I moved from Boston to Davis (near Sacramento) about a month ago. The people here seem much nicer than the people back east. I really hear a horn honk or someone swearing at a stranger. The driving is different. Everyone here drives faster and closer together than back home, but they’ll let you merge far more willingly. I’ve spent some time in San Diego as well, and found the same thing. People out here are easier to deal with.
Not true at all, we Bakersfieldians consider ourselves “Nothern-Southern Californians”. The reasoning being that we are a lot closer to Los Angeles (hour or so) then any of the big, northern cities (about 3 hours from San Fran…a good 5 or 6 from Sacramento). Plus, when Disneyland has their “Southern Californians Only” stuff, we are included. I’d say the line is somewhere abouts Fresno, maybe a lil north of it?
I’ve traveled to a few places on the East Coast and hated it. Why? The people were so grumpy. Very few smiles, very few casual convos, etc. Everyone seemed rushed, pushy, and yelly. I think it is because they don’t have sunshine- a key ingredient in happiness :D.
I also had a friend from Brooklyn that I knew from debate. After attending a debate tournament at Stanford he told me, “Dude, what the hell is wrong with you people? Everyone is so relaxed! And nice! IT’S NOT NORMAL!!!”
I love it. Can’t wait to get involved. As soon as I buy my Padres hat, I’m on board, dissing them northerners with absolutley no knowledge base to go on.
BTW, had a great business call today with someone in SD in my field, discussing work possibilities. If this continues, I’ll actually be able to make a living there.
Then you can rejoice in the fact that Petco Park is not only the newest field in MLB, but the nicest. Beautifully laid out, shuttles and trolleys all of 100 yards away, the Gaslamp District right next door, Friar Franks, etc.
Just remember…to be a true Southern Californian, all you need to know how to say is “Giants suck!” 
I consider the northern border of San Luis Obispo, Kern, and San Bernadino counties to be SoCal/NorCal divide.
If you want to include a Central area, I would say LA County to Mexico is SoCal, Ventrua County to Monterey County is Central, and everything else is NorCal.
Also, don’t forget that in addition to a NorCal-SoCal cultural divide, we have an EastCal-WestCal subdivision of Norcal. From the Pacific to the Coastal Range is BlueCal except for a blue bulge that encompasses Sacramento. Everything east of that is RedCal.
I grew up (w/ exception of a few years - 3rd - 6th grade in LA) on the east coast, suburbs of DC.
Around 1996, moved to Bend, OR.
Then in late 2000, was job-transferred to West Hartford, CT.
I’ve always felt that the east coast was very rat-race. Life in OR seemed so much … easier, or relaxed.
But that could also be small-town vs. city. Or I’ve fallen prey to the meme that the east coast is a dog-eat-dog world.
But I miss OR. 
I was born in NYC before the Giants left town. My dad was a serious Yankees fan and so I was also. So that’s kind of like second nature to me.
Don’t forget your beachball, doing the wave, arriving in the third and leaving in the seventh (TRAFFIC!!!), and talking on your cell phone. Baseball, Southern California style. Awww, yeah.
Well I’m from Pittsburgh and we generally consider ourselves to be in the Midwest more than East Coasters. We’re nothing like NYC, Boston, DC, or even Philadelphia. We pretty much consider those cities to be much more fast-paced, uptight and single-minded than us. I’ve visited all of the large east coast cities and for the most part, the impression I get is similar. I found New Yorkers to be much more polite and present than I expected, but on the whole they didn’t really compare to midwesterners.
To give an example, in NYC I found that walking into most stores (in tourist areas or not) the vendors were focused on either hawking their stuff whether you needed/wanted it or not. I found that most store keepers weren’t exactly outgoing with their customers either. To contrast, in Pittsburgh I was looking for a certain type of ribbon to use for an honors society initiation. In desperation I went into a candy store thinking they might have some that they would be willing to sell. The shopkeeper’s response? “Hmm, we don’t carry anything like that, but I know a store downtown that does. Let me know what you need and I’ll get it tomorrow before I open. I’ll charge you whatever I pay downtown. Sound good?” Probably not a representative example, but in Pittsburgh we pride ourselves on being polite and courteous, especially to tourists.
