San Diego vs. Portland?

December 29, 2005 10:49 PM

I am curious as to the quality of life in San Diego. The cost of living, the availability of jobs, the housing market, etc.

My wife is keen on the idea of moving there, as she has friends there and likes the idea of year-round warm weather. I am not particularly keen on the idea of moving to a bigger city (we live in Portland, Ore.), and I am generally more appreciative of northernly climates.

Also, from afar, I have this notion of San Diego being sort of a "faceless" city with not a whole lot of identity or sense of place that I'm aware of. Am I wrong? (I don't say this with the intention of insulting anyone; I just can't generate any mental images of San Diego beyond ocean breezes and sunshine, something that doesn't really excite me given that--like I said before--I am more fond of northernly latitudes.)

ALSO: We have a young child, so I am interested in what condition the San Diego schools are in.

posted by iced_borsch to society & culture (15 comments total)

I can't tell you what it's like to live there, but I just got back from a California road trip and if I were given a choice of any US city to live in San Diego would be near the top. By California standards it's certainly not faceless. It has neighbrohoods and distinct communities. Even though it's in California, I did not find the traffic unholy as I did in nearly every other part of California.

Of course Portland, OR is also near the top of my list, so take this with a grain of salt. I say go, spend some time there and see what you really think of it.
posted by FlamingBore at 11:30 PM on December 29, 2005

I have this notion of San Diego being sort of a "faceless" city with not a whole lot of identity or sense of place that I'm aware of. Am I wrong?

No, you're not really wrong. As someone who has lived in both the NW and SoCal, I see the main difference between the NW and SoCal is the extreme "Balkanization" of SoCal. There's no there there. You get 1000 different "theres" instead of a single "identity" that makes things cool and interesting. There's no one single San Diego vibe. It's 1000 different vibes.

Although, you may like that, of course.

I am interested in what condition the San Diego schools are in.

That's the deal-breaker right there. Unless you're wealthy enough to live in a place like La Jolla or Point Loma, the public school system in San Diego and SoCal just can't hold a candle to the NW. Realize that in many places in San Diego, you'll see 30-40 percent of the kids will be classified as English-as-a-second-language, so a huge bulk of funding goes to deal with just that.

On this point, I strongly recommend doing intensive research on district test scores and funding allocations. You may be as shocked as I was.
posted by frogan at 11:33 PM on December 29, 2005

San Diego can be crushingly unaffordable.

The safe and moderately attractive neighborhoods have housing prices which are among the very highest in the entire country, while San Diego doesn't have anything like the high income job market that makes high price housing a little more palatable in LA or New York or the Bay Area.

Everyone I know in San Diego either (a) sends their kids to $15,000/year private schools or (b) lives in one of a few suburbs on the water where every house costs more than $1.5 million, and sends their kids to that town's public schools.

San Diego is like LA in that there are plenty of public schools which, despite being smack in the middle of a neighborhood of $800,000 houses, have 90% free school lunch rates.
posted by MattD at 11:38 PM on December 29, 2005

California schools are crap, and living in one of the few recommended school districts will cost you. The housing market has cooled somewhat and I'm seeing lots of houses hanging on the market but they're still all overpriced.

You might like the northern beach areas, like Encinitas/Leucadia; they're more relaxed there, it's right on the coast so you can get a decent amount of fog, and there's a light rail commuter train that runs along the coast, so you can get to work without driving.

As a rule, expect about a degree increase in average daily temp for each mile you go inland. Coastal areas are generally cool and moist year round, as you go inland you get sweltering summers and occasional ice on your car on a winter morning.

Downtown is going through a significant wave of gentrification. It's all very modern and homogenized now; funky old buildings are razed to make room for "lofts" that are decorated with Laura Ashley furniture. It's very un-Portland.

San Diegans have a strangely small-town vibe. Some of them are rabidly conservative and pro-military, to the point of re-electing Randy "Duke" Cunningham repeatedly. But there are tons of funky cool neighborhoods... except their school districts kind of suck.

