i wholeheartedly support this statement. Although I haven’t spent a lot of time in Santa Maria other than as a stop on the way to SLO. I should make a barbecue-specific trip there this summer.
Yeah, I gotta go with this. I lived in San Luis Obispo County for 20 years after having visited my grandparents throughout my childhood at Shell Beach. For the time I was there, I loved it for what it was and thoroughly enjoyed all it had to offer. Over 20 years it changed a lot – which is what we all dislike.
I moved to Oregon in 2004 and never looked back, despite having been much integrated into San Luis Obispo culture and society. I still have friends there and visit occasionally, usually on the way to visit my parents in Ventura County. It looks so… washed out, devoid of color after so many years in the PNW. And the towns all seem so contrived.
I couldn’t afford to go back if I wanted to, so it’s a good thing I don’t want to. 
I do still miss the quality of the restaurants, though!
Except for a very brief stint in Hawaii (dad was stationed in Hawaii), I’m a California lifer. I was born in La Jolla at the original Scripps Hospital (now the site of a condo complex) and have bounced between San Diego and San Jose since then. Like anyplace, there’s good and bad aspects of living here. In San Jose there is too much traffic, too much garbage strewn about, and the housing/homeless situation is a disaster. I lucky in that I’m paying about 1/3 of market rate for a decent apartment…there’s no way I could afford to live here otherwise.
The main attraction of living here for me is the variety of wonderful natural landscapes. I can be in a redwood forest or on a scenic beach in less than an hour. A little further and I can be at Pinnacles National Park or Point Reyes, one of my favorite spots in the world. Yosemite is about 3 hours away, Sequoia a little further, and I can be in Death Valley in about 7 hours.
Not that there aren’t wonderful places to visit in every other state - I take long road trips to see them every year. As long as I’m the beneficiary of cheap rent, I’ll keep California as my home base.
What did I hate about California? The plastic people, the boring architecture, the traffic, the necessity of driving everywhere, the lack of any cultural interest, lack of ethnic neighborhoods, lack of decent pizza or blues clubs, and the overall unrelenting *sameness *of everything. It felt completely artificial everywhere.
But I’ll grant you that the Northwest Burbs of Chicago are almost as uninhabitable. Comparing life in Arlington Heights to life in Chicago is completely apples-to-oranges.
Not to mention their obnoxious habit of putting “the” in front of freeway numbers.
My parents moved to San Diego after they retired. It has some good points, like Balboa Park, but I’d hate to live there.
Oredigger77 - not many people in Santa Barbara? Maybe because they are all on 101 (sorry, the 101) when I go through. It was much nicer 40 years ago before the chain stores moved into downtown and it got gentrified to hell.
Still, I have a friend who used to teach at the university, and we all wondered how he got anything done given the view of the ocean from his window.
All youse people talking good or bad about the “Bay Area” (meaning the San Francisco Bay Area): What do you consider to be “Bay Area”?
One definition could be the near-in terrain immediately surrounding the bay, bounded by the hills all around. That might be extended to include Livermore/Pleasanton/Dublin and 680 corridor areas, which are commonly considered part of Bay Area.
Another common definition consists of the entirety of the 9 counties that touch on the bay – although that includes such far-flung places as Sonoma County all the way up to Cloverdale or Napa County all the way up to Lake Berryessa and Calistoga, or coastal peninsula like Half Moon Bay or West Marin/Sonoma areas. Although all those more distant areas don’t have the “look or feel” of Bay Area IMO.
Its not just BBQ its strawberries too. Seriously, the whole town smells like BBQ and strawberries.
As far as density SB county runs 110 people/sqmile and SLO county runs 86 people per sq mile. Since people were comparing California to Oregon SB/SLO would be about the 7th largest county in Oregon similar in density to Polk County.
Fresno, CA Resident here
Thats disappearing quickly. Most cheap houses get scooped up quickly and turned into rentals. So most reasonably priced houses go fast to people who can afford to outpay the folks who would kill for those houses.
Leaving CA tomorrow.
My sister’s dying of the big C. I said goodbye today.
I’m fucked in the head.
I remember happier times, when I was hangin out with big sis. Along the beach. Eucalyptus trees. Blue skies.
It’s a lot more complicated than her inevitable death.
Fuck.
I’ve enjoyed visiting in the past (San Francisco and LA). The weather is nice and there’s a lot of cool stuff to do. But I’d never choose to live there. WAY too expensive - I can get a really nice house in the Midwest for what a cramped apartment in CA would likely cost me. And my politics wouldn’t line up at all.
But yeah, visiting is nice.
I’m sorry 
I can only imagine how horrible that has to be to go through. I can’t give you anything that would help, of course, but I really wish you and your family well.
I have mixed feelings now about visiting the places from my childhood.
The geography, etc. is amazing. And the overall vibe and social orientation is just great.
But …
My people are dying off or getting too weird to want to be around. So fewer people to get in touch with there.
Plus there are new problems. E.g., the traffic is a nightmare is the larger cities. I drive very little now and driving a rental car in those messes is a problem.
You can’t go home again is getting closer and closer to the truth.
For some careers like the entertainment industries, you pretty much have to live in California. Its also where the best paying tech jobs are.
I once visited San Francisco and my favorite part was the ocean and the boats. I’m from Kansas. I read a shuttle ferry in from Valejo where we were staying and got to go by the old naval base. I got to walk on the docks and see the fishermen at work (never seen a commercial fishing boat).
I would like to hike some of the big parks in California and see the big redwoods.
Kansas is very boring compared to California.
I’m sorry, asahi.
Thanks Kovitlac and Thorny – and sorry for the thread creep. I was up late, drunk, and melancholic.
Anyway, I miss Cali for a lot of reasons. I doubt I’ll move back because it just doesn’t make financial sense. The same is increasingly true for much of the West Coast.
But a good visit once in a while would work.
I’m so sorry asahi
Bah! If it ain’t 909 it ain’t California! Inland Empire rules!
asahi, it’s excruciating to lose any dear loved one. I am sorry for your impending loss and the pain you are enduring.
I wish for you swift peace and fine memories that will eventually soothe your heart.