TTBOMK, there’s exactly one good thing about Southern California: the (completely free!) Getty Museum. Feel free to disagree, but I don’t care a tuppence!
Was looking at a school there. I had all sorts of appointments set to meet professors and administrators. Ditched half the meetings to surf, skate, just hang out on the beach, whatever. Decided it was best to go somewhere else so I’d actually make it to classes.
I love In-N-Out double-doubles animal style, extra toast, medium rare, add chilis, with a side of animal style well-done fries and the weather is beyond compare (I live in Minnesota, so the difference is drastic). However I do like breathing something other than exhaust and getting places faster than an hour to reach anything, so I’m ambivalent
@guyfromhawthorn It’s breathable. There’s a very good reason why the California Air Resources Board has much tighter regulations than the rest of the country.
/image Los Angeles air quality 1960’s
/image Los Angeles air quality 1970’s
/image Los Angeles air quality 1980’s
/image Los Angeles air quality 1990’s
/image Los Angeles air quality now
Growing up, I recall days in school in which we were barred from doing any strenuous exercises during PE or even going outdoors to play during recess due to the smog alerts.
I remember visiting my grandma in Anaheim in the mid 60s. Riding in the car was stifling (no AC), but if you rolled the window down, the smog would burn your eyes and throat. That and the Watts riots on the news every evening did not make a great impression. I’ve been back several times since, but never got past the early impressions.
Meh. I loved it when I was in my early 20s, and spent months at a time there every chance I could get. Now, I visit once every few years. We’re going to be in Los Angeles this coming week for Stan Lee’s Comic Con, and hopefully we’ll get to see my sister and her hubby who live in Studio City. Should be fun, but a few days there is plenty for me now.
I’ve only visited once, a family trip to Los Angeles and environs in the Summer of 2001.
I suspect the city of Los Angeles detected that I was a born and bred Northeastern US City Dweller (Philadelphia, specifically), and established antibodies to keep me away in the future.
What really sticks out to me, though, was just trying to cross the street to visit the book store near our hotel in Redondo Beach. Again, I’m a city boy. Crossing a busy street is nothing to me. I’ve crossed across Roosevelt Boulevard, one of the busiest, and most dangerous streets in the country, and lived to tell the tale. I can handle a crosswalk.
But crossing one four lane street in Redondo, at an intersection, with the light, made me feel like I was taking my life into my hands. I could feel the rage of the drivers, telling me, “If you’re still in that crosswalk when this light turns green, I will run you over and grind you into a pulp before you can even blink.”
Never again.
Plus, on a trip to the La Brea tar pits, someone got into our rental car and stole my CD player and CDs. It took me years to recover some of that music. Years.
@sanspoint The drivers there are totally homicidal. Gotta love (not) how when a traffic light turns red, at least 5 more cars go through. Yeesh. I have never driven there, and I never will. I would have a heart attack.
@sanspoint Its funny but growing up in Las Vegas we used to joke that you could tell the pedestrian tourists from Cali because they acted like they had right of way over God, traffic lights, and any vehicles on the street, because Cali gives (gave?) pedestrians almost infinite right of way over cars. It didn’t matter what happened, if a car so much as brushed a pedestrian it was the driver’s fault, even if the pede ran out into the street, crossed against a red, whatever.
The pedes sure acted that way the two times I had to drive in Cali. Once near LA, once in SF. It was a nightmare; the bastards ignored the red lights and don’t walks and just kept blocking traffic.
We used to love it; we had family there and vacationed there quite a bit. There’s still a lot of history and nature there that we’d visit. But its not a place to consider living any more.
I lived at camp Pendleton. Loved the food, weather, some of the people, weather, the amazing grocery stores, shopping, weather, 6/$1 avocadoes (it was the 90s), and the weather. Hated the traffic, the smog, the rest of the people, the constant noise all day every day, and the insane housing prices.
We moved to San Diego when I began Jr High school, in the mid 60’s. It was just freaking amazing back then. I got a dirt bike & was on the trails, the beach, driving into Mexico, driving to the mountains or enjoying the parks every day.
