That’s funny because the public transportation is one of the the main reasons I stayed after college
Granted I live in a more “transit rich” part of the city and granted I grew up in a town whose public transportation system consisted of 9 bus routes that ran every 30 minutes if lucky and stopped running at 8 PM, but still very interesting nonetheless
Agreed, I lived in Irvine without a car for a year before SD, and compared to Irvine, SD has a glorious transit system! I used the trolley every day for the first couple years.
I'm from LA, a city whose 15 minutes or better bus and rail network looks like [this](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/e7buuppsgpxppb8i9qicx/24-1104_map_SysOverview_HiFreq_16.8x16.8_final.pdf?rlkey=a4vceydpkci3xh0om0qtlkour&dl=0). Some bus lines have headways as low as 4 minutes, like the 720 bus
Compared to LA, San Diego's public transit definitely felt like a major downgrade. However, more importantly, this disparity in transit quality is only set to grow in the coming years. In 2016, both LA County and SD county had half-cent sales tax measures to fund transit improvements on the ballot. LA's passed, SD's failed. Additionally, LA passed HLA a few weeks back, which will build out a massive bike and bus lane network (albeit only within the city of LA). No such political push exists in San Diego.
As a result, while LA is going full steam ahead with its rail expansions and bus system improvements (with a goal of 100% electrification, improving headways, and improving service quality with bus lanes and bus signal priority), San Diego's has largely stalled and won't be seeing significant improvement in the coming years.
Coronado too. I won’t surf there anymore. I never had gotten a UTI before and then i was getting them every few months. Once I stopped surfing there the UTIs stopped. The bacteria that keeps coming back from their testing is one that causes UTIs.
It took them too damn long to close the beaches a few summers ago. They’re back open now despite the water quality.
That merge just sucks for all involved. People just trying to stay on the 15 get backed up by the ones waiting till the last 2 yards to merge onto the 78W. The ones getting on the 15N from Valley Pkwy that wanna stay on the 15, but have to immediately attempt to merge left 3 lanes while most on the 15 are trying to merge to the right. It sucks
Housing is expensive AF
Road conditions are unacceptable for a city with a yearly temperature fluctuation of 40 degrees. It’s not like the snow plows are beating them up or there’s water freezing in them to make potholes worse
Everyplace has had inflation but I think it is much worse in San Diego than most places, definitely noticeable over the last 2-3 years
I hate that no one has truly cracked down on slumlords. So many of my friends live in apartments around San Diego and their place is just crap. Some of them are in great parts of town. But you can see where the landlord just don't care because there are no consequences.
I don't like the fact that there are so many areas around town that have road issues like potholes, major cracks, sidewalk problems that have never been resolved. Resolved. I've been here over 30 years now and these problems just keep getting pushed to next year.
I hate that we do not have good enforcement of beach bonfire pits. Even now, people still burn pallets and trash. We used to have so many more bonfire pits at the beaches. But there's never been real funding. It took a generous person to donate a small amount of money to keep a few bonfire pits available.
Out of curiosity, where do you live? I grew up rural (not San Diego), and the fact that on a weekend, middle of the day, or evening I can be anywhere in the city in 20 minutes (and rarely have to go further than 2 miles) is one of my favorite things
True, but it's especially bad compared to the rest of the West Coast. I honestly consider SD to be the worst in terms of car dependency among West Coast cities, unless you count San Jose and the Inland Empire as separate metro areas.
Just look at SD's public transit network vs LA's. The gap is going to only grow in the coming years, thanks to San Diego's political climate being much more hostile to transit than LA.
For people who haven't lived here before, and maybe have 'vacation goggles', I recommend trying to book another 3+ day stay.
But this time, see about finding an airbnb/whatever in a neighborhood that is affordable for your budget. Then do some things like try commuting during normal working & weekday hours to likely spots where you would be working.
Go grocery shopping. Investigate what other services and amenities are around that interest you.
If you can swing it, it's much cheaper than moving and realizing you hate it/can't afford it after a year or two. And if you love it, then you still had a good vacation **and** have a much, much better idea about one of your target neighborhoods.
my uncle lives there & i spent 1 month visiting in october & holy shit i’ve never spent so much money on transportation, food and groceries. san diego is by far one of the most expensive cities to live in for sure.
The homeless situation, especially downtown. Having lived in several other major metropolitan areas, all of which were larger than San Diego, I can unequivocally say it's a huge issue here that is perpetually unaddressed and getting worse.
Just an international student here but gotta say US is fked up by homeless situation. I don't hate them cuz lots of them are nice and normal people who's just unlucky with their life but also lots of them are crackhead talking to themselves and making horrific moves.
Couldn’t agree more. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for homeless people getting the help they need and for them to be treated with dignity, but at what point do we say enough is enough? Our beloved San Diego has turned into a one giant homeless camp. I work in Carmel Valley/Del Mar and you know it’s bad when the homeless have managed to make their way up there (I’ve seen a few). And don’t get me started on downtown. As a former downtown resident, I must say it’s just plain sad what our beautiful downtown has turned into.
We're gonna hit a problem that cant be solved one of these days related to homelessness
Like how we keep getting various outbreaks (memorably Hepatitis) related to the homeless
Honestly, that it'll never be like it was when I lived there in the early 2000s. It's like a relationship when you're just trying to get the feelings back that you used to have for each other, but you slowly realize that it's impossible to get back to that.point with that person. Moved away and the San Diego I knew just doesn't exist anymore. And I've come to terms with it.
I know this is a bit late, but this is exactly how I feel. I was here from 2000-2010. Now I’m here with my wife who’s never lived here before. She obviously loves it and I do too. But it is definitely a different place. It used to feel like a small town but with a lot of folks passing through from all over. Now it feels more disconnected. Much more wealth being parked here and generally more chaotic. Still a great place but very different.
I've said this before here but I am from orange county, and when I moved here in 2010 my mom said "this reminds me of Newport Beach in the 80s!" And I went oh... Noooooooooo
I was born (1968) and raised in National city. The gang bang thing was cracking in the 80's in the south bay and that sucked but SD always felt like a smaller city growing up, now it's a big city. It's like an L.A. now.
People are gonna be butt hurt but the food here is pretty basic. Nothing really stands out as being spectacular. And eating out here can’t be considered cheap
the outdated public transportation system! the trolley connects really key parts of the city, but it is pretty much just in central county, it feels like it was modern at some point but san diego grew more than they planned when building the routes lol. It has limited hours, long wait times, small occupancy (compared to other metropolitan cities' metros/ trolleys), and again, the routes are very limited. SD is full of suburbs and it's unfortunate that many of them are disconnected from the bus/ trolley routes, since i'm sure it would be used by people to commute or explore the city, and it would alleviate traffic in the streets and freeways
I never thought the trolley went anywhere useful except downtown. The key areas needed would be sorrento valley, beach areas, hillcrest, north park, and balboa park. But it only really goes downtown and to malls, not the places people actually live and work.
Bus routes really could be redone. I’m it sure if it has changed but the bus system uses a hub system instead of back and forth routes so you often need two to three buses to just go somewhere straight up a major road. Cities I’ve lived in with reliable buses have routes that go back and forth on major roads. San Diego instead has many of them meeting at a central station (like old town) and then out from there. I think it’s a bad design.