In visiting the West Coast the most noticeable thing I found was that people are absolutely OBSESSED with the weather (and most of the posts to this thread by West Coasters agrees). I mean native Californians could barely understand that I gladly choose to live where I do–I’ve received a million comments about how dreary the weather is, how hard it must be to survive winters, don’t I wish I lived in perpetual sunshine, etc. We realize we don’t have an ideal climate, but jeez, there’s plenty to love about living in the Midwest. I love seasons! In the West Coast I also found people to be extremely concerned about either health food or just plain fancy food. A juice bar on every corner was pretty surprising to a guy from a city where french fries appear both on sandwiches and in salads. What is this “wheatgrass shot” you speak of? I can’t say I found people on the West Coast to be any less uptight than East Coasters, but they did seem to be plenty more friendly.
Just MHO. (PS. Come visit Pittsburgh! You’ll be pleasantly surprised. PNC Park easily beats Petco, no offense. The team may suck, but even ESPN agrees
Nice try, and I applaud the support for the home team, but…that ranking was from 2003. Petco just opened this year. I totally agree with ESPN’s ranking of Qualcomm. That place is a dump.
Touche. I will raise you this ESPN visits Petco a year later. Last time I checked, 80 is lower than 95. The review was written by a Soutern Californian, btw.
Ever been to Chicago? We are obsessed with weather. In our defense, we have a lot of it.
OTOH, the very first thing my mom said when I announced I was moving to the Midwest was “but it snows there!” I think my response was something along the lines of “and millions of people live in the snow and don’t die from it!” My parents ask me if it’s snowing every single time I talk to them. “No, mom, it’s 102 degrees. It’s really not snowing. Unfortunately.” My parents are both from LA and consider themselves the tough ones of the family for moving to the Bay Area, where the temperature sometimes drops below 50 in the winter! Eeeek!
(Seriously, I once had a phone conversation with my dad where I mentioned that it was cold, and he proceeded to go on about how it hadn’t gotten out of the 50s in a month. I told him it was 10 degrees in Chicago and he quieted down.)
Personally, although there are some climates I would prefer not to live in (ie, desert), the weather isn’t my biggest concern when deciding where to live.
I have been to PNC and it is beautiful. Didn’t stay long in Pittsburgh, but it seemed very nice.
Yep, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I mean I’m sure people in Florida and Tornado Alley are also pretty well fixated on the weather at times too. I’m just saying that in my experience people from the West Coast always bring up the climate at any random opportunity, but especially in reference to why they live where they do. I know the climate is wonderful, but to West Coasters it seems to be a very big factor in deciding where to live and goes into forming a lot of the attitudes in the area.
I tend to find that people around here seem to have a “Sometimes its hot, somtimes its cold, and sometimes its in the middle. We’ll make do with whatever” and that’s that.
Actually, I wasn’t just speaking of NYC. I know people from Philly and D.C. who stay stand on line, but perhaps it just spread from NYC.
The main difference is that East Coast girls are hip. You’ll really dig those styles they wear.
But the West Coast has the sunshine, so the girls are thin, and so tan.
I doubt anyone south of Bakersfield does. Aside from a sports rivalry or two, SoCal people don’t have much animosity towards NorCal.
Another thing that I have noticed about the West Coast is that sooner or later the Californians will come along and try to make it all about them. 
I beleive that would be the SoCalers. I live in a constant fog of, well, fog. An dI love it.
Plus, “how likely you are to die today from the smog” is not a daily part of the weather report here. Blecch.
When my parents were in New York years ago, someone asked them where they were from, and they told him “San Francisco.” The guy made a face and said “Oh, it’s so smoggy there.” My parents told him “No, it’s foggy. It’s smoggy in LA.” The guy said “What’s the difference?” and moved on.
Outside of the west, people don’t have a very good idea of how far apart San Francisco and LA are. Not just culturally, which has been covered a little in this thread, but physically. It’s a good seven hour drive from one to another. And that’s the boring, fast route. The scenic route is more like nine hours.
This just makes no sense to me. Most of what people call the “midwest” is in the eastern half of the country. My Mom’s family is from Pittsburgh, and it’s definitely “back east” to us.
Divide the lower 48 states into three roughly equal sections with north-south lines. People call most of the central section “the west” or “the midwest,” and even chunks of the eastern third call themselves “midwest.” The only people that admit to being from “the east” are those within spitting distance of the Atlantic.
While I’m grousing ( 
), my son was supposed to to a report on one of the southern states. We’re not talking about Civil War history here…we’re talking about the state as it exists today. He picked Florida, and was told that it isn’t a “southern state.” Huh?