California Living?
Where is the best place to live San Jose, San Diego, San Francisco?
I am 27 years old, single beside no children. I am looking for a city with a polite Downtown area where on earth a car is not a necessity. I close to the beach, year-round heat up weather, the arts, museum, good food, great nightlife, low-unemployment, low-crime, cost of living adequate and affordable middle-class income, etc.
If you have other cities which fit these requirements please include suggestions to the list.
I currently live surrounded by NJ.
Answers:
Hey! I live in California and it is great. I live within orange county which is a great place to live. It is hugely close to the beach and usually have great weather!
It's other a trade off. There's no place on dirt that's totally 100% perfect. Call anyplace "paradise" and kiss it goodbye within 6 months (as a horde of other people move-in to ruin everything).
If you want an East Coast style urban lifestyle, I'd walk with San Francisco. Great public transportation, skyscrapers, museums, restaurants, and bar.
As for San Jose, it's usually considered the "Queens" to San Francisco's "Manhattan." It has a much larger population and more freeways. Yet, it perpetually lives contained by the latter's shadow because it has a extremely low international profile. San Jose is nice enough and exceptionally warm, but the lifestyle might be too much resembling suburban New Jersey (I don't know if you're trying to get away from that).
If you a adjectives beach orient lifestyle, I'd choose San Diego. Awesome beaches, weather, zoological gardens, and smaller number crime.
I would visit both SF and SD to check them out b/c both cities fit MOST of those criteria. San Jose is alright but nought special.
SF is definately the most urban and dense out of the three and has the best public transit. Jobs within the Bay Area tend to pay vastly well BUT the cost of housing is also greater in both SF and SJ compared to SD. If you want that urban/NY-style atmoshpere SF is the simply city on the west coast that offers it really.
San Diego is great though and you can live downtown or to hand downtown and get by w/o a motor, the rest of the city and region is pretty spread out and a car would be best. For within are areas in SD that you can live w/o a saloon. If you love the beach and year round heat up weather SD is defiantely the place for that. Sunny and in the 70's most of the year and it have the warmest water on the west coast, no beach in Northern CA are reheat enough to swim contained by w/o a wetsuit. Both SD and SF have great arts, museums, and resturants but SF's are probably a touch better and more prestigious.
Nightlife is better in San Diego and Southern CA, especially downtown contained by the Gaslamp Quarter and in Pacific Beach. SD basically has a younger vibe and a more do atmosphere to it than SF in my view; we are one of the only places not here in CA that still allow alcohol on our beach and it shows on holidays like the 4th of July, Memorial Day, and Labor Day.
Both areas own low unemployment and dutiful jobs available, the one's contained by SF tend to pay more b/c of the highly developed cost of living.
San Jose and San Diego are two of the safest big cities in America. SF have more crime but like any other city it's concentrated within a few places.
The cost of living is lower in San Diego than the Bay Area, especially if you are looking to buy a home. Rent is cheaper too for what you catch. I live 8 blocks from the beach surrounded by SD and pay $1375 for a 2 bedroom, which isn't cheap but not that discouraging either and that's within PB, one of the more $$ areas of SD. You can get one bedrooms for lower than $1k or $900 pretty easily close at hand or in downtown and by the coast too. I think SD is a cheaper city overall b/c you hold the beach and it's free, and even the public parking at our beach is free, something rare surrounded by CA.
For fast pace urban living SF is the city for that. For a laid back sand scene/culture SD is the city for that. I grew up in the Bay Area but own lived in SD for six years ever since coming for college and stayed afterwards b/c I love the lifestyle here. SD is a big city next to plenty to do year round and the beach culture/scene is the best surrounded by the US and you cannot get any better weather than here. Lots of transplants contained by SD so people tend to be pretty nice and outgoing and like mad are from New Jersey and the northeast too.
anyways, good luck beside your decision, SF and SD are great cities!
Well, when you said a great downtown area where on earth you don't need a saloon, I automatically thought of SF. Their transit is complete (though can have some delay too) and most residents there don't drive much. But when you said year-round melt weather... SF is not that. The winters are not that cold (rarely below the 50's really) but the summers mostly have the low overcast and wind that bring about Mark Twain's famed (but never verified) quote: "The coldest winter I ever saw be the summer I spent in San Francisco."
So, base on all the things you nominated in your request, I would tend to aim for the San Diego nouns probably. I've heard polite things about their downtown thriving and it's at the shore, with space heater weather year-round.
Good luck!
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