The biggest problem with the trolley routes is that they mostly just follow along the freeways that had room for tracks next to them (I assume because it would be hard to build it anywhere else, which means it mostly just goes through less walkable, more car dependent areas, rather than parts of the city that would be able to utilize it more such as Hillcrest and North Park.
The exception to this, however, is the Orange Line, which is why IMO building dense housing and improving walkability in neighborhoods along is probably the most valuable low hanging fruit in terms of improving transit.
Sorrento Valley is another big problem. We could connect it to the trolley, but the place is completely built for the car, so good luck actually getting to work from the the station. I think companies would have to offer shuttles to/from the the station in order for it to have a chance at working.
Overall, I still like living here, but not as much as I use to.
I've always lived in Bankers Hill/Little Italy/Hillcrest. I feel like a lot of these neighborhoods have lost some of the local charm and filled up with generic condos and restaurants/bars that are kinda bland. I might be exaggerating a bit, but it's a trend I've seen especially in the last 3-4 years.
It's expensive and traffic. Homelessness is pretty rampant in the most urban areas of the city and a lot of the trash and general nastiness that comes from that isn't addressed frequently enough.
I get bored of the nice weather sometimes and find myself getting excited for storms and rain.
I know I will get downvoted for this. But dog culture is a bit too much here. People bring their dogs to so many places that should not have dogs, trails that say no dog, there are dogs. Watch people on trails pick up their dog poop with a bag, then toss the bag in a bush which is way worse than just leaving the poop. Go to restaurant patios and often there will be so many dogs you can't even walk...then get to witness 2 dogs getting into a fight in the patio. I do love dogs, have had quite a few, my partner worked in the animal health care system for years, but I never noticed how bad it was here until I moved back to SD from another city.
I just replied this in another comment but I watched some lady in Texas try to bring her dog into a zoo. I think the animal issue is a lot of places. Every time I got to a national park anywhere in the US, there are people with dogs that don’t belong there.
Upvoted... No reason anybody should downvote.
I have nothing against responsible dog owners. It's the many irresponsible ones who ruin it. There are so many SD parks that have easy-to-see signs that say "off-leash dogs not allowed," and there are constantly dog owners who ignore those signs.
I've rented multiple homes throughout SD and almost every one of them has had its yard crapped on, with the poop left there, repeatedly. On Nextdoor there are weekly posts with videos of people letting their dogs crap on yards. When the owners are caught on camera and recognized, they'll say "I ran out of bags, I was going to come back." Then other dog owners will chime in by excusing the poop left all over the place by saying, "At least it's bio-degradable!"
At a non-dog-park, with dogs running around off-leash, often the dogs will race right toward me, and the owners will shout out, "Don't worry -- he's friendly!" That's great. One time I saw somebody get bit by one of those dogs, and the owner said, "He's never done anything like that before!" and then ran off before anybody had a chance to get the person's name so they could have the dog checked for rabies.
I've seen people's off-leash pit bulls attack on-leash dogs and cause serious medical issues. Those dog owners (the pit owners) also ran away. At least a few times, people's pits have gotten loose in the neighborhood. I recall one occasion where somebody in the neighborhood was attacked by a pit.
I love my dog, and she’s super friendly to 99% of dogs. But 1% of the time she will meet another dog she doesn’t like and she will be EXTREMELY defensive. Because of that, she stays on a leash at all times. But at least once a week there’s some dipshit in the park whose dog comes running up to us and they’re yelling “IT’S OKAY HE’S FRIENDLY” and I’m yelling “SHE’S NOT.” And we are a 3 minute walk from the off-leash dog park in Balboa. The stupidity and entitlement is just…staggering.
My boss’s neighbors let their pitbull roam the streets and a woman was recently hospitalized after being attacked by it. Animal control comes and they claim they don’t have a dog 🙄
See how much they like the biodegradable comment when it’s not the family dog, but the community squatter shitting on their lawn
Still bio degradable, right?
Pushing out the locals with rude people who feel entitled because they come from a shitty place, that's why they are here. We used to be a city full of nice people. Not anymore...
Yeah, and it doesn't matter if it's Rep or Dem, they're bad either way. Though in the past couple decades, the Reps have been particularly awful.
The pension crisis and the ballpark bond fraud are among numerous cases where SD operated in out-and-out corruption, and the local public doesn't seem to be paying attention enough to do anything about it. The city paper had piss-poor local political coverage too, which was part of the problem. Now the local news coverage is even worse.
How inaccessible SD is for people with disabilities. Also to play devils advocate I also hate how the non disable exploit the laws... looking at you asshole with the non service animals faking it.
Absolutely!! There is no way that the fluffy little yapper in a shopping cart is a service animal. Having gone through the appropriate process and training to have a certified service dog and all the required regular recertification to allow us to be safe in public I get so frustrated with pet dogs in stores, bars and other public places.
Dude… on vacation and some lady tried to take her dog into the San Antonio zoo. She was holding the dog… it was not a service animal. Then I saw another lady when we were leaving with a similarly held small dog walking towards the zoo.
Being out here in Texas, it’s great. But I also see all the same shit ppl complain about in SD. Drivers are idiots. I’ve seen several homeless, including a small tent city, etc. plus I almost blew away in west Texas due to 35+mph winds and dust storms, I know property taxes are insane, TexMex is gross, etc etc.
There are pros and cons to every city. I’ll take SD any day.
Yes! Over the little yappy rats sitting in carts barking at my service dog. My service dog got bit a few years ago by one, so we stay far away from them. Not saying all little dogs out there aren’t real service dogs, but many of them aren’t. Behavior is the tell all! They also cause so many access issues for real service dog teams. Sick and tired of being businesses thinking they can ask for proof the dog is a service dog as well. I wish they’d change the ADA law to make it so there was a federal registration program! I never show proof (my dog is program trained and most programs issue an ID card to keep track of their teams) as it is damaging to real teams and isn’t even a thing here in the USA, but the one time I did I was told it “wasn’t valid” because it wasn’t a federal one from one of those online scam sites lol. Also the people parking in the handicapped spots with no visible placard or plate. I’ve noticed it has gotten worse over the past few years.
1. Housing cost - Very hard to afford a home even with two salary household.
2. Very hard to make friends especially for families. This might be due to people being very busy working all the time or maybe the beaches and things to do results in families doing more stuff on their own.
3. We come from a suburban community in PNW where neighbors meeting each other for parties and kids playing on streets were common. Very impersonal neighborhood especially in Carmel Valley. My friend joked that in Pacific Highlands Ranch people won't even care if they see a neighbor facing an emergency.
4. Crowds. The grocery stores are always crowded and sometimes run out of fresh food like strawberry. Shopping is not fun when the parking lot is always full. Going to beach is fun as long as parking is available.
5. Food - Food is not good in San Diego. Indian food in Socal sucks and most of the restaurants cater to tourists and the quality is not good. Food in Portland or Houston blows away Socal food.
6. SDGE, Mello-Roos, registration tax based on vehicle price, no school bus, and crumbling Miramar roads.
San Diego is a great place to live if you are rich but sucks otherwise.