With family down there, we still love going down there. All the roads/freeways have changed in the last 30 yrs & I get lost, but it’s still a pretty good place to be. Just stay out of the cities if you can!
Fun in the early 70’s. Santa Barbara City College tuition was $7/semester and 100% transferred to UCSB. They burnt down the Bank of America. Got too crowded and everything was a bit too laid back, so I left. Met some great women there!
California used to have the most amazing publicly financed education system. You could go to world class universities - if you could get in - for almost free.
And the schools didn’t hand out good grades easily either. So the degrees meant a lot. The quality of the faculty at these schools was astounding, as I suspect it still is.
I know one now retired woman who worked for a major defense contractor in the 1960’s on the factory floor. She later moved to Texas and started a very successful office and warehouse cleaning business.
She was very interested in religion and in ancient history related to the development of religion in the Mediterranean and nearly. She completed 4 different bachelor’s majors while she was in SoCal, one in business, the rest related to her interests in history and religion. And two masters degrees, one is business, the other in history.
She didn’t destroy herself with debt by doing this. I have known engineers at the local defense contractors who lived in CA during those years and did similar, in engineering related areas.
Plenty of other people got similar educations, esp in scientific, creative arts, and technical areas. Is it any wonder that the “Fire In The Valley” of the 1970’s was in a valley in California?
The public educational system in California from WWII they perhaps the 1970’s was probably as productive as any such system has ever been.
It may well be as big a reason as any other for California’s current techical dominance and its financial power.
Unfortunately, now financing such an education, plus additional financial stresses on the young and on families, means that the system no longer works as well to create the best educated population ever.
I’m not trying to oversimplify the issues in financing public universities and colleges. i known it’s complicated.
California’s University system was close to free. Other states also had high quality university systems that were very affordable. Students attended, living thru possible personal or academic stress, but not today’s nearly universal massive financial stress.
So when they left school, they weren’t crippled.
We don’t do this now anymore. Not only do public university charge plenty, also much of the debt that students assume in order to attend goes to finance projects that make the universities more powerful, and that debt does nothing to increase the quality of the education at the school. It goes to new buildings and new programs and corporate partnerships and star salaries instead. Let the students exit or graduate in a financially horrible state, so long as the university prospers.
The way we finance post K-12 education in the US in one of the huge factors that mean (imo) that China will likely be the most powerful and (in defense and high-tech) the most advanced country in the world pretty soon.
I dont understand why this isn’t a national security issue. But Americans have a lot of things to argue about right now. This one doesn’t even hit the radar.
@kaighintze Yeah and then suddenly you can actually see the mountains in the distance, the desert blooms… Novel. I was in Riverside and had no idea there were huge mountains visible from there until after the rain.
Meh. Awful traffic. Too many people. Everything is behind gates (so welcoming). It’s a desert - so much wasted water. Outside of that, I never have to visit so don’t overly care.
Before I went to meet @Thumperchick family all I knew about SoCal and LA was from Terminator 2 and Boyz in the Hood. I thought it was all concrete and drive bys. Then we spent a few weeks out there, and I’m sort of a fan of there. Love to visit, not to live there.
I would have selected “I’m from NorCal so I hate it”, but only people from Southern California call it NorCal so I selected “What’s not to hate?”
I used to have to go down there fairly frequently for work. Then I managed to avoid it for about 20 years except for one trip to Disneyland. Then my best friend and his wife and child moved down there (she’s in the entertainment industry—no, not porn). Now we’re down there once or twice a year. I actually kinda liked Silverlake. We could walk to Tiki Ti from their house. But their daughter is starting school so they moved to Glendale. Ugh.
about tenish years ago i flew into lax for my cousin’s wedding in ojai. i met my parents and sister there and we spent a day in LA and then some time in santa monica, long beach, and a couple other places in addition to ojai. i was a senior in college at the time and many of my friends would be leaving for either CA or NY. i have to say, when i was in california i remember thinking ‘i’ll miss them, but i get it now.’
as a born and bred new englander i’m programmed to stay here forever, but i would like to visit CA again.
