Should I get a specific job, I was curious about something Dopers could help me with. Anyone live in or near Santa Ana California? What’s it like there? Can I get a decent apartment (nothing fancy, just a room or two and a kitchenette) for a decent price? High taxes? Bad air?
Ahhhh…Orange County.
Not a bad city…for Orange County. 
I’m sure others will be along with specifics.
I lived in Santa Ana for a year about 2 years ago. It has some bad parts, but it’s not a scary place. Very much a strip mall kind of town. If you don’t mind a scummy apartment, you can live pretty cheaply. My girlfriend and I opted for a mid-range 1 bedroom plus a den (about 750 sq feet), and that ran us about $800/month. You can pay a lot more and a bit less if you like.
All in all, I didn’t hate it, didn’t love it. It was just a place to live.
You’ll be living behind the Orange Curtain. It’s not bad, just not my cup of tea. As lightingtool said, very strip-mallish. I prefer the eclecticism of LA. Look here for the OC Register’s classifieds. You can find some apartments in Santa Ana relatively cheaply. But depending on your lifestyle, you may be better off paying a bit more and commuting to Santa Ana from one of the beach communities, like Redondo, Manhattan, or Santa Monica even. Although your commute will be long, you may enjoy your free time more.
Having taught in Compton, CA, I still carry a bit of skepticism about Santa Ana’s bad reputation in OC, but you should know that it does probably have the greatest gangbanger ratio in OC. There are some very reputable neighborhoods, but when OC residents want to talk about ugly, dangerous places and scare themselves, they bring up Santa Ana.
You should also know that commuting from Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, or Santa Monica will mean that you will spend a minimum of one hour on the road each way to get to work, unless you work some very unusual hours.
Yahoo makes Redondo Beach as 35 miles away, Manhattan Beach as 37, and Santa Monica as 49. This is so far away in L.A. metro traffic that it is essentially never done. I know of people who drive this long from the Inland Empire, but that is because their housing money went a lot farther there. OC has some very nice parts to it. It’s actually kind of famous for it. It even has, drumroll, beaches, although they tend to be expensive to live very close to. I heartily recommend that you ask locals about the driving situation from where you plan to live. Huntington Beach, for instance, has no direct way to reach Santa Ana, and you have to drive 6- 7 miles on the city roads to get to the right freeway.
Longtime Orange County resident checking in. Other cities have bad neighborhoods, but Santa Ana’s are larger and more notorious. There are nice sections too, such as French Park near downtown, but they’re small and surrounded. As with any metropolis, the lower rent may be worth it. YMMV.
The extent of Santa Ana’s reputation may be seen in ads for properties located in “South Coast Metro”. Which is nothing more than the newer, upscale part of the city bordering Costa Mesa and Irvine, but the mere name “Santa Ana” is apparently real estate poison.
Speaking of duplicious copy, don’t rely on the county’s “official” daily paper for local news, or at least supplement/counteract it with the OC Weekly. (online version) There’s a buttload of sex ads in the back pages, but hey, that’s why the rag is free.
As a former Surf City resident, I happily note that this quirk of geography is courtesy of the Santa Ana River.
Since I’m Republican anyway, I don’t think I have a problem with Orange County’s politics, which I hear are more my style. Of course, I also never considered 800 a month to be anything sane for an apartment, either. Assuming I get hired (and accept), there’d have to be a pretty high salary, because I’m not commuting an hour every day (minimum)! :eek:
I wonder why the place is there, anyway? It’s a programming shop, but I don’t get why they’re stuffed into California, anyway. They should move near me, in KNoxville. Then they’d have cheaper rents. 
But then they’d have to live in TN. You get what you pay for. Me? I’d kill to be able to get a decent apartment for $800/m in this city.
If you’re coming from Tennessee, real estate prices (rental and owning) are one of MANY sticker shock items you’ll get. The cost of living in Southern California is so much higher. I went to Chattanooga last year on vacation, and wept when I leafed through a real estate guide.
But hey, the weather’s nice! 
Five year Orange County resident here.
Santa Ana is probably one of the more run down areas of Orange County. However, I does not feel dangerous at all. I lived in the Costa Mesa portion of South Coast Metro for four years. If you want to live in that portion of Santa Ana you are looking at a minimum of $1,000 for a one-bedroom apartment. Two bedroom units are ~$1,400. You might want to consider getting a roommate. A lot of people have them around here.
As others have mentioned, it is very expensive to live in Southern California. The cheapest houses in the county are now $600,000. I doubled my income when I moved here but my standard of living has not really changed. Expect to pay $1,200 to $2,000 a year on car insurance and $2.65/gallon for gas.
If you have kids I would avoid living in Santa Ana. The City has the worst funded school district in the county. A friend of mine had to move to another City in Orange County to get their kids in a better school.
I live in Huntington Beach. My commute to Irvine on the surface streets takes me about 30 minutes to go 8 miles. YMMV.
The weather is great though.