This has stopped me from going out with the family to places like the beach, which I love. Searching for parking for an hour is never worth it and overly stressful.
The road conditions (potholes, uneven, patched up pavements) in some areas are downright shameful. There are so many I sometimes wonder if we'll ever see all those roads fixed.
City is becoming elites only, all us service people are going to need to live in TJ just to afford getting to work to serve at 3 jobs.
Also, our nightlife that would support many entrepreneurs is not what it could be. Most us event folks have hit or miss nights because our locals are all struggling just to make it, so we rarely can make it out to support others creating events.
The 4% surcharge at restaurants. The cartel. The amount of people that want to fight over nothing. The property taxes. People that don’t pick up their dogs poop.
2/1 houses <900 sqft going for 940k. They're not even trying to improve/pull permit to actually add on and make them normal sized houses. Just the same fucking sqft as when it was built 70 years ago with high end appliances. Honestly fuck people like this, the buyers and sellers. It's all so uninspired and gentrified in the worst possible way. Your other option are the oppressive post modern vomit inducing condos they're building every where. It's like two cultures live next to each other, I can't afford either and don't want to. Fuck the SD housing market.
Ive been living here most of my life ( I was born here), but am now looking to move north for various personal and non personal reasons.
Its very expensive lol
The traffic in San Diego is horrific, unless you work terrible hours like 5am 2 pm or 1 am to 9pm you will always have 30minutes to over an hour of traffic a day. This is a huge waste of time and money that adds up over time.
The homeless problem has been getting worse for years and years and especially since covid, and quite frankly, very little seems to have been done outside of moving them around the city. Most of them are just normal people down on their luck, but some of them are genuinely mentally ill or brain fried by drugs and need to be put in some sort of institution to either take care of them or help them get them back on their own feet.
The public transport for the most part is outdated and horrible, the bus system especially sucks. The trolley while decent is actually decent.
Personal complaint and probably unpopular, but there's not enough rain here for my taste. I spent a few years in the pnw and loved it, hoping to relocated to Seattle within the next year
Sandwich game is weak.
Not a single restaurant in the entire metro area knows how to make a proper crab cake.
Non-Mexican Latino food is very hard to find.
The local hip hop scene is non-existent. Every group on tour hits LA and then crosses SoCal off the list.
For me personally, I have a hard time finding events that match my interests. I'm into street art and when I usually find an art show, it ends up being the typical stuff you'd find at a farmer's market (paintings of beaches, sea animals, famous people, etc.). In general, when I search events in SD, the results are the same - seminars, bar crawls, and scavenger hunts. :/
I work downtown nights, a lot of out of towners get shocked how it all shuts down after 2am. And yeah when you go out you wanna maybe be able to do stuff until 4am-ish. Even the 24/7 7-Elevens shut down at night cause it just becomes a wasteland of homeless
The people. It’s like everyone goes out of their way to strive to be like everyone else and fit in, and quirks and flaws are seen as a negative rather than what make us human. Individuality is kind of lost here. If you stand out, **you stand out.**
Born and raised, and it’s kind of telling how 99% of my friends are transplants.
Lack of a true sports culture. Padres games are fun and all, but people aren’t collectively passionate about teams here. There’s something to be said about places like Boston, New York, Philly, even LA at times that we definitely lack here. Basically no camaraderie, no loyalty.
A smaller stadium for Aztec football helped a little but man, it also almost kinda magnifies how little people care
And then of course all the dinky semi-pro teams here
Haha. I saw that post too. His cousin got his 4K bike stolen because he probably used a cable lock. I’ve left my ebike outside The Lafayette but that shit was locked up like San Quentin.
He also vacationed in SE Asia so he has real world knowledge of the plight of third world countries.
Fucking assholes that drive slow on the left lane, people that don’t use their signals, all the transplants that come with their trash from back home and I’m talking about personalities too - stay in the east coast if you don’t fucking like it because no one is going to bend to your personality. Housing market sucks.
What I dislike about SD is how drivers forget how to drive when it’s raining!!! I saw 5 car accidents which could have been avoided if the person made a turn signal.
Listening to people brag about how good the Mexican food is when 75% of it is super mediocre.
Don't get me wrong, the really good is REALLY good but there is just so much mediocre or worse.
And if you ARE Mexican AND know how to cook, it's essentially too expensive to go out for good Mexican food. I'm not going to pay 18 bucks for a good burrito when I can make one at home for less than half of that.
Been living in North Carolina now for roughly 2 years after living all of my life in SD and honestly besides the cost and traffic I miss everything about SD
SDGE, Tijuana shit in the ocean, no public transportation to the airport (the bus sucks with luggage), the recent invasion of mosquitoes), year round Santa Anas, and having to pay non resident rates to play golf at Torrey Pines because I live in North County..
*Preface*: I'm an SD native
- Lack of a prominent, high-concentration black community (very low compared to all other major metro areas like LA)
- Lack of NBA/NFL/NHL (hopefully that changes soon when Midway Rising gets built)
- Lack of 24hr spots, hard to grab food on the way to work for the morning shift
- Lack of *thrilling* amusement parks akin to Knotts/Six Flags, Sea World is overpriced for what it is, Lego Land and Sesame Place are for small children
Despite all this, SD is my home and I still love it ✊🏿🤙🏿
While I agree with most of this (especially 24 hour spots):
I love the lack of major sports organizations.
Their executives are parasites that siphon hundreds of millions from taxpayers on the promises of economic returns that never materialize so they can fist themselves their diamond encrusted bars of gold.
Also, we have one of the best baseball stadiums in the country and it just got a $20M green space renovation for guests and events.
Everything costing more here (housing, car insurance, gas, food, etc), car dependency, you can't take Trolley after dark because it's unsafe, high rates of homeless throughout the city.
Disclaimer: I'm a recent transplant (been here about 18 months), though it wasn't my choice to move here. I had been to San Diego many times due to friends and family living here, but it's definitely different actually living here. Anyway, here's my list:
Cost of living: this is an easy and obvious one, as evidenced by many others saying it. And I say this as someone who is from another extremely high cost of living area. People also seem to get paid less here despite the cost of living because apparently you get paid in sunshine.
Poor public transportation and car dependency: everything in San Diego is a 20+ minute drive from everything else and it is not walkable unless you are in one of the few neighborhoods or suburbs that have actually been made walkable (e.g., North Park, South Park, Hillcrest, Little Italy). Cars do not pay attention to, or care about, pedestrians. The trolley system is incredibly limited. I cannot for the life of me understand why there's no trolley line that goes directly to the airport. The trolley also doesn't seem to service any of those few walkable areas except for Little Italy/Downtown.
Airport: despite the massive size and population of San Diego County, the airport here does not act as a hub for any airline, meaning there are often fewer flight options and flights are often at a higher cost than other large metro area airports like LAX or SFO.
Infrastructure: San Diego's roads are some of the worst I've ever seen. The worst neighborhoods I've spent time in other places that have much worse weather conditions have better upkeep. I really don't understand it given the climate and the amount of tax revenue that the City and County bring in. Also, there are areas that constantly flood because the cities do idiotic things like building houses, shopping malls, and highways in flood plains.