I can advise you not to tell your friend, let’s meet in the LA bus station (we had taken the bus across country and gotten there a few days before her and stayed with my cousin). At the time that thing was 3 stories and it was pre-cell phone days.
I love it here. Anything I could want us within a short drive, with a few exceptions. My family is mostly out east, so it’s tough not getting to see them often. Also, housing prices are ridiculously high, making it nearly impossible to buy a home in any community I would actually want to live. We’re renting in my neighborhood now. A 1600 sqft 3/2.5 twin home just sold for $690k. Boggles my mind.
But, beautiful weather, the beach, mountains, desert all nearby. Wonderful and glorious breweries and restaurants with a burgeoning distillery industry popping up. Lots of parks, and I still love SeaWorld, the zoo and Safari Park. A week ago I got to watch Top Gun on the deck of the Midway, a decommissioned aircraft carrier.
Also, the incredible variety of people here is amazing. There’s no real insulation here; we’re exposed to different types of people, ideas, and experiences. It’s awesome.
I chose “what’s not to love”, but that’s really too strong a sentiment. There’s plenty not to love from the standpoint of an occasional visitor; traffic and pollution come immediately to mind. But there’s also plenty of good stuff. I feel about SoCal as I feel about central and east Texas, nice to visit but I wouldn’t want to live in most cities in those areas. “Like it okay” would be much more on target.
You know, I could live happily enough in many places once I settled in, if I had a good community of some sort or other, felt somewhat safe and secure, felt a sense of personal and community possibility, and could afford it. And was not cut off from things really important to me.
Way easier when young and unencumbered tho.
One one is settled into something likeable and decent, most of us need really good reasons for thinking of starting over elsewhere.
There are never enough choices in these polls. There’s a lot to like about Southern California (and many, MANY people who live, or have lived there, call it SoCal). It’s shorter, and we were lazy. I left in 2006, and have been back precisely ONCE, because a friend was retiring, and had named me the primary speaker for his retirement party. I forgave him.
It was the traffic, and too many damned people in general, that did it for me. I was driving home one evening, a bit after 10PM, and it was still stop and go traffic. I looked out over the sea of cars, and said “Why am I doing this!?!?” and that was that. It took about two years to finish disentangling myself from work, and I got the hell out of Dodge just before the housing bubble started deflating.
I miss California. It’s just that the California I miss is long, long gone. I’ve been here, in the middle of nowhere (more or less), since April 2006. I bought my home end of June, 2006.
There are beginning to be too many people even here, though. The city moved faster to engulf me than I expected, and I did expect it to happen, but not as swiftly as it has.
I was born there and loved living there.
The weather, the beach, camping in the mountains, the zoo. Living in Naval Housing, people everywhere, fun, fun! Great school. Life was good in San Diego, then dad was transferred to his home state, where I remain.
I love my state but am proud to say I was born in San Diego!
We always wished we had stayed, except dad and lil bro, who was not born at that time.
@Calabama When I said I wouldn’t want to live in most SoCal cities, San Diego was the exception I was thinking of. If I could afford to live in San Diego (or preferably a burb as SD has way too many people) I would. But my income would have to have a zero added to the end.
@inanna Very hot. Today and tomorrow, inland San Diego, the temps will be over 100°.
My husband’s business is here at home, he has a shop where he makes things. He uses electricity to make these things (lots of electricity) and our local utility company sent out notices earlier this month if you go over 4x your allotted baseline usage, you will be hit with a big time rate increase.
So, no A/C for us! I wish we could afford to go solar.
What about a swamp or evaporative cooler? (I don’t know anything about the electrical cost of these.)
There are ways to keep somewhat cooler with no a/c. Start with fans. Ceiling fans are good. Fans pointed right at you are better.
Then a damp wrung out towel around neck. Or hat/cap designed to be evaporative and also damp and wrung out on head. And a fan pointed right at you.
