BG, she is a single mom, she needs schools and streets that her kid can bike or walk to and whose playmates in the neighbrhood attend the same schools. What’s the Chula to HTH drive at 7 am, half an hour? I say more, I dated a woman in Pt. Loma, very near that school, there’s no quick way there. Every light is like 5 minutes, I bet it takes an hour. What are the odds that in a city of 1.3 million, her kid gets one of the 400 spots in one of the good schools if she doesn’t live there. That place can be harder than college to get into.
I like the liberty station suggestion, but I think it might be too pricey, it’s more of a 600k+ range, but has everything you are looking for. Tierrasanta is my suggestion, but it won’t feel urban. It’s a close in suburb. The reality is, you can’t have both and be a single parent and pay under 500k unless you make the decision to live in a suburb until the kid goes to college. Pick the relative that will lilely be the most helpful and rent near them to get a feel. Where’s the grandma? They are usually most helpful. If it’s the Chula Vista resident, look at bonita, but it’s mostly bigger houses. If it’s Linda Vista, check out Tierrasanta. If it’s North Park, look at kensington or maybe San Carlos. The Mt’ Helix area is in the middle of those, but it wont feel urban either, nor does it have little houses, La Mesa is another option, but the same drawbacks, big houses, pricey. The trouble is, the safe neighborhoods where kids can ride bikes and have their neighbor friends be their classmates and walk to school, are in the suburbs. Since your kid can’t live in Poway while you live in the city, you are going to have to make compromises. You can find pockets where you can find close to what you want, but not from a computer on the East coast, you are probably going to have to live here a while to find those.
Unfortunately the good weather of the West comes with a different type of city (much to the dismay of some pigs) but most people don’t raise kids in the city. You can either walk to a store/bar/coffee shop or you can walk to a good school, rarely can you do both at the same time, and when you can, you can’t buy for 500k.