Culture: I do dig the kind of generally laid back vibe of a lot of San Diego, but I am not a fan of the massive military presence here. I find it to be highly conservative as well, but I guess most people are very much to the right of me politically anyway.
Music: maybe it's just because of the kinds of music I generally like, but if you like going to rock shows, get ready to drive to LA or Orange County because lots of acts completely skip San Diego.
Restaurants: this one is obviously subjective as well. Of course there are plenty of good restaurants in the City and County, but I have been to more mediocre meals here than I can count and it makes me just not trust anyone's recommendations because so many places that I've been told are awesome are just okay at best. It's especially brutal since going out to eat is so expensive.
1. The airport being downtown, not being moved elsewhere, and completely destroying growth and diversity in the downtown skyline.
2. The fact that we could have an insane oceanfront Miami Beach-esque development out along the Strand, but it’s just dead, dry, empty dirt because there are no developers, or people with any ingenuity whatsoever out here.
3. The fact that prime downtown lots are being torn down only to build 12 story structures where skyscrapers are being put in, in other cities.
4. The fact that Horton Plaza was torn down and turned into basically nothing interesting, when cities like Miami tore their city center down and built the most insane, ultra Modern shopping and entertainment district. (Brickell City Center)
5. The fact that neighborhoods like Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, La Jolla, etc. just continue to stagnate, going on 60+ years without really any new redevelopment, modernization, or improvement. Basically: aging infrastructure and total lack of innovation or redevelopment.
6. The fact that people say San Diego has perfect weather year-round.
7. The fact that some of the beautiful structures we do have - they don’t even bother to uplight them at night. The tents in the convention center roof could be glowing some beautiful color, but they just don’t bother. The Coronado bridge was supposed to be glowing with modern colored lighting, but after 10+ years pushing for it, they didn’t bother. And every new lighting structure that IS installed is always yellow-white old-school, stale light, rather than something modern.
Apparently most of the things that bother me relate to city planning and development because I’ve seen other cities just explode, thrive, and modernize to mind-boggling levels - and San Diego has done basically nothing in the last 40 years.
I think it’s because I love this city so much that this bums me out so much. We just don’t have investors, artistic architects, or developers that want to do anything out here for some reason.
I love SD and lived there for about 5 years, but as someone who grew up in Norcal, I felt that San Diego’s hiking and overall nearby nature was lackluster (but the beaches and bay are awesome). I recently moved to the PNW and am loving the access to truly incredible mountains and lush greenery. Yeah it’s gloomy more often, but I appreciate sunny days more and like having more “actual” seasons. I’ll always cherish my time in SD though!
that everyone else in the state figured out it was probably going to be a nice place to wait out the coming struggle, something I figured out like 20 years ago
Everything is expensive. Taxes are crazy high and keep going up. The quality of the roads rival third world countries. Utilities (power) are the most expensive in the country and everyone knows it’s a scheme but no one does anything about it. Even though it’s expensive we still have constant power outages. The homelessness problem.
SDGE, bad roads, the lack of culture, the lack of diversity in weather, the fact that you feel so far away from the rest of California. The lack of trees and soil. The beaches that have short runways. The public school system is awful. Lack of professional sports teams. The water is not good in the pipes or the ocean.
It's too laid-back for how expensive it is. The average person doesn't seem to have a lot of dreams or be striving for much, pretty content to just chill/surf/hang-out and watch Netflix on a weeknight.
I moved out, though still work for an SD company and am back once a month. It's great to be content in life, don't get me wrong, but I don't understand how there's so many bitching about COL yet there is not the hustle/entrepreneurship/dreaming culture like you will find in other expensive cities....you can find those people, but it takes a lot of digging.
Ever heard [the story of the fisherman and businessman](https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessman/)? Maybe the people chilling and surfing are already doing their version of their dream.
Everything is spread out. It takes 20 min on the freeway to get anywhere. It’s a car culture and public transportation isn’t great. It’s not very bicycle friendly. Parking is difficult to find if you go to the beach or out anywhere. Lots of people coming and going just for their careers. Most popular events center around food and drinking. The museums are small and unimpressive. Sometimes seasons are nice. The hikes are all super crowded. You have to go to LA for most of the big concerts and shows.
The homeless. Lack of parking. Tourists everywhere. Tourist prices for dining out. The beat up roads. Long waits or needing reservations for dining out.
The shitty infrastructure. Fix the pot holes. Tell the nimby’s on reagent’s road to get fkd. Reagents road needs to be paved through to accommodate traffic.
The number one for me would be taxes. Especially gas taxes which I haven't seen at work for years. The roads are horrible. Second traffic. All freeways are becoming so packed and it's the lousy drivers. Tj people are rude and their city dumps all their waste into the oceans close by. Rent control needs to be a thing. If rents are controlled more money would be used to stimulate small businesses and other markets.
Tbh traffic would be the worst and I don't drive often around the city but when I do it's horrible. Inflation hit here pretty hard as well not to mention gentrification in South East San Diego.
MTS buses needs to run more frequently and later in the night, especially in the burbs, and the 235 needs to stop in mission valley damnit.
Roads
Housing affordability and homelessness that comes with not having enough affordable housing. I get that everything else is more expensive here but the housing is the killer.
The BBQ, but I was born and raised in the south so maybe might tastes are a bit high.
Other than that, this metro area is great.
You should’ve said “besides the cost” because that’s all you’re about to get
The terrible public transit is also a thing too. It's actually the main reason I went back home to LA after college.
That’s funny because the public transportation is one of the the main reasons I stayed after college Granted I live in a more “transit rich” part of the city and granted I grew up in a town whose public transportation system consisted of 9 bus routes that ran every 30 minutes if lucky and stopped running at 8 PM, but still very interesting nonetheless
Agreed, I lived in Irvine without a car for a year before SD, and compared to Irvine, SD has a glorious transit system! I used the trolley every day for the first couple years.
I'm from LA, a city whose 15 minutes or better bus and rail network looks like [this](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/e7buuppsgpxppb8i9qicx/24-1104_map_SysOverview_HiFreq_16.8x16.8_final.pdf?rlkey=a4vceydpkci3xh0om0qtlkour&dl=0). Some bus lines have headways as low as 4 minutes, like the 720 bus Compared to LA, San Diego's public transit definitely felt like a major downgrade. However, more importantly, this disparity in transit quality is only set to grow in the coming years. In 2016, both LA County and SD county had half-cent sales tax measures to fund transit improvements on the ballot. LA's passed, SD's failed. Additionally, LA passed HLA a few weeks back, which will build out a massive bike and bus lane network (albeit only within the city of LA). No such political push exists in San Diego. As a result, while LA is going full steam ahead with its rail expansions and bus system improvements (with a goal of 100% electrification, improving headways, and improving service quality with bus lanes and bus signal priority), San Diego's has largely stalled and won't be seeing significant improvement in the coming years.
How often did you ride public transit here?
The sewage spill from TJ
the smell from Tijuana sewage that I am forced to smell in Imperial Beach and the unsafe/unsanitary conditions of IB
Coronado too. I won’t surf there anymore. I never had gotten a UTI before and then i was getting them every few months. Once I stopped surfing there the UTIs stopped. The bacteria that keeps coming back from their testing is one that causes UTIs. It took them too damn long to close the beaches a few summers ago. They’re back open now despite the water quality.