You know those “blue ice” re-freezable blocks and soft packs that people use in coolers? They make vests with pockets for these. People who work outdoors in the heat, from auto salespeople to construction, delivery people, gardeners, police, etc sometimes use these.
You just get more blue ice or refreezable packs than you need and swap them out when you get hot.
Also, most people (not everyone,due to health issues) exposed to hot weather in a non-catastrophic but extended sort of event will acclimate somewhat, given enough time. That also helps a lot.
Two possibilities after a quick Google search are below. I imagine cheap ones can be had, or they can easily be home made with blue ice drink Walmart. Also eBay …
Since it’s cool at night, the house cools off nicely and we just shut it up in the daytime (which works at this time of the year, but not in the summer).
We have ceiling fans. We have a whole house fan for the evening, to bring in the cool air from outside.
And we have a pool. When I get too hot, that’s where I go. Doesn’t help much when we get the tropical heat, the heat that has the humidity, but it’s fine at this time of the year.
I just wish it would get over with. Last Friday was actually on the cool side. Mother Nature is a tease.
The evaporative towel/hat and the blue ice vest actually work decently in humidity. If a $12 fan is more or less pointed at you a lot.
I was thinking that if the electrical billing situation for residences is similar late next spring to what you are facing now, you might have to make do with little a/c through the entire summer.
So whatever strategy works … I’m sure people there do the same things they do here.
I assume that the San Diego area has its compensations. : )
@f00l The only time we run it is in high humidity. Other hot times if you get busy early you do acclimate to it. And jumping in the pool helps (well, being wet is what helps) but only when the humidity is low.
I’ll check into the blue ice vest - sounds interesting.
I collect coupons for local movie theaters. lol
One nice thing is it really doesn’t get bone chilling cold.
With a $4,800 property tax bill, gas to go up another dollar just in taxes. This native is ready to leave. The weather is the only selling point. Unless you live on the dole, then this is your mecca. Free healthcare and free all kinds of stuff.
@f00l One thing to note is that the property taxes here are capped (prop 13). Even if the value has increased, the taxes cannot increase more than 2% annually. That means even though a property may be worth a lot more years later, it’s essentially still assessed at its purchase price.
I purchased when it was lower, so I’m still under $5k annual. Someone buying a house in my neighborhood now would be paying nearly $8k. My neighbors who has owned for 30+ years probably pay under $2k.
TTBOMK, there’s exactly one good thing about Southern California: the (completely free!) Getty Museum. Feel free to disagree, but I don’t care a tuppence!
@UncleVinny The weather. And the Getty. Though the Norton Simon is also great.
Was looking at a school there. I had all sorts of appointments set to meet professors and administrators. Ditched half the meetings to surf, skate, just hang out on the beach, whatever. Decided it was best to go somewhere else so I’d actually make it to classes.
What’s not to love and hate simultaneously?
/giphy love
/giphy hate
I have lived her my entire life and have never cal SoCal. I think the only nickname that makes my skin crawl more is Cali.
/giphy California rules!
@ConAndLibrarian that giphy looks like it could be the intro to a live action Family Guy porn. Rule 34 in effect.
@djslack I’m pretty sure that dude is James Deen.
@RiotDemon I didn’t know the significance of that name, but it turns out you are correct and he’s apparently not related to Paula.
It is exactly what was suspected.
@djslack Well, porn is a pretty healthy industry around here…
@djslack so much cringe.
@ConAndLibrarian
Is the pr0n industry healthy? When everything is instantly pirated onto free sites?
How do they actually get revenue?
@ConAndLibrarian Happy Halloween! Free skin crawls for you
I love In-N-Out double-doubles animal style, extra toast, medium rare, add chilis, with a side of animal style well-done fries and the weather is beyond compare (I live in Minnesota, so the difference is drastic). However I do like breathing something other than exhaust and getting places faster than an hour to reach anything, so I’m ambivalent
@guyfromhawthorn It’s breathable. There’s a very good reason why the California Air Resources Board has much tighter regulations than the rest of the country.
