I have to agree with some of the negative comments.
I left San Diego in 1990 because
a) I felt I couldn’t afford to own a house here despite being in a decent paying field (engineering.)
b) I was sick of being judged by what my car and zipcode were.
c) plastic perfect people… Blonde hair, tanning salon tans, bleached teeth… Pressure to conform to the barbie look – and I am sooooo NOT barbie material. (It may be better for guys – but as someone who was in my late 20’s at the time I couldn’t take the competition from the perfec plastic barbie girls.
I’ve lived in Washington State, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. I liked WA and PA. (Not so much GA).
I chose to move back and have no regrets. While I prefer a neighborhood that is less cookie cutter – the older the neighborhood – the more the homes personalize… so even in a tract home community like University City, after 45 years, the houses all look different.
San Diego has the weather… but that’s not the draw. San Diego has a lifestyle that is good for people who like to DO stuff. Bike riding, the beach, hiking in the various canyons around town, kayaking. Unlike WA state where you could do stuff – but in the rain… or PA where you could do stuff, but in the snow… here you can do stuff year round.
I don’t surf – but I taught my boys to boogie board as soon as they could handle the waves safely. Now my 8 year old has been exposed to surfing and is begging me to buy him a surfboard. He LOVES the water. You can’t get that in NYC. (And the Jersey shore waves aren’t conducive to surfing… as he discovered on a family trip there last summer.)