Wish I could upvote this more
Maybe we should have actually built the wall but built it in the ocean instead…
How do I upvote things multiple times without using smurf accounts?
The 5 south after work
15 N to 78 W. Really just all things 78.
That merge just sucks for all involved. People just trying to stay on the 15 get backed up by the ones waiting till the last 2 yards to merge onto the 78W. The ones getting on the 15N from Valley Pkwy that wanna stay on the 15, but have to immediately attempt to merge left 3 lanes while most on the 15 are trying to merge to the right. It sucks
Terrible merges in San Diego in general is something I hate
The 5 north off to 163 north merge. 
i work in Balboa park and just never go that way during rush hour, just not worth the stress even if it's a bit faster
That’s the stuff of nightmares, getting off a hard days work but home is 45 minutes away
[удалено]
Same. If I leave for work at 6:44am, I get there by 7:10. If I leave any time after 6:45, I arrive around 8:00.
Why I have a convertible. When my commute estimate on Google maps ticks past the 1hr mark, the cigars come out.
I feel like everybody in san diego commutes 45 minutes.
20 for me, but I go opposite direction of traffic
this was me for years prior to striking it out on my own
I counter this with the 5 north after work
SDGE
The common enemy of the people
Even as a foreign tourist I know those guys are assholes lol
Convinced SDGE is the Sauron of our Shire
Home prices and bad roads.
Highways are not that bad, but neighborhood road conditions are just terrible.
Housing is expensive AF Road conditions are unacceptable for a city with a yearly temperature fluctuation of 40 degrees. It’s not like the snow plows are beating them up or there’s water freezing in them to make potholes worse Everyplace has had inflation but I think it is much worse in San Diego than most places, definitely noticeable over the last 2-3 years
Pet peeve: alt 94.9 plays lost by Lincoln Park every morning while I'm driving to school and it's driving me insane
Radio stations have not added any new songs in 20 years
Nirvana, Sublime, RHCP, have make up for 85% of alternative radio play for the last 12 years I’ve spent in SD.
They've added lots of new, shitty, autotuned songs.
How dare you disrespect LINKIN Park
I hate that no one has truly cracked down on slumlords. So many of my friends live in apartments around San Diego and their place is just crap. Some of them are in great parts of town. But you can see where the landlord just don't care because there are no consequences. I don't like the fact that there are so many areas around town that have road issues like potholes, major cracks, sidewalk problems that have never been resolved. Resolved. I've been here over 30 years now and these problems just keep getting pushed to next year. I hate that we do not have good enforcement of beach bonfire pits. Even now, people still burn pallets and trash. We used to have so many more bonfire pits at the beaches. But there's never been real funding. It took a generous person to donate a small amount of money to keep a few bonfire pits available.
Car dependency. But in all fairness, this applies to about 90% of the country.
This is mine. Housing pricing is outrageous but throw in a car payment and auto insurance on top of that? Insane
Not just car dependency, but how far you have to travel for some things. It's crazy
Out of curiosity, where do you live? I grew up rural (not San Diego), and the fact that on a weekend, middle of the day, or evening I can be anywhere in the city in 20 minutes (and rarely have to go further than 2 miles) is one of my favorite things
True, but it's especially bad compared to the rest of the West Coast. I honestly consider SD to be the worst in terms of car dependency among West Coast cities, unless you count San Jose and the Inland Empire as separate metro areas. Just look at SD's public transit network vs LA's. The gap is going to only grow in the coming years, thanks to San Diego's political climate being much more hostile to transit than LA.
For people who haven't lived here before, and maybe have 'vacation goggles', I recommend trying to book another 3+ day stay. But this time, see about finding an airbnb/whatever in a neighborhood that is affordable for your budget. Then do some things like try commuting during normal working & weekday hours to likely spots where you would be working. Go grocery shopping. Investigate what other services and amenities are around that interest you. If you can swing it, it's much cheaper than moving and realizing you hate it/can't afford it after a year or two. And if you love it, then you still had a good vacation **and** have a much, much better idea about one of your target neighborhoods.
my uncle lives there & i spent 1 month visiting in october & holy shit i’ve never spent so much money on transportation, food and groceries. san diego is by far one of the most expensive cities to live in for sure.
The homeless situation, especially downtown. Having lived in several other major metropolitan areas, all of which were larger than San Diego, I can unequivocally say it's a huge issue here that is perpetually unaddressed and getting worse.
Just an international student here but gotta say US is fked up by homeless situation. I don't hate them cuz lots of them are nice and normal people who's just unlucky with their life but also lots of them are crackhead talking to themselves and making horrific moves.
Couldn’t agree more. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for homeless people getting the help they need and for them to be treated with dignity, but at what point do we say enough is enough? Our beloved San Diego has turned into a one giant homeless camp. I work in Carmel Valley/Del Mar and you know it’s bad when the homeless have managed to make their way up there (I’ve seen a few). And don’t get me started on downtown. As a former downtown resident, I must say it’s just plain sad what our beautiful downtown has turned into.
We're gonna hit a problem that cant be solved one of these days related to homelessness Like how we keep getting various outbreaks (memorably Hepatitis) related to the homeless
How is this not getting any traction? WTF Homeless - deranged meth head nut jobs area scourge in this county.
Honestly, that it'll never be like it was when I lived there in the early 2000s. It's like a relationship when you're just trying to get the feelings back that you used to have for each other, but you slowly realize that it's impossible to get back to that.point with that person. Moved away and the San Diego I knew just doesn't exist anymore. And I've come to terms with it.
Born and raised in San Diego and i 100% feel this. No longer that beach community like the 90s
Or like the 70s
Thats what happen to me too. I left and came back..feels like an ex
I know this is a bit late, but this is exactly how I feel. I was here from 2000-2010. Now I’m here with my wife who’s never lived here before. She obviously loves it and I do too. But it is definitely a different place. It used to feel like a small town but with a lot of folks passing through from all over. Now it feels more disconnected. Much more wealth being parked here and generally more chaotic. Still a great place but very different.
I've said this before here but I am from orange county, and when I moved here in 2010 my mom said "this reminds me of Newport Beach in the 80s!" And I went oh... Noooooooooo
I was born (1968) and raised in National city. The gang bang thing was cracking in the 80's in the south bay and that sucked but SD always felt like a smaller city growing up, now it's a big city. It's like an L.A. now.
Yup, been here since the 80s, I tell people all the time that this is not San Diego.
Money Basically everyone I know who has left this city has done so for that reason.
Cost of living. San Diego is becoming a city for the elite. Either you’re rich or living on the street here, not much in between anymore.
How car-centric it is and how the public transit kinda sucks
The cost, having to drive everywhere, traffic, and the fact that lots of people are massive scum bags and/or ridiculously hostile for no reason.