/image Los Angeles air quality 1960’s
/image Los Angeles air quality 1970’s
/image Los Angeles air quality 1980’s
/image Los Angeles air quality 1990’s
/image Los Angeles air quality now
@narfcake we can even go jogging now, not that I do.
@Ignorant Yep.
Growing up, I recall days in school in which we were barred from doing any strenuous exercises during PE or even going outdoors to play during recess due to the smog alerts.
I remember visiting my grandma in Anaheim in the mid 60s. Riding in the car was stifling (no AC), but if you rolled the window down, the smog would burn your eyes and throat. That and the Watts riots on the news every evening did not make a great impression. I’ve been back several times since, but never got past the early impressions.
Meh. I loved it when I was in my early 20s, and spent months at a time there every chance I could get. Now, I visit once every few years. We’re going to be in Los Angeles this coming week for Stan Lee’s Comic Con, and hopefully we’ll get to see my sister and her hubby who live in Studio City. Should be fun, but a few days there is plenty for me now.
I’ve only visited once, a family trip to Los Angeles and environs in the Summer of 2001.
I suspect the city of Los Angeles detected that I was a born and bred Northeastern US City Dweller (Philadelphia, specifically), and established antibodies to keep me away in the future.
What really sticks out to me, though, was just trying to cross the street to visit the book store near our hotel in Redondo Beach. Again, I’m a city boy. Crossing a busy street is nothing to me. I’ve crossed across Roosevelt Boulevard, one of the busiest, and most dangerous streets in the country, and lived to tell the tale. I can handle a crosswalk.
But crossing one four lane street in Redondo, at an intersection, with the light, made me feel like I was taking my life into my hands. I could feel the rage of the drivers, telling me, “If you’re still in that crosswalk when this light turns green, I will run you over and grind you into a pulp before you can even blink.”
Never again.
Plus, on a trip to the La Brea tar pits, someone got into our rental car and stole my CD player and CDs. It took me years to recover some of that music. Years.
@sanspoint The drivers there are totally homicidal. Gotta love (not) how when a traffic light turns red, at least 5 more cars go through. Yeesh. I have never driven there, and I never will. I would have a heart attack.
@Pony Houston is worse than LA.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/08/10/the-most-dangerous-us-cities-for-red-light-running-infographic/amp/
It’s really an issue in every big city, though.
@sanspoint Its funny but growing up in Las Vegas we used to joke that you could tell the pedestrian tourists from Cali because they acted like they had right of way over God, traffic lights, and any vehicles on the street, because Cali gives (gave?) pedestrians almost infinite right of way over cars. It didn’t matter what happened, if a car so much as brushed a pedestrian it was the driver’s fault, even if the pede ran out into the street, crossed against a red, whatever.
The pedes sure acted that way the two times I had to drive in Cali. Once near LA, once in SF. It was a nightmare; the bastards ignored the red lights and don’t walks and just kept blocking traffic.
@narfcake
Pedestrians are kinda only semi-legal in Texas. Depends on “stuff”.
Pedestrians are somewhat more “legal” and certainly more protected if they are practicing open carry while being a pedestrian.
Isn’t lumping neutral and positive together kind of cheating?
meh
This pretty much sums it up.
We used to love it; we had family there and vacationed there quite a bit. There’s still a lot of history and nature there that we’d visit. But its not a place to consider living any more.
I lived at camp Pendleton. Loved the food, weather, some of the people, weather, the amazing grocery stores, shopping, weather, 6/$1 avocadoes (it was the 90s), and the weather. Hated the traffic, the smog, the rest of the people, the constant noise all day every day, and the insane housing prices.
We moved to San Diego when I began Jr High school, in the mid 60’s. It was just freaking amazing back then. I got a dirt bike & was on the trails, the beach, driving into Mexico, driving to the mountains or enjoying the parks every day.
With family down there, we still love going down there. All the roads/freeways have changed in the last 30 yrs & I get lost, but it’s still a pretty good place to be. Just stay out of the cities if you can!
Fun in the early 70’s. Santa Barbara City College tuition was $7/semester and 100% transferred to UCSB. They burnt down the Bank of America. Got too crowded and everything was a bit too laid back, so I left. Met some great women there!
