If you really think about it deeply, the only thing great about San Diego is the climate. Take away the climate and it’s mostly a Sh*thole. Think about it.
Seattle, Portland, Boston, NYC have crappy weather, but they are still great cities people want to be. Take away the weather and I give the actual city of SD about a D+. If Seattle had SD’s weather I’d be up there in a heatbeat.
Oh something else positive, SD has the beach, mountains and desert, nice combo.
But:
1. the people are stupid and non-sophisticated…PB meatheads grow up and become North County meatheads
2. the architecture is nasty…ever drive through mile after mile of Mississippi sharecropper crappy houses in Lemon Grove, Spring Valley, San Carlos, Chula Vista, Lakeside, El Cajon, Clairmont?…pure nowhereland nothingness! YUCK! The only character in the whole county w/ neighborhood feel and walkable areas is in the South Park/North Park/Hillcrest/Kensington/Bankers Hill Area. If it wasn’t for these areas, I have NO idea where I could stand living. OB is OK, but it can be pretty gross.
3. All the new developments are souless cookie cutter, monlithic stip center suburbia (Scripps Ranch, RP, RB, East of 5 Encinitas/Carlsbad, Eastlake)…it’s horrible nowhereland American suburbia. Cookie cutter houses and cookie cutter people. Southern Cal has done a disasterous job with urban planning. ZERO quaintness. Oregon, NorCal, New England, Washington…have done much better.
4. Downtown and the Gaslamp is cheesy, touristy garbage. Every friggen restaurant in the Gaslamp is a national chain with 97 big screen TV’s. Catering to the mental midget SD population. I don’t even ever want to go to the Gaslamp. And the weekend crowd down there… OMG, cheesyness central! SD doesn’t have the hip style and tastfulness of SF, Boston, NYC, Northwest and Europe. Pure SoCal cheese!
5. SD attracts the dumbsh*t frat boy crowd from the “lower tier” universities…retard factories like SDSU, AZ State, Chico State love SD. Students from places like Ivy League, Stanford, UC Berkley, Georgetown, Northwesten, and on & on & on…head to the Bay Area, Boston, NYC.
6. The chicks are mostly fake, plastic migrants from the OC (even worse than SD on the “platisity scale:)
7. SD lacks the progressive, urban, energetic, intelligent feel that Seattle, SF, Portland, Boston, NYC, Paris and London have. It’s a big beach/border town.
8. It’s too conservative and military dominated. The military isn’t exactly a hotbed for intellecuals and entrapreneurs.
Once again, take away the weather and San Diego it’s “Tucson by the Sea”.