Thinking of moving to sunny San Diego? An inquisitive poster on the Craiglist.org housing forum is, and he asked local people to give him their opinions on the different neighborhoods of San Diego.
I particularly liked this reply, as amusing as it is comprehensive:
“Downtown: Want action/Got bucks or a tolerance and old, rundown – but hip place.
PB: Drink or surf. Better yet, drink and surf/Got bucks or don’t mind two or three roommates in a noisy complex.
MB: Drink a lot and surf a lot./Got major money or don’t mind living with three or four roommates in a noisy complex.
OB: Want granola? Soy? Cheap wine? Surfing?/Got some money or don’t mind roommates? How do you feel about the more than occasional angry wino? Great neighborhood feel, but can be scary.
La Jolla: Want to be away from the riff-raff./Got lots of money or lots of roommates. (BTW: La Jolla is really kind of a small town at night. Sure they gots lots of expensive shops, but it is DEAD at night.)
UTC: (Pretends to be part of La Jolla) Want UCSD education, or a ‘safe’ place to live and don’t care that you must drive to do anything but sit at home and know that your ‘neighborhood’ is just a collection of affluent transients./Got some money or can tolerate roommates.
Clairemont/Mira Mesa/Kearney Mesa/Serra Mesa/ San Carlos: Nobody in their 20s really ‘wants’ to live there.
Mission Valley: Same as UTC, but a little less pricey, a little less affluent. Okay – and a little more “party” oriented: drinking & casual sex. Lots of frat and sorority types.
Golden Hills: Want hip, neighborhood, walk to stuff, be sort of near downtown./Got tolerance for some shady types and dicey blocks.
North Park: The great catch-basin for 20 somethings: Semi-hip, semi-scary, semi-reasonably priced. Almost everyone ends up in NP at some time in their life.
Hillcrest: Hip, gay/Need dough
University Heights: Hillcrest east – a little less hip, a little less gay/A little less dough
Normal Heights: University Heights east: Still less hip and less gay-but catching up!/Reasonably priced, but some scary streets in NH. Some nice streets, some good restaurants, but some scary streets – south of Adams can be tough.
City Heights/East San Diego/Chollas/Logan: Are you adventurous? Do you like street entrepreneurs? Pit bulls? Cheap housing there.”
Hope that helps any would-be San Diego transplants.