@radi0j0hn Seven dollars?!?!?!
@jqubed
California used to have the most amazing publicly financed education system. You could go to world class universities - if you could get in - for almost free.
And the schools didn’t hand out good grades easily either. So the degrees meant a lot. The quality of the faculty at these schools was astounding, as I suspect it still is.
I know one now retired woman who worked for a major defense contractor in the 1960’s on the factory floor. She later moved to Texas and started a very successful office and warehouse cleaning business.
She was very interested in religion and in ancient history related to the development of religion in the Mediterranean and nearly. She completed 4 different bachelor’s majors while she was in SoCal, one in business, the rest related to her interests in history and religion. And two masters degrees, one is business, the other in history.
She didn’t destroy herself with debt by doing this. I have known engineers at the local defense contractors who lived in CA during those years and did similar, in engineering related areas.
Plenty of other people got similar educations, esp in scientific, creative arts, and technical areas. Is it any wonder that the “Fire In The Valley” of the 1970’s was in a valley in California?
The public educational system in California from WWII they perhaps the 1970’s was probably as productive as any such system has ever been.
It may well be as big a reason as any other for California’s current techical dominance and its financial power.
Unfortunately, now financing such an education, plus additional financial stresses on the young and on families, means that the system no longer works as well to create the best educated population ever.
I’m not trying to oversimplify the issues in financing public universities and colleges. i known it’s complicated.
California’s University system was close to free. Other states also had high quality university systems that were very affordable. Students attended, living thru possible personal or academic stress, but not today’s nearly universal massive financial stress.
So when they left school, they weren’t crippled.
We don’t do this now anymore. Not only do public university charge plenty, also much of the debt that students assume in order to attend goes to finance projects that make the universities more powerful, and that debt does nothing to increase the quality of the education at the school. It goes to new buildings and new programs and corporate partnerships and star salaries instead. Let the students exit or graduate in a financially horrible state, so long as the university prospers.
The way we finance post K-12 education in the US in one of the huge factors that mean (imo) that China will likely be the most powerful and (in defense and high-tech) the most advanced country in the world pretty soon.
I dont understand why this isn’t a national security issue. But Americans have a lot of things to argue about right now. This one doesn’t even hit the radar.
Seems it never rains there. I’ve often heard that kind of talk before.
@katbyter I duplicated this before seeing it. That’s from ancient history, ya know.
It’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.
It never rains in southern California
I’ve often heard that kinda talk before
@davido but it pours
@kaighintze Yeah and then suddenly you can actually see the mountains in the distance, the desert blooms… Novel. I was in Riverside and had no idea there were huge mountains visible from there until after the rain.
Was stationed their for a few months while they patched up the ship. Loved it but I think I heard my bank account cry
The typo in the title… @thumperchick
I grew up in NorCal. SoCal is the Moss Isley spaceport of California.
Meh. Awful traffic. Too many people. Everything is behind gates (so welcoming). It’s a desert - so much wasted water. Outside of that, I never have to visit so don’t overly care.
Before I went to meet @Thumperchick family all I knew about SoCal and LA was from Terminator 2 and Boyz in the Hood. I thought it was all concrete and drive bys. Then we spent a few weeks out there, and I’m sort of a fan of there. Love to visit, not to live there.
Calling @DaveSoCal did you miss this thread?
@Kidsandliz
Maybe @DaveInSoCal would also like to be notified?
@mflassy yeah well that is what I meant but not what I typed LOL thanks for catching that.
I would have selected “I’m from NorCal so I hate it”, but only people from Southern California call it NorCal so I selected “What’s not to hate?”
