So much potential in SD squandered.....
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11/27/2007
orSan Diego's is gifted with such a beautiful warm climate, ocean, mountains, desert...but has done little with it. I wish the city was more like Seattle, Portland, SF, Boston or NYC...BUT in this climate & geography!
pro's:
-climate
-easy access to mountains, beach, desert
-I actually think the cost of living is OK compared to LA, SF, NYC, DC and Boston
-easy to get around (again don't think the traffic is bad compared to th above cities)
con's:
-SD has this huge population of young, stupid, annoying meatheads that inhabit Mission Beach, PB, OB and the gaslamp. They are not hip, artsy or inteteresting like the young people in SF, NYC, Seattle, Boston etc...they are just cliche, commercialized, annoying, beer guzzling, dopey frat boys and barbie doll fake breasted women
-The dopey surf culture nonsense gets old in the beach communites
-the inland neighborhoods have no character or quaint downtowns, they are just souless suburban sprawl cookie cutter full of strip malls, fast food and gas stations (Rancho B., Rancho P., Mira Mesa, Poway, Tierrasanta) - There are some exceptions like Hillcrest, a small part of Kensington, South Park...but even those areas are pretty weak
-Everybody goes so gaa gaa over them, but I think the beaches are average at best, the water is too cold to swim and they aren't pristine sugar white beaches like HI, Florida, Carribean or Mexico...lot's of concrete and crowds are everywhere, brown clumpy sand, murkey water
-the Gaslamp is a tourist trap filled with national chain bars and is totally contrived and has no character - at night is filled with the cheesy Rico/Suave Hip Hop crowd or fake breasted barbies and SDSU alum meatheads
-there are a few quaint towns on the North County coast (Del Mar, Encinitas, Cardiff, Solana Beach...but inland North County is cookie cutter suburbia and big box stores with no character
-the mountains east are OK, but very desert-like, certainly nothing close to Northern Cal, Oregon, Colorado, Vermont, etc... Just brown hills that all look the same - but they are easy to get to and offer nice views
-there are no real pristine forests, rivers or lakes to get away too..just nasty brown dams, treeless hills, ZERO rivers
-Anza Borrega desert is a very nice getway & pretty
-I don't know why people think San Diegans are nice, there are more pricks per capita then anywhere I've lived (Boston, SF, St. Louis, Austin TX) - I think people are bitter and selfish...I've had more road rage incidents in 2 yrs then my prior 35
-You still get the shallow, money oriented SoCal culture, although not as bad as OC
-It's very conservative here and not very progressive - doesn't have that urban energy of SF, Boston, LA
-not cosmopolitan at all
-the city has no sense of community and is very disconnected
-there are gigantic tracts of these endless, run down, characterless heavily hispanic neighborhoods (Chula Vista, Lemon Grove, El Cajon, La Mesa, City Heights, Nat City, Imperial Beach, Encanto, etc...)
...with all that said I may stay here. b/c believe it or not, it's the least expensive urban coastal area in CA, weather is good, has some diversity, has some good hiking and views. But I'd like to live June-October in Oregon, New England or Colorado. And then winters in SD.
RRRR | San Diego, CA