The Mexican food ROCKS. I've tried living elsewhere, but couldn't live without machaca burritos.

The job market seems to be picking up, but I only have anectodal evidence for that.

I like living here, although I sometimes think about moving (to Portland, actually)...and then I get hungry for a burrito, so I stay.

You should come visit and see what you think. You'll may like it more than you think you will, although probably not enough to move here (the schools really do suck).
posted by stefanie at 11:39 PM on December 29, 2005

I don't live in San Diego but used to live in SoCal and have some knowledge of the city. San Diego has changed quite a lot in the last decade or so, for the better, I'd say, except that the housing market has gone through the roof (it has finally started to cool but only slightly). The city had a reputation for being very white and Republican but it's really diversified a lot. Also there has been a downtown building boom that have made it feel more urban. It's always had a wonderful downtown park and of course the famous zoo, and the beaches. Also, the air is much better than in LA and the climate is nicer, too. So there are good things to say about San Diego, but it is unaffordable to most people, and much more expensive than Portland. Also the traffic sucks. i wouldn't say that San Diego has tons of character -- but I certainly wouldn't go so far as to call it faceless. And if it ever seems too sterile, you're just minutes away from Tijuana!
posted by modernist1 at 11:43 PM on December 29, 2005

I'm no expert on the subject, but from what I understand, Oregon pubic schools are no great shakes either...?
posted by modernist1 at 11:47 PM on December 29, 2005

from what I understand, Oregon pubic schools are no great shakes either...?

True, they are really bad here, from everything I have read and studied (although I don't have legitimate first-hand knowledge, as my son is still only 16 months old and not ready for that phase of things yet.)
posted by iced_borsch at 11:51 PM on December 29, 2005

Having done more or less the opposite of what you are describing (lived in SD, moved to OR), here are some thoughts:

Weather: "Warm weather" is certainly in the eye of the beholder, but do be aware that if you are away from the beaches, the San Diego area can get very hot (100+) in the summer, and fairly cool (30's) in the winter.
Also, it's a lot cloudier than the brochures suggest. heh.
The micro-climates make weather tricky down there, as it can be 95 in one town, go over the hill and it's a pleasant 75.

Identity: The individual cities inside the San Diego area do have identities: Hillcrest being hip and gay, La Jolla being rich and old, PB being young and "bar-ish", etc.
I always describe San Diego as a mid-western town that got lost. It's not at all stereotypical Southern Californian as far as politics, lifestyle, etc.
There are pretty people, but nothing like L.A.

Living: The affordable communities (unless you have an income significantly above the national average) are cookie-cutter suburban developments 40-50 miles from the downtown. The reachable communities (for say, white collar professional couples) are still very expensive, with an average cost close to 3 times Portland prices.
Downtown is undergoing the "Loft" conversion that a lot of cities are going through. But note that the area doesn't have a particularly good public transit system (though the trolley works ok, and the buses are there), so the "urban living" idea doesn't work out completely, especially as a lot of the jobs are out in the sprawl.
The San Diego area does have some nifty parts (great food, cool shops, etc) but they tend to be spread about and not easily found.
Excluding housing, the costs(food, utilities, entertainment) are comparable between OR and SD in my experience. Gas is more expensive, to be sure.

Traffic: It's a mess. There are only two major north/south routes out of San Diego, and a big accident on one brings everything to a grinding halt. Geography plays a big part in this.
Your options are to get stuck and smile, or get stuck and bitch, but stuck you will be if you venture out in your car.

Schools: Some are good, some are bad.
It's the same silly state funding system that Oregon has, so the schools are constantly strapped for cash, even the ones in decent districts.
Basically, you get what you pay for.