I used to have to go down there fairly frequently for work. Then I managed to avoid it for about 20 years except for one trip to Disneyland. Then my best friend and his wife and child moved down there (she’s in the entertainment industry—no, not porn). Now we’re down there once or twice a year. I actually kinda liked Silverlake. We could walk to Tiki Ti from their house. But their daughter is starting school so they moved to Glendale. Ugh.
about tenish years ago i flew into lax for my cousin’s wedding in ojai. i met my parents and sister there and we spent a day in LA and then some time in santa monica, long beach, and a couple other places in addition to ojai. i was a senior in college at the time and many of my friends would be leaving for either CA or NY. i have to say, when i was in california i remember thinking ‘i’ll miss them, but i get it now.’
as a born and bred new englander i’m programmed to stay here forever, but i would like to visit CA again.
I can advise you not to tell your friend, let’s meet in the LA bus station (we had taken the bus across country and gotten there a few days before her and stayed with my cousin). At the time that thing was 3 stories and it was pre-cell phone days.
I love it here. Anything I could want us within a short drive, with a few exceptions. My family is mostly out east, so it’s tough not getting to see them often. Also, housing prices are ridiculously high, making it nearly impossible to buy a home in any community I would actually want to live. We’re renting in my neighborhood now. A 1600 sqft 3/2.5 twin home just sold for $690k. Boggles my mind.
But, beautiful weather, the beach, mountains, desert all nearby. Wonderful and glorious breweries and restaurants with a burgeoning distillery industry popping up. Lots of parks, and I still love SeaWorld, the zoo and Safari Park. A week ago I got to watch Top Gun on the deck of the Midway, a decommissioned aircraft carrier.
Also, the incredible variety of people here is amazing. There’s no real insulation here; we’re exposed to different types of people, ideas, and experiences. It’s awesome.
@DaveInSoCal Has the housing prices exceeded the 2006 peaks in your area? My area is just hitting them now.
Some areas have well surpassed, though. And unlike the boom years, folks actually have to qualify for their loans.
I chose “what’s not to love”, but that’s really too strong a sentiment. There’s plenty not to love from the standpoint of an occasional visitor; traffic and pollution come immediately to mind. But there’s also plenty of good stuff. I feel about SoCal as I feel about central and east Texas, nice to visit but I wouldn’t want to live in most cities in those areas. “Like it okay” would be much more on target.
@moondrake
You know, I could live happily enough in many places once I settled in, if I had a good community of some sort or other, felt somewhat safe and secure, felt a sense of personal and community possibility, and could afford it. And was not cut off from things really important to me.
Way easier when young and unencumbered tho.
One one is settled into something likeable and decent, most of us need really good reasons for thinking of starting over elsewhere.
There are never enough choices in these polls. There’s a lot to like about Southern California (and many, MANY people who live, or have lived there, call it SoCal). It’s shorter, and we were lazy. I left in 2006, and have been back precisely ONCE, because a friend was retiring, and had named me the primary speaker for his retirement party. I forgave him.
It was the traffic, and too many damned people in general, that did it for me. I was driving home one evening, a bit after 10PM, and it was still stop and go traffic. I looked out over the sea of cars, and said “Why am I doing this!?!?” and that was that. It took about two years to finish disentangling myself from work, and I got the hell out of Dodge just before the housing bubble started deflating.
I miss California. It’s just that the California I miss is long, long gone. I’ve been here, in the middle of nowhere (more or less), since April 2006. I bought my home end of June, 2006.
There are beginning to be too many people even here, though. The city moved faster to engulf me than I expected, and I did expect it to happen, but not as swiftly as it has.
So it goes.
@Shrdlu Try 1am.
And then there’s the Bay Area …
https://jalopnik.com/san-francisco-drivers-cant-escape-legendary-traffic-eve-1797335039
I was born there and loved living there.
The weather, the beach, camping in the mountains, the zoo. Living in Naval Housing, people everywhere, fun, fun! Great school. Life was good in San Diego, then dad was transferred to his home state, where I remain.
I love my state but am proud to say I was born in San Diego!
We always wished we had stayed, except dad and lil bro, who was not born at that time.
@Calabama When I said I wouldn’t want to live in most SoCal cities, San Diego was the exception I was thinking of. If I could afford to live in San Diego (or preferably a burb as SD has way too many people) I would. But my income would have to have a zero added to the end.
