MIxx
You just dont get it. Encinitas, Cardiff, Solana Beach and Del Mar are real places with uniques cultures. they have real communities and even some history. This attracts real people with an entirely different backgrounds, senses of being and attitudes than many places in SD.

You can have souless places like Sorrento Valley, Carmel Valley, 4S Ranch, PQ, Rancho Bernardo, Mira Mesa etc. Those places to me are nothing more than a collection of strip malls surrounded by houses and chain/corporately owned busineses. I mean really, if you live in carmel valley where do you go for lunch, Chili’s TGIFridays, McDonalds. heck they dont even have decent Family owned Mexican restaurants there. All the places on the 15 corridor could exist in just about any part of California as they are. What distinguishes a place like RB/Poway from Temecula outside of a location closer to San Diego.

Sure OB is nice, if you dont have kids and prefer hanging out by the beach surrounded by vagrants. Point Loma is nice too, if you are 70 years old and retired but what do you do with a young family?

Personally, I think the places I mentioned are actually undervalued relative to other places in the country. I could live anywhere in the country and have been to most of it. I have never seen anyplace that suits me and my family better.