Originally posted by: DJFuji
Originally posted by: Mike
I've been living here for 20+ years now. It will be hard without some roommates. Unless your job pay exceptionally well. Food prices arn't going to be much different. Gas is expensive out here though, coming in at $3.20/gal and up depending on where. Traffic is the only thing I hate about SD now. After about 2:30pm, the major North/South freeways become useless. (I-15 & I-5) Shortly thereafter, the East/West freeways all become jammed.
Housing is really inexpensive up in Temecula. That is about an hours drive from downtown SD with NO traffic. It will depend on where you're working for sure.
I live in Murrieta. It's a good place and a bad place depending on what you're looking for.
Pros:
-One of the only non-ghetto places you can still buy some housing for under 500k. Most of the housing is brand new or fairly new, too, so you'll get way more for your money than elsewhere.
-The traffic isn't as bad as say downtown SD or basically anywhere in LA. Sure we get rush hour too but there are plenty of side streets. It'll be a shock if you're moving from like West Virginia, but compared to the major cities...not bad.
-Good schools, very little crime. Makes for a great 'raising kids and having a family' environment if that's what you're after.
-You're right in between LA, OC, and SD, so you have the option of going everywhere. It's 45 minutes to OC with no traffic. 1 hour to downtown SD with no traffic. And 90 minutes to hollywood. Although you're not really "close" to any of the major cities, you aren't all that far from any of them either.
Cons:
-No social life out here. Girls are almost nonexistent and the ones that are here are all fat or underage. People dress like crap. High influx of trashy people. Gotta head to SD or LA for any clubs/nightlife worth going to. Demographics show that less than 10% of the population is within the 20-30 age range.
-Commuting to SD (or worse, LA) on a daily basis sucks. If you can get a great job in this area, jump on it. If you're going to commute, just rent a place nearby to your work.
-Very little diversity up here. Hope you aren't an asian-food-snob like me who only eats "authentic" chinese food because there isn't any up here.
-Temecula is HOT. Like way hotter than the coastal cities. It's not death valley hot but we regular hit high 90s and low 100s in the summer. Beach cities rarely get past the low 90s.
-----------------
Oh and btw all gas in socal is expensive. I was in LA last weekend and saw it up to 3.80 for premium. No matter where you are in socal it's going to be like that.
San Diego is both a city and a county. As a city, it's the southern tip of california and probably has the worst traffic but the most nightlife.
Downtown (gaslamp district) is like mini-new york. With mini-New York real estate prices too. But it's a great place for nightlife. IMO the hottest girls in SD are in the downtown area. But it's also the most hollywood-esque. i.e. the girls are much more 'plastic' and superficial here.
If you like the DT scene there's a neighboring city called Hillcrest. Although most people know it as 'gay town', if you're comfortable with all of your neighbors being gay, it's an amazing place to live. It's not as expensive as DT, your gay neighbors always have hot female friends, and there's a ton of stuff to do (not to mention great shopping).
Going north you'll find PB at mid-county. PB is pretty much college town. There aren't actually any schools here that i know of but every drunken sorority girl from SDSU seems to live here. Great for drunken frat boys and slutty beach blondes but not much else. Btw, i'm pretty sure SDSU has one of the highest STD rates in the country, too, so beware.
Just north of PB is La Jolla, which is the ritzy area housing UCSD and the largest gold digger population i've ever seen. But because of the college there it also has a HUGE asian population. But we're talking mostly the FOBby, geeky asian population.
North county (Oceanside, carlsbad, encinitas) is more laid back and less sophisticated than DT but has much less nightlife. Seems to be an older crowd up there. It also has a higher influx of latins (and more importantly, latinas) and a ton of Marines from the 45,000 member Camp Pendleton Marine Base just north of Oceanside. Actually, we have like 3 bases in SD county alone so you'll find us all over SD. We get into fights a lot. Especially when drunk. Keep that in mind.
North-east county (Escondido, Vista) is similar to North county but hotter. Some areas are kinda ghetto too but nothing like LA.
Oh, and btw, san diego is widely regarded as "Man Diego" because the nightlife seems to always be a 4:1 ratio of guy:girl. It's worse in PB.