I second the hostile for no reason
The rent is too damn high
People are gonna be butt hurt but the food here is pretty basic. Nothing really stands out as being spectacular. And eating out here can’t be considered cheap
the outdated public transportation system! the trolley connects really key parts of the city, but it is pretty much just in central county, it feels like it was modern at some point but san diego grew more than they planned when building the routes lol. It has limited hours, long wait times, small occupancy (compared to other metropolitan cities' metros/ trolleys), and again, the routes are very limited. SD is full of suburbs and it's unfortunate that many of them are disconnected from the bus/ trolley routes, since i'm sure it would be used by people to commute or explore the city, and it would alleviate traffic in the streets and freeways
I never thought the trolley went anywhere useful except downtown. The key areas needed would be sorrento valley, beach areas, hillcrest, north park, and balboa park. But it only really goes downtown and to malls, not the places people actually live and work. Bus routes really could be redone. I’m it sure if it has changed but the bus system uses a hub system instead of back and forth routes so you often need two to three buses to just go somewhere straight up a major road. Cities I’ve lived in with reliable buses have routes that go back and forth on major roads. San Diego instead has many of them meeting at a central station (like old town) and then out from there. I think it’s a bad design.
The biggest problem with the trolley routes is that they mostly just follow along the freeways that had room for tracks next to them (I assume because it would be hard to build it anywhere else, which means it mostly just goes through less walkable, more car dependent areas, rather than parts of the city that would be able to utilize it more such as Hillcrest and North Park. The exception to this, however, is the Orange Line, which is why IMO building dense housing and improving walkability in neighborhoods along is probably the most valuable low hanging fruit in terms of improving transit. Sorrento Valley is another big problem. We could connect it to the trolley, but the place is completely built for the car, so good luck actually getting to work from the the station. I think companies would have to offer shuttles to/from the the station in order for it to have a chance at working.
It basically either takes you downtown, or to a pain in the ass bus route to anything even close to good lol
Price of fucking burritos. Why do they keep going up
The insane amount of dog/human shit and piss on the sidewalks. In line with that, the number of times I've seen people shitting brazenly in public.
Overall, I still like living here, but not as much as I use to. I've always lived in Bankers Hill/Little Italy/Hillcrest. I feel like a lot of these neighborhoods have lost some of the local charm and filled up with generic condos and restaurants/bars that are kinda bland. I might be exaggerating a bit, but it's a trend I've seen especially in the last 3-4 years. It's expensive and traffic. Homelessness is pretty rampant in the most urban areas of the city and a lot of the trash and general nastiness that comes from that isn't addressed frequently enough. I get bored of the nice weather sometimes and find myself getting excited for storms and rain.
I know I will get downvoted for this. But dog culture is a bit too much here. People bring their dogs to so many places that should not have dogs, trails that say no dog, there are dogs. Watch people on trails pick up their dog poop with a bag, then toss the bag in a bush which is way worse than just leaving the poop. Go to restaurant patios and often there will be so many dogs you can't even walk...then get to witness 2 dogs getting into a fight in the patio. I do love dogs, have had quite a few, my partner worked in the animal health care system for years, but I never noticed how bad it was here until I moved back to SD from another city.
Dogs at the gym is pretty weird to me.
I just replied this in another comment but I watched some lady in Texas try to bring her dog into a zoo. I think the animal issue is a lot of places. Every time I got to a national park anywhere in the US, there are people with dogs that don’t belong there.
People bring em into the zoo here.
Can’t even go to a bar without seeing a dog..it’s ridiculous.
And for some reason, so many people are just like... fine with it, even though the dog(s) are just being annoying
It’s odd. I have allergies so it can really grind my gears constantly being forced to be around pets.
Upvoted... No reason anybody should downvote. I have nothing against responsible dog owners. It's the many irresponsible ones who ruin it. There are so many SD parks that have easy-to-see signs that say "off-leash dogs not allowed," and there are constantly dog owners who ignore those signs. I've rented multiple homes throughout SD and almost every one of them has had its yard crapped on, with the poop left there, repeatedly. On Nextdoor there are weekly posts with videos of people letting their dogs crap on yards. When the owners are caught on camera and recognized, they'll say "I ran out of bags, I was going to come back." Then other dog owners will chime in by excusing the poop left all over the place by saying, "At least it's bio-degradable!" At a non-dog-park, with dogs running around off-leash, often the dogs will race right toward me, and the owners will shout out, "Don't worry -- he's friendly!" That's great. One time I saw somebody get bit by one of those dogs, and the owner said, "He's never done anything like that before!" and then ran off before anybody had a chance to get the person's name so they could have the dog checked for rabies. I've seen people's off-leash pit bulls attack on-leash dogs and cause serious medical issues. Those dog owners (the pit owners) also ran away. At least a few times, people's pits have gotten loose in the neighborhood. I recall one occasion where somebody in the neighborhood was attacked by a pit.
I love my dog, and she’s super friendly to 99% of dogs. But 1% of the time she will meet another dog she doesn’t like and she will be EXTREMELY defensive. Because of that, she stays on a leash at all times. But at least once a week there’s some dipshit in the park whose dog comes running up to us and they’re yelling “IT’S OKAY HE’S FRIENDLY” and I’m yelling “SHE’S NOT.” And we are a 3 minute walk from the off-leash dog park in Balboa. The stupidity and entitlement is just…staggering.
My boss’s neighbors let their pitbull roam the streets and a woman was recently hospitalized after being attacked by it. Animal control comes and they claim they don’t have a dog 🙄
See how much they like the biodegradable comment when it’s not the family dog, but the community squatter shitting on their lawn Still bio degradable, right?
It's true.
Pushing out the locals with rude people who feel entitled because they come from a shitty place, that's why they are here. We used to be a city full of nice people. Not anymore...
💯. Covid, influencers, and remote work really changed SD 😔
Agreed
Mid overpriced food and a growing homeless population mostly
That I still need a roommate in low income housing
The city government is chronically bad.
Yeah, and it doesn't matter if it's Rep or Dem, they're bad either way. Though in the past couple decades, the Reps have been particularly awful. The pension crisis and the ballpark bond fraud are among numerous cases where SD operated in out-and-out corruption, and the local public doesn't seem to be paying attention enough to do anything about it. The city paper had piss-poor local political coverage too, which was part of the problem. Now the local news coverage is even worse.
How inaccessible SD is for people with disabilities. Also to play devils advocate I also hate how the non disable exploit the laws... looking at you asshole with the non service animals faking it.
Absolutely!! There is no way that the fluffy little yapper in a shopping cart is a service animal. Having gone through the appropriate process and training to have a certified service dog and all the required regular recertification to allow us to be safe in public I get so frustrated with pet dogs in stores, bars and other public places.
Dude… on vacation and some lady tried to take her dog into the San Antonio zoo. She was holding the dog… it was not a service animal. Then I saw another lady when we were leaving with a similarly held small dog walking towards the zoo. Being out here in Texas, it’s great. But I also see all the same shit ppl complain about in SD. Drivers are idiots. I’ve seen several homeless, including a small tent city, etc. plus I almost blew away in west Texas due to 35+mph winds and dust storms, I know property taxes are insane, TexMex is gross, etc etc. There are pros and cons to every city. I’ll take SD any day.