Hope that helped a little.
If you want more detailed answers, go ahead and email if you like.
posted by madajb at 12:10 AM on December 30, 2005

I have family in northern San Diego county (Encinitas). They, admittedly, live in a fairly well-off neighborhood, but other parts of Encinitas and surrounding areas are fine and a bit more affordable (though "affordable" by SoCal standards is expensive compared to most places). For what it's worth, the kidlet has been in public schools in Encinitas for all of her almost 15 years and she's doing just fine - the schools in her area are pretty decent.

I'd say stick with the north county beach cities, as opposed to downtown, and spend some time around there figuring out if you like it.
posted by bedhead at 12:10 AM on December 30, 2005

I'm living in the southern area of where Bedhead is talking about, Cardiff by The Sea. Socio-economically, I'd say that it's definitely cost-prohibitive where I live. Homes were expensive to start out with, and from what I understand (I'm a high school student, so please understand my knowledge on the subject is somewhat limited), housing has experienced a fairly substantial inflation over the last couple years.

As bedhead mentioned, the schools in the beach areas are relatively nice. I grew up from fourth grade on here, and don't have any real gripes. My mom's experience as a substitute teacher, has informed her that the differences in the schools here are shocking. A difference of 10 miles can mean a huge difference in the quality of schools. It's a pretty wide range. The richer neighborhoods have a lot of money coming in from donations, and as I understand, education funding is tied to property tax. Asking her for advice now, she reccomends checking standardized testing scores for the area you're looking in. She says that observing schools, and the grades your kids are going to go to, are also good indicators. Poway, Solana Beach, Encinitas are all good districts according to her. San Diego Unified can be good sometimes, but the district itself is very disfunctional.

As per my experience, I consider myself really priveliged to have grown up in such a great area. My elementary school experience was great. The coastal elementary schools feed into San Dieguito Unified High School District, which is overall a very good district. I went to Oak Crest for middle school, and am currently at San Dieguito Academy (SDA from here on out). SDA is rather small ~1000 students, and requires a lottery to get in. The year I went through the lottery, there was about a 70% chance of getting in. It's focused more on arts and academics than it does athletics, as such we don't have a football team (although we do have other sports). We're more known for our amazing theatre program than we are sports. I've found high school a lot healthier than some of my other friends' and relatives' high school experience. There seem to be less cliques than other schools have, and a focus on the individual. It fits me, a somewhat eccentric geek with (I'd like to think) balanced interests and a social life. I can't complain. This isn't to say any of the high schools in the area are bad though. The four high schools in the district: SDA, La Costa Canyon, Canyon Crest, and Torrey Pines are all amazingly great schools. La Costa Canyon is your average high school. It's a big school with roughly 3,500 students. There isn't really anything you can't do there. Torrey Pines is known as a very good school, if I recall correctly it's in the top 10 in the state. Some of the richer neighborhoods are closer to it, so they they cater to somewhat more priveleged students. When my sister was there in the mid 90's, she was the only one driving a VW Beetle, everyone else had Lexus's (plural: Lexi?) or some other expensive brand. Academically the kids are amazing, they test really well. From what I've seen and heard though, there's less balance in the kids than other schools, they're expected to be amazing students and do so because they're told to. This is mainly why I chose to go to SDA instead personally, to avoid that imbalance, but take it with a grain of salt.

Culture-wise, San Diego leans toward the conservative. We also have a lot of military. There's an army base, a naval station, and an air force base here. I don't think you're incorrect in saying that San Diego is a faceless enemy. It's like LA in some regards, where it can seem like it's just a cancerous suburban development area. I don't see San Diego having too much in the way of culture.

Transportation in San Diego is God-Awful. It's very hard to get around in anything except a car. Public transportation might as well be non-existant. We have a bus system, The Coaster (train line that travels up and down the coast), and a Trolley system, but you really need a car if you're trying to get around anywhere. I've decided against a car, and travel solely by bike and find it near impossible to go anything very far from Encinitas unless I have a ride.

One nice thing about San Diego is that you're relatively close to everything. Mexico is literally a few hours a way, as is snow, desert, and beach, no matter where you are in San Diego.

