Beautiful but expensive - 2/27/2006

Santa Cruz is an amazing place to live. If you can afford the high cost of housing and can find a job that pays you a living wage.

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Picture perfect and great climate, but you can't a - 2/25/2006

We have to work our butts off to pay the mortgage, house maintenance, property taxes and then gas for the car. U can forget about buying a house here if you just have an average joe kind of job.

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My wife and I are considering relocating out of Sa - 2/23/2006

As much as it pains me to consider it, I'm begining to believe that life can be better somewhere else. As far as geographic beauty and weather, you cannot beat Santa Cruz. Unfortunately the town has a major identity crisis- wants to stay a funky little beach town but what it has become is a very expensive town by the beach with some funky parts to it (homeless people, tons of college students, worn out streets, and a city council seemingly more interested in things like medical marijuana than inceasing city revenues). The elementary schools are good, Jr high is decent and the high school is fair. We have lots of friends here and it would be painful to move away from them, but I make a good salary and can barely cover our expenses. I just don't think that the weather is worth it any more.

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love and hate in Santa Cruz - 2/7/2006

People keep coming here, we can't seem to stop the influx of people. And yet our city just can't hold any more. The streets are so over whelmed with traffic. I live 2.2 miles from work and it can take me a half hour to get home. No one wants to give anyone else a break, as they might just get to their destination 5 seconds ahead. Getting someone to stop for a pedestrian? That seems to be the reason so many people cross streets against the light. We are all victims of the bike riding mafia. Traffic rules do not seem to apply to the bicyclists. The housing prices are so high, some of the highest in the country. Gasoline is always more than over the hill in San Jose. A lot of the sales clerks have attitude. And for this town to have a reputation as a land of tolerance is a joke. The tolerance is only if you see things "their" way. And the begging is constant. I have been here 24 yrs and the changes have all been to the negative. Why stay? My children are 5th generation, the weather is beyond compare, I love the husband and like my friends.

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