[quote=spdrun]Do more people necessarily want to live closer to the core? This is San Diego, not Manhattan or Capitol Hill/DC. Given unlimited money, I’d probably take La Jolla or PB over the immediate downtown area/Little Italy.[/quote]
spdrun, in decades past, downtown workers DID want to live close to downtown (even those who had families). However, I’m not sure very many of today’s families with school-age children want to live in SD’s urban core. The vast majority of young parents on this board seem to have issues with the schools although there is really nothing wrong with 80% of SD’s schools located in the urban core, IMO. Excluding military bases, what has happened over the years in SD County is that dtn SD, Kearny Mesa, Mission Valley, Mira Mesa, Scripps Ranch and later, what is now known as the “Golden Triangle” WERE the “work centers” of 25+ years ago (in that order by amt of workers employed in them). Now that most of the aerospace and defense contractors have left, SD has “high-tech” and “biotech” centers which employ the most workers. The majority of these job centers are located in the Golden Triangle, Sorrento Mesa, Sorrento Valley and surrounds. Tract housing and condos sprung up around these work centers, attracting nearby workers and their families. Of course, these companies draw workers from the entire county but the workers who don’t live nearby have to commute daily on crowded freeways in and out of these work centers.
LJ, although fairly close to the *new* work centers, is too expensive for the vast majority of these workers. PB is a little less expensive than LJ but most of these workers are young and do not care for the older housing stock (either in PB OR LJ). In CA coastal counties, the older stock in the best locations typically has substantially larger lots than newer tract-housing does. Schools aside, the younger cohort of Gen X and Gen Y typically do not want to spend time or money on extensive landscape and staunchly refuse to raise their children in a 1400-2200 sf house when they can get a 3000+ sf house in the far-flung lizard-infested stix for the same price or less. They would rather spend their time commuting and have their air conditioner regularly serviced.
