
I lived in SD from 1999-2008. Loved every minute. But...if you live in the wrong part of SD, I can see it might not be great. So saying "San Diego" might not be accurate - because if you aren't in 1 of about 10 places within SD, you are missing out on the entire experience. I suppose that's the same with all cities. But I have never heard of someone who hated San Diego. Where in SD did he live?
Also - a person who loves living in a wooded area in Vancouver, WA, is likely not the type of person who loves San Diego. Neither is wrong/right, but I cant think of a more opposite situation.
We lived in Portland for 17 years, moved for 1+ year to Marin county north of SF and have since moved to north San Diego county for the last 5+ years. Like everything else - it depends where in the metro area you live - and that is true for just about anywhere in the world. Personally, while I loved most of our time in Portland - I hated the weather with a passion. San Diego weather agrees with me a lot more - and I can not see us ever going back. As for San Fran - Not a great place to live unless you have a lot of money or love urban environments with small spaces. We were renting a nice little 1,500sqft house in San Anselmo (out of the city) - and to purchase that house if we were to stay would have been $1.5m in 2013 - cost of living (well, housing to be fair) in the nicer parts of the bay are stupid high. SoCal is not cheap but compared to the bay, it is much more affordable (and has better weather). I do have to say that I loved our neighborhood and the people in San Anselmo, real down to earth people with a real sense of community (which is really a product of the topography and the way small cities are very dense and separate from others there, I would guess). The funny thing is that inside this neighborhood of mostly smaller houses from the 40s, at the end of our street - is a giant mansion where George Lucas lives.
Interesting. I know San Anselmo very well - spent a lot of time there. Grew up in Bay Area. Marin is as good as it gets in the Bay Area, in my opinion. Lived in SD for 9 years, and now Portland. Nothing beats SD weather, period. But I am a weirdo and actually love Portland weather too. I like the seasons here. Living near the beach in SD was incredible, but there were times where I was like, wait, its almost Christmas and I'm on the beach playing football. Cant complain...but different. San Anselmo is just awesome, but so damn expensive.
The Mrs. HCP and I have spent a week together in mid-town Manhattan and a week together on the north shore of Kauai.
Marin has a lot going for it - but commuting there is hell. My wife used to go into the city every day for work, she would drive to Larkspur and park there, take the boat to the city and walk to her office. Basically 90 minutes each way for something that would have been 20 minutes of drive in anywhere else. Crazy.
I was stationed in San Diego for 2 years in the early ‘70’s. It was a very fun place for a kid just out of high school, but as good as the weather truly was, I totally missed the four seasons. Worst Xmas I ever spent was 1974. I just couldn’t get into 75 degrees and palm trees on Xmas Day. Also, the traffic was worse than any I had ever seen other than LA and SF (though PDX has certainly made up for that since then). And I also felt hemmed in on 3 sides, as the ocean was to the west, Mexico to the south (my buddies and I wore out our welcome there pretty fast) and LA to the north. The only direction to really “get away” was east......and that got old after awhile. I’ve always enjoyed SF, especially when my sister in law was living there. But it’s gotten so bad in terms of panhandlers, filth and excrement it’s not worth straying much farther than AT&T Park and/or the Embarcadero. It got so bad the inlaws moved to Vancouver 4 years ago after 40+ years in SF. And San Anselmo is a very cool....and expensive.....place. Didn’t Sean Penn and Robin Wright live right next to the police station? I heard they were very generous to the police in exchange for extra “attention” for their home and children. But then, that could have just been my gossipy sister in law.......
I disagree. I believe the homeless population per capita is greater in Portland than either LA or San Francisco. And I was in LA just a few months ago.
The weather alone is a big draw for the homeless in Southern Cal. By the way, Skid Road originated in Seattle. It was where they launched logs into the water. Tid bit of trivia.
I have found no shittier street on the West Coast than East Hastings in Vancouver, BC. MAYBE Skid Row in LA, but honestly that is way out of the way of anything while Hastings is around some stuff.
Aaaaaand I'm wrong. But not by much. Looks like Oregon's per capita homeless is about the same as California's. Hawaii and New York have the most. http://www.staradvertiser.com/2017/12/06/breaking-news/hud-hawaii-still-no-1-in-per-capita-homeless/
The original expression was "skid road". People began mispronouncing it and it morphed into skid row. I use to live in Seattle.
