Reviews & Comments
Longmont, CO
Nice place for families. Bring a parka. -
8/13/2021I lived here for 4 years and it's pretty nice. It gets cold and stays cold for a good 8 months, but other than that I loved it. There are a lot of amenities. It is family friendly. I've lived in Minneapolis, Germany, SoCal, South Carolina and Georgia and this would be one of the top places under SoCal.
Frisco, TX
re: Generic suburb full of the status-obsesse
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9/26/2020I can't vouch for Frisco, but I lived in Denver for 4 years and I thought it was reallllly ugly! Denver was so flat... yes the mountains were in the distance but I was shocked when I moved to Denver and saw how flat it was! I did come from Southern California but in my mind before I moved there Denver was beautiful... when I came over the hill on I70 I was like WHAT?! This is Denver?!
Lancaster, CA
Hell on earth. -
9/26/2020I was born here, then grew up here for 17 years and joined the Army as a teen, but constantly went back to visit my parents and friends. I lived there again for 4 years as an adult. I still go back now to visit friends on a regular basis. Oh Lancaster... what do I say? The schools I went to are now rated like a 1-2 which is indicative of my exact experience. There were riots and fights every. single. day. There were drugs and gangs and everything for as long as I remember, even in elementary school. The weather - well I love heat and I love warm nights but Lancaster gets WINDY! Their Tumbleweeds have souls and they chase you in the wind. It is typical desert weather, super high temps in the summer, cold in the winter. Oh the roaches.... both of my parents houses had those dark black big roaches that would roam the streets every night. We kept clean houses and fought them but we would find them upside down and dead everywhere. I still have nightmares about roaches because of Lancaster. In Lancaster, you don't look anyone in the eye. You learn to just not look at them because someone might cuss you out, or pull out a gun. Lancaster lacks class. It is like a giant Walmart. Some say, "well there are bad and good people everywhere", yes, indeed there is, but in Lancaster the bad overwhelmingly overtakes the good, and your chances of getting robbed or shot are much higher. Lancaster is CRAPPY to say the least. I learned that most people that live there don't think so because they're used to it and don't know any better, but if they move away (further than Valencia) for a few years and then come back they're like "I had no idea!!!" Since I moved away I have lived in Denver, Minneapolis, Orange County and San Diego and when I go back to Lancaster to visit I cringe for so many reasons. It's like a mixture of nostalgia and vomit. (Speaking of vomit, I went back a couple of months ago for one day and on our way to get boba there was a girl vomiting in the street at 10 am.). That type of stuff happens every day there.
Ladera Ranch, CA
Perfection but expensive -
9/26/2020I lived here for 7 years and it's one of my favorite places. Yes, it has some of the OC snobbiness, but I still rated it 5 stars because you can control who you hang out with. This place is absolutely stunning. It takes the phrase "master planned" to a new level. When you pay the HOA here, you're paying for 9 pools, a water park and a skate park and perfect landscaping everywhere you go. The schools are all great. There are enough shops where you don't have to drive far for things. I miss Ladera.
Escondido, CA
Perfect weather, horrible schools. -
9/26/2020Escondido wins because of the weather, but has a lot of drawbacks. The schools are HORRIBLE. Like really bad. I've moved around a lot and the schools are the worst I've ever seen. There are a lot of beautiful homes and the proximity to San Diego is close. The homeless population is extremely high. While I wish we could do something to help house them, the government has not and so they build camps all around our community. My son took a walk and saw needles and other paraphernalia that spanned about a square mile with tents. The city does nothing to clear the area. We've been robbed by residents of this camp (we have it on the camera and have seen the same people go into the camp and I even called the police department saying "I'm staring at our robbers" and they didn't come. There's theft everywhere but when you have your robber on camera and also see them walking down the street and can't get the cops to come I would say Escondido has some work to do. I think it's easy to rate any city in Southern California 5 stars because it's all beautiful and weather is perfect, but when you really get into the cracks and crevices there's more going on.