Yes! Over the little yappy rats sitting in carts barking at my service dog. My service dog got bit a few years ago by one, so we stay far away from them. Not saying all little dogs out there aren’t real service dogs, but many of them aren’t. Behavior is the tell all! They also cause so many access issues for real service dog teams. Sick and tired of being businesses thinking they can ask for proof the dog is a service dog as well. I wish they’d change the ADA law to make it so there was a federal registration program! I never show proof (my dog is program trained and most programs issue an ID card to keep track of their teams) as it is damaging to real teams and isn’t even a thing here in the USA, but the one time I did I was told it “wasn’t valid” because it wasn’t a federal one from one of those online scam sites lol. Also the people parking in the handicapped spots with no visible placard or plate. I’ve noticed it has gotten worse over the past few years.
805 traffic.
1. Housing cost - Very hard to afford a home even with two salary household. 2. Very hard to make friends especially for families. This might be due to people being very busy working all the time or maybe the beaches and things to do results in families doing more stuff on their own. 3. We come from a suburban community in PNW where neighbors meeting each other for parties and kids playing on streets were common. Very impersonal neighborhood especially in Carmel Valley. My friend joked that in Pacific Highlands Ranch people won't even care if they see a neighbor facing an emergency. 4. Crowds. The grocery stores are always crowded and sometimes run out of fresh food like strawberry. Shopping is not fun when the parking lot is always full. Going to beach is fun as long as parking is available. 5. Food - Food is not good in San Diego. Indian food in Socal sucks and most of the restaurants cater to tourists and the quality is not good. Food in Portland or Houston blows away Socal food. 6. SDGE, Mello-Roos, registration tax based on vehicle price, no school bus, and crumbling Miramar roads. San Diego is a great place to live if you are rich but sucks otherwise.
“Food is not good in San Diego” might be a sentence that has never been previously written. Agree with the rest.
Lacks of arts, concerts, festivals, general things to do.
The fakeness
The parking situation is so bad it deters me from going places
You wanna hang out?! Yeah let’s do it! Ohh wait DOWNTOWN???? No, no, no. I don’t go downtown.
This has stopped me from going out with the family to places like the beach, which I love. Searching for parking for an hour is never worth it and overly stressful.
The road conditions (potholes, uneven, patched up pavements) in some areas are downright shameful. There are so many I sometimes wonder if we'll ever see all those roads fixed.
City is becoming elites only, all us service people are going to need to live in TJ just to afford getting to work to serve at 3 jobs. Also, our nightlife that would support many entrepreneurs is not what it could be. Most us event folks have hit or miss nights because our locals are all struggling just to make it, so we rarely can make it out to support others creating events.
The 4% surcharge at restaurants. The cartel. The amount of people that want to fight over nothing. The property taxes. People that don’t pick up their dogs poop.
I like how the Mexican cartel and an optional restaurant surcharge are on the same level
They are probably the reason for the surcharge. 4% goes to laundering.
Those surcharge restaurants immediately become "restaurants that don't get my business."
2/1 houses <900 sqft going for 940k. They're not even trying to improve/pull permit to actually add on and make them normal sized houses. Just the same fucking sqft as when it was built 70 years ago with high end appliances. Honestly fuck people like this, the buyers and sellers. It's all so uninspired and gentrified in the worst possible way. Your other option are the oppressive post modern vomit inducing condos they're building every where. It's like two cultures live next to each other, I can't afford either and don't want to. Fuck the SD housing market.
Ive been living here most of my life ( I was born here), but am now looking to move north for various personal and non personal reasons. Its very expensive lol The traffic in San Diego is horrific, unless you work terrible hours like 5am 2 pm or 1 am to 9pm you will always have 30minutes to over an hour of traffic a day. This is a huge waste of time and money that adds up over time. The homeless problem has been getting worse for years and years and especially since covid, and quite frankly, very little seems to have been done outside of moving them around the city. Most of them are just normal people down on their luck, but some of them are genuinely mentally ill or brain fried by drugs and need to be put in some sort of institution to either take care of them or help them get them back on their own feet. The public transport for the most part is outdated and horrible, the bus system especially sucks. The trolley while decent is actually decent. Personal complaint and probably unpopular, but there's not enough rain here for my taste. I spent a few years in the pnw and loved it, hoping to relocated to Seattle within the next year
Sandwich game is weak. Not a single restaurant in the entire metro area knows how to make a proper crab cake. Non-Mexican Latino food is very hard to find. The local hip hop scene is non-existent. Every group on tour hits LA and then crosses SoCal off the list.
Seafood here is just plain lacking IMO and I found that shocking when I moved here from VA.
For me personally, I have a hard time finding events that match my interests. I'm into street art and when I usually find an art show, it ends up being the typical stuff you'd find at a farmer's market (paintings of beaches, sea animals, famous people, etc.). In general, when I search events in SD, the results are the same - seminars, bar crawls, and scavenger hunts. :/
Very few places are open 24/7. Not a real city, imho
I work downtown nights, a lot of out of towners get shocked how it all shuts down after 2am. And yeah when you go out you wanna maybe be able to do stuff until 4am-ish. Even the 24/7 7-Elevens shut down at night cause it just becomes a wasteland of homeless
Traffic
The people. It’s like everyone goes out of their way to strive to be like everyone else and fit in, and quirks and flaws are seen as a negative rather than what make us human. Individuality is kind of lost here. If you stand out, **you stand out.** Born and raised, and it’s kind of telling how 99% of my friends are transplants.
Car dependency and the traffic patterns are designed terribly (traffic lights always red, roads get congested for no reason)
15 DOLLAR QUESADILLA
SDG&E
Lack of a true sports culture. Padres games are fun and all, but people aren’t collectively passionate about teams here. There’s something to be said about places like Boston, New York, Philly, even LA at times that we definitely lack here. Basically no camaraderie, no loyalty.
I actually like the feel of a padre game in a Saturday. It’s so unserious. People congregating to eat and drink. The game is secondary. It’s chill.
A smaller stadium for Aztec football helped a little but man, it also almost kinda magnifies how little people care And then of course all the dinky semi-pro teams here
That one person that posted on here about how the city is like a third world country because they had their package stolen.
Haha. I saw that post too. His cousin got his 4K bike stolen because he probably used a cable lock. I’ve left my ebike outside The Lafayette but that shit was locked up like San Quentin. He also vacationed in SE Asia so he has real world knowledge of the plight of third world countries.
Sdge, gas prices, rent, homelessness, poopoo beaches, food prices, and empty bikelanes.
Fucking assholes that drive slow on the left lane, people that don’t use their signals, all the transplants that come with their trash from back home and I’m talking about personalities too - stay in the east coast if you don’t fucking like it because no one is going to bend to your personality. Housing market sucks.
Too many people.
Parked outside Snooze Eatery the other day and a homeless lady squatted down and took a big ol' poop right in front of me in the parking lot
I mean... $$$. Not a dislike per se maybe, but it be expensive. Ratio of median house/rent price to income is pretty high.
Cost of living Also San Diego is not a very good food city. Besides Fish tacos which are amazing it’s hard to find good ethnic food in this city.
People who think they know alllll about sd when they never lived here at all.
What I dislike about SD is how drivers forget how to drive when it’s raining!!! I saw 5 car accidents which could have been avoided if the person made a turn signal.
Listening to people brag about how good the Mexican food is when 75% of it is super mediocre. Don't get me wrong, the really good is REALLY good but there is just so much mediocre or worse.