Weather is always fairly decent in my region. I used to live in Ramona, a town much further inland, and it was significantly hotter, with tempuratures in the 100's during the summer.

I hope my rant helped you make an informed decision . Feel free to email me if you have any more questions.
posted by phr4gmonk3y at 12:59 AM on December 30, 2005

Yes, the housing market is awful unless you have exceptionally deep pockets. I don't so I'm renting, but it's not much better this way. Additionally, with all the condo conversions taking place to keep up with the demand for housing -- my own apartment is on track to do so this summer -- folks are being pushed further and further from downtown/central San Diego.

I work just east of downtown and my 13-mile commute takes me 25 minutes door-to-door on most days. Public transportation seems like an afterthought with the way the lines are designed and the number of runs that are made; the same commute via foot, bus, and trolley would take me over 1-1/2 hours.

I can't speak to the current state of the schools here; anecdotally, several friends and coworkers with children send them by bus and carpool far outside of their home neighborhoods in order to get them into better programs.

As far as the facelessness of SD: the ever-sprawly suburban "neighborhoods" definitely feel this way for me. My sister and her husband owned a home for five years in one of those developments that seemed to have sprung up overnight: although they had a nice home, the houses were packed side-by-side, you couldn't walk anywhere to get anything, and the strip malls nearby all looked alike. But the pockets mentioned previously (PB, Hillcrest, Ocean Beach, Kensington, etc.) all have nice community vibes to them.

I've lived here for some fifteen years now and while I suppose the weather is mostly pleasant, I wouldn't mind trading it in for Portland's climate (but I'm a Pac NW girl at heart).

Oh, and stefanie is *so* right about the Mexican food ;)
posted by vespertine at 1:10 AM on December 30, 2005

I'm a San Diego native, grew up in La Mesa, now in west Clairemont area.

Everything you hear about high prices is true. Gas is more expensive, housing is more expensive, food is more expensive, services are more expensive. (I do some travel, so I have some basis of comparison).

Schooling is nothing to write home about. The Poway school district is supposed to be among the best and houses in that disctict command a premium for that alone (Note that housing prices appear to be slightly leveling off). This is less pricey than the options like Point Loma and La Jolla, among the most expensive options. Keep in mind there's always private schools (my experience, admittedly not for everyone), charter schools, and suprisingly good homeschooling options/resources if you're into that.

There are sub-identities within the different communities as noted before, but nothing like, say, San Francisco (it was quite an experience visiting). There is also essentially no useable transit. There's a bus system and a slowly expanding tralley system, but the former is slow and the latter is not yet widely dispersed enough to help greatly--many stops don't have parking, and most stops are not by high-density residential areas. So, most folks drive to the trolley stop. But there's no parking at many of them....etc. Admittedly, retrofitting mass transit is rather difficult, and a subject for another post to be sure.

The northern coastal areas are laid back, but you pay a price. Personally, I prefer the Clairemont area (that I live in now) for all but school quality--it's relatively inexpensive, decent area, and still quite central so nothing's too far away. There are plenty of people around here with over 60 min. commutes just so they can affors to make payments. Now with gas prices, though--it's a squeeze.

The town is largely made of military and military contractors, but you knew that likely. Not to the degree of, say, Norfolk, but it's there. There's a good amount of biotech companies here, and there's of course Qualcomm.