Lived there for 2 1/2 years. I didn’t like it at first but it was very hard to have to move away. I missed living there for a long time.
Short visits are okay… But it’s so freaking hot and sunny.
@inanna Very hot. Today and tomorrow, inland San Diego, the temps will be over 100°.
My husband’s business is here at home, he has a shop where he makes things. He uses electricity to make these things (lots of electricity) and our local utility company sent out notices earlier this month if you go over 4x your allotted baseline usage, you will be hit with a big time rate increase.
So, no A/C for us! I wish we could afford to go solar.
@lisaviolet
Ouch. Are you inland?
How dry is it?
What about a swamp or evaporative cooler? (I don’t know anything about the electrical cost of these.)
There are ways to keep somewhat cooler with no a/c. Start with fans. Ceiling fans are good. Fans pointed right at you are better.
Then a damp wrung out towel around neck. Or hat/cap designed to be evaporative and also damp and wrung out on head. And a fan pointed right at you.
You know those “blue ice” re-freezable blocks and soft packs that people use in coolers? They make vests with pockets for these. People who work outdoors in the heat, from auto salespeople to construction, delivery people, gardeners, police, etc sometimes use these.
You just get more blue ice or refreezable packs than you need and swap them out when you get hot.
Also, most people (not everyone,due to health issues) exposed to hot weather in a non-catastrophic but extended sort of event will acclimate somewhat, given enough time. That also helps a lot.
Two possibilities after a quick Google search are below. I imagine cheap ones can be had, or they can easily be home made with blue ice drink Walmart. Also eBay …
https://www.amazon.com/FlexiFreeze-Ice-Vest/dp/B01MPZLWLZ
https://www.amazon.com/Ergodyne-Chill-Its-6200-Cooling-X-Large/dp/B001D3XHRQ
@f00l The humidity is in the teens.
Since it’s cool at night, the house cools off nicely and we just shut it up in the daytime (which works at this time of the year, but not in the summer).
We have ceiling fans. We have a whole house fan for the evening, to bring in the cool air from outside.
And we have a pool. When I get too hot, that’s where I go. Doesn’t help much when we get the tropical heat, the heat that has the humidity, but it’s fine at this time of the year.
I just wish it would get over with. Last Friday was actually on the cool side. Mother Nature is a tease.
@lisaviolet
Glad you are about to get a break.
The evaporative towel/hat and the blue ice vest actually work decently in humidity. If a $12 fan is more or less pointed at you a lot.
I was thinking that if the electrical billing situation for residences is similar late next spring to what you are facing now, you might have to make do with little a/c through the entire summer.
So whatever strategy works … I’m sure people there do the same things they do here.
I assume that the San Diego area has its compensations. : )
@f00l The only time we run it is in high humidity. Other hot times if you get busy early you do acclimate to it. And jumping in the pool helps (well, being wet is what helps) but only when the humidity is low.
I’ll check into the blue ice vest - sounds interesting.
I collect coupons for local movie theaters. lol
One nice thing is it really doesn’t get bone chilling cold.
I love L.A.!
/giphy we love it
@CZug That’s an odd gif.
/giphy I love LA
With a $4,800 property tax bill, gas to go up another dollar just in taxes. This native is ready to leave. The weather is the only selling point. Unless you live on the dole, then this is your mecca. Free healthcare and free all kinds of stuff.
@badger65
You have income taxes also. True?
@f00l Yes.
@narfcake
Ouch.
@f00l One thing to note is that the property taxes here are capped (prop 13). Even if the value has increased, the taxes cannot increase more than 2% annually. That means even though a property may be worth a lot more years later, it’s essentially still assessed at its purchase price.
I purchased when it was lower, so I’m still under $5k annual. Someone buying a house in my neighborhood now would be paying nearly $8k. My neighbors who has owned for 30+ years probably pay under $2k.
@narfcake
Our property taxes are pretty high. More than 2% in most counties?
But our valuations are lower - except for the occasional +$20M showoff palace. And no income tax.
at first I thought this was another Harvey Weinstein reference…