Reviews & Comments
Pacifica, CA
Pacifica: Foggy summers, gorgeous cool winters w/b -
1/13/2007Pacifica: Foggy summers, gorgeous cool winters w/beautiful sunsets, no good shopping, no good restaurants.
Pacifica is a blue color town stuck in the 50s about 12 miles south of San Francisco. We are a community of 1/2 a million dollar to a million dollar mostly ranch houses set amongst steep hills, surrounded by open space. If you love nature, especially hiking, Pacifica is great. If you like surfing or beach walking (with a coat and hat), you will love Pacifica. This is not a lay-in-the-sun kind of beach town as we get about 6-10 moderately warm days per year. Our beaches can be dirty. Non-locals leave lots of their garbage on the beaches in Pacifica and the wind whips it around. Also, during windy days garbage cans all over town topple over leaving garbage all over Pacifica. This is not a pristine nature-beach town. There is no money to beach clean. It is all done by volunteers. There is very little money for street cleaning so litter is common after windy days. Pacifica is a blue color town with a few grocery stores, a few small hardware stores, a few restaurants (nothing in town for vegetarians), a few yoga studios, a produce market, a small health food store, and some fast food restaurants. We have several good elementary schools and a good middle school. We have a decent library system. This is an anti-development town. Recently, a big developer came in with a proposal to create a new downtown (we don't have a downtown or "main street") and he was voted down by about 65% of voters.
There is no central hang out place.
The best thing about Pacifica is it's proximity to San Francisco. Although most of us do our shopping "over the hill" in the mostly Filipino and Latino town of Daly City (Target, Home Depot,all the big box and malls), San Francisco is just a few miles away. There are buses that run during rush hour directly to downtown SF. There are 2 BART stations within 6 miles of here (Colma and Daly City) where drivers can park their cars (assuming they can find parking) and train to SF. But by car, if there is no traffic, one can reach almost any part of SF within 20-30 minutes.
If you live in the hills, you need a car in Pacifica. This is neither a bicycle friendly or public transporation friendly place because getting "over the hill" and out of town means riding or walking up 15-20% grades for 2 miles. Buses run infrequently during non-commute hours.
Wrap up: if you can afford a 700k house, want to live close to SF but away fro