Email if you'd like more info!
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 1:14 AM on December 30, 2005

Don't move here. There's a reason dozens of my friends have made a mass-exodus to the northwest in the last few years. Actually, there's a number of reasons:

-exorbitant housing costs. Expect to pay $500k+ for an average sized home in an average neighborhood.
-no public transportation
-ungodly traffic/commutes
-urban sprawl, making it nearly impossible to live without a car
-lack of jobs outside of the tech/engineering sector
-hot hot HOT weather and frequent droughts
-concentrated Republican community
-dense military population


Of course, there are good things about it here, but I think people have covered them enough. Certain neighborhoods have far more personality than others. The good schools are mainly concentrated in rich neighborhoods, but there are excellent charter schools available. It really comes down to how much money you have-- if it's not a lot, you won't have a comparable lifestyle to what you have in Portland. If you plan to raise your kid in San Diego, don't expect them to be able to buy a house near yours in 20 years.
posted by booknerd at 9:42 AM on December 30, 2005

As a native and 30-year resident of San Diego, I think most people here have gotten it pretty straight in this thread already, particularly phr4gmonk3y, RikiTikiTavi and madajb. I also grew up in the eastern hinterlands of La Mesa and El Cajon, but now live in Mission Hills, which is basically right next to the airport. I'll just elaborate on some things others have said:

Mass transit: as most people have said, it's pretty useless unless you design your life around it (i.e. getting a job and a dwelling on the same bus/trolley line or close enough to each other to not have to drive, etc.). The trolley system is improving as they add more lines, but with the geography of SD, consisting of a series of plateaus and canyons, it's going to be slow going. Mass transit in SD mostly runs in a radial pattern from downtown, which is becoming an increasingly anachronistic plan as more commercial centers sprout up in varoius parts of town. Downtown still has a lot of the financial backbone of the city in it, but is trending towards just being a tourist attraction--some of the tallest buildings there are hotels.

Schools: I don't have kids, so I don't know how things are now, but I went through the La Mesa/Spring Valley district for elementary and Jr. high schools, and Grossmont for high school. Both were fairly good districts at the time, but Grossmont's school board has recently been taking over by a right-wing cabal; I don't know how you'd feel about that. Others are generally correct in saying that Poway has a very highly regarded school district. Also note that even though Point Loma and La Jolla are fairly ritzy areas with reputable high schools, they are still totally within the City of San Diego and the San Diego Unified School District, and thus subject to all the foibles of city government.

Culture/quality of life: While I was growing up, SD was a cultural vacuum and with the dominant military presence, leaned heavily conservative. In the more urban areas I think this is changing, but the suburbs, especially inland north county, are still on the conservative side. Also, the military doesn't play quite as large a role in the economy as it used to--a General Dynamics plant has shut down, and the old Naval Training Center has closed, but we still have a naval yard, a naval air station, Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, and Miramar air station (AKA Top Gun), which is constantly under threat of being converted into a commercial airport. An artistic scene has slowly emerged since the late 80's, producing some decent art and a burgeoning music scene. It's still not LA or NY, but it's getting better. If you know what you're doing, you can find your own little niche here. The older parts of town near downtown or places that used to be separate communities are usually where you find the cool stuff.

Obviously, the weather's awesome. I'm wearing a t-shirt and jeans right now. The only real complaint anyone has is that it's generally overcast at the beaches for most of May and June. Because of that, everyone wants to live here, and that drives the cost of living up.

No matter what you do, if you move here, please do not make the mistake of living in Mission Valley. There's a lot of multi-family housing there, and it's centrally located with plenty of stores and movie theaters and such so a lot of recent arrivals end up there, but it sucks. It's just a giant parking lot. I'd start out in Ocean Beach, Kensington, Mission Hills, or North Park at first if at all possible (assuming you plan on renting).
posted by LionIndex at 9:58 AM on December 30, 2005

On preview:
-urban sprawl, making it nearly impossible to live without a car

This is almost absolutely true.

-ungodly traffic/commutes

Traffic here is light years from "ungodly". We have rush hour, and that's pretty much it. If you work downtown and have to commute to north county, then yeah, you're fucked. So, don't do that. Until recently, I had a 15 mile commute that took me 20 minutes to complete, which isn't a bad deal at all. LA, where you can get caught in traffic almost anywhere going to anywhere else at almost any time, is ungodly. We're merely "inconvenient". Maybe "bad".
posted by LionIndex at 10:13 AM on December 30, 2005