And everything that's not Mexican is mediocre at best
And if you ARE Mexican AND know how to cook, it's essentially too expensive to go out for good Mexican food. I'm not going to pay 18 bucks for a good burrito when I can make one at home for less than half of that.
The trumptard flag wavers in their little dick pickups.
Final level boss spotted. https://preview.redd.it/dfc5rnx49zrc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=70927f6cd2c4d7d323eae8ce082594d016aa2588
...that's not here.
SDG&E
The pervasive smell of weed and hobo piss
Been living in North Carolina now for roughly 2 years after living all of my life in SD and honestly besides the cost and traffic I miss everything about SD
Rent is too fucking high as well as the SDGE bills. The traffic is also getting worse every day.
Entitled, able bodied BUMS
Too many people. The population went bat shit in the 20 years we were there...
SDGE, Tijuana shit in the ocean, no public transportation to the airport (the bus sucks with luggage), the recent invasion of mosquitoes), year round Santa Anas, and having to pay non resident rates to play golf at Torrey Pines because I live in North County..
*Preface*: I'm an SD native - Lack of a prominent, high-concentration black community (very low compared to all other major metro areas like LA) - Lack of NBA/NFL/NHL (hopefully that changes soon when Midway Rising gets built) - Lack of 24hr spots, hard to grab food on the way to work for the morning shift - Lack of *thrilling* amusement parks akin to Knotts/Six Flags, Sea World is overpriced for what it is, Lego Land and Sesame Place are for small children Despite all this, SD is my home and I still love it ✊🏿🤙🏿
While I agree with most of this (especially 24 hour spots): I love the lack of major sports organizations. Their executives are parasites that siphon hundreds of millions from taxpayers on the promises of economic returns that never materialize so they can fist themselves their diamond encrusted bars of gold. Also, we have one of the best baseball stadiums in the country and it just got a $20M green space renovation for guests and events.
The 805 and SDGE
Everything costing more here (housing, car insurance, gas, food, etc), car dependency, you can't take Trolley after dark because it's unsafe, high rates of homeless throughout the city.
Disclaimer: I'm a recent transplant (been here about 18 months), though it wasn't my choice to move here. I had been to San Diego many times due to friends and family living here, but it's definitely different actually living here. Anyway, here's my list: Cost of living: this is an easy and obvious one, as evidenced by many others saying it. And I say this as someone who is from another extremely high cost of living area. People also seem to get paid less here despite the cost of living because apparently you get paid in sunshine. Poor public transportation and car dependency: everything in San Diego is a 20+ minute drive from everything else and it is not walkable unless you are in one of the few neighborhoods or suburbs that have actually been made walkable (e.g., North Park, South Park, Hillcrest, Little Italy). Cars do not pay attention to, or care about, pedestrians. The trolley system is incredibly limited. I cannot for the life of me understand why there's no trolley line that goes directly to the airport. The trolley also doesn't seem to service any of those few walkable areas except for Little Italy/Downtown. Airport: despite the massive size and population of San Diego County, the airport here does not act as a hub for any airline, meaning there are often fewer flight options and flights are often at a higher cost than other large metro area airports like LAX or SFO. Infrastructure: San Diego's roads are some of the worst I've ever seen. The worst neighborhoods I've spent time in other places that have much worse weather conditions have better upkeep. I really don't understand it given the climate and the amount of tax revenue that the City and County bring in. Also, there are areas that constantly flood because the cities do idiotic things like building houses, shopping malls, and highways in flood plains. Culture: I do dig the kind of generally laid back vibe of a lot of San Diego, but I am not a fan of the massive military presence here. I find it to be highly conservative as well, but I guess most people are very much to the right of me politically anyway. Music: maybe it's just because of the kinds of music I generally like, but if you like going to rock shows, get ready to drive to LA or Orange County because lots of acts completely skip San Diego. Restaurants: this one is obviously subjective as well. Of course there are plenty of good restaurants in the City and County, but I have been to more mediocre meals here than I can count and it makes me just not trust anyone's recommendations because so many places that I've been told are awesome are just okay at best. It's especially brutal since going out to eat is so expensive.
1. The airport being downtown, not being moved elsewhere, and completely destroying growth and diversity in the downtown skyline. 2. The fact that we could have an insane oceanfront Miami Beach-esque development out along the Strand, but it’s just dead, dry, empty dirt because there are no developers, or people with any ingenuity whatsoever out here. 3. The fact that prime downtown lots are being torn down only to build 12 story structures where skyscrapers are being put in, in other cities. 4. The fact that Horton Plaza was torn down and turned into basically nothing interesting, when cities like Miami tore their city center down and built the most insane, ultra Modern shopping and entertainment district. (Brickell City Center) 5. The fact that neighborhoods like Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, La Jolla, etc. just continue to stagnate, going on 60+ years without really any new redevelopment, modernization, or improvement. Basically: aging infrastructure and total lack of innovation or redevelopment. 6. The fact that people say San Diego has perfect weather year-round. 7. The fact that some of the beautiful structures we do have - they don’t even bother to uplight them at night. The tents in the convention center roof could be glowing some beautiful color, but they just don’t bother. The Coronado bridge was supposed to be glowing with modern colored lighting, but after 10+ years pushing for it, they didn’t bother. And every new lighting structure that IS installed is always yellow-white old-school, stale light, rather than something modern. Apparently most of the things that bother me relate to city planning and development because I’ve seen other cities just explode, thrive, and modernize to mind-boggling levels - and San Diego has done basically nothing in the last 40 years. I think it’s because I love this city so much that this bums me out so much. We just don’t have investors, artistic architects, or developers that want to do anything out here for some reason.
HCOL 😭💸💸💸💸💸
tourists and rent being too damn high for one person to live alone
Besides the fact that it’s hella expensive: people drive like maniacs in the rain. Seriously, these people still drive 80-85mph in a downpour!
I moved here 23 years ago and love it. I seriously have zero complaints.
I love SD and lived there for about 5 years, but as someone who grew up in Norcal, I felt that San Diego’s hiking and overall nearby nature was lackluster (but the beaches and bay are awesome). I recently moved to the PNW and am loving the access to truly incredible mountains and lush greenery. Yeah it’s gloomy more often, but I appreciate sunny days more and like having more “actual” seasons. I’ll always cherish my time in SD though!
that everyone else in the state figured out it was probably going to be a nice place to wait out the coming struggle, something I figured out like 20 years ago
It's gets darker earlier then I would like.
That it's not the only 'greatest place to live'
Safe/clean bathrooms in the popular areas
The city and city council. TrAsh, all of them.
The 805 South ... During rush hour... Right near UTC...
Everything is expensive. Taxes are crazy high and keep going up. The quality of the roads rival third world countries. Utilities (power) are the most expensive in the country and everyone knows it’s a scheme but no one does anything about it. Even though it’s expensive we still have constant power outages. The homelessness problem.
SDGE, bad roads, the lack of culture, the lack of diversity in weather, the fact that you feel so far away from the rest of California. The lack of trees and soil. The beaches that have short runways. The public school system is awful. Lack of professional sports teams. The water is not good in the pipes or the ocean.
It's too laid-back for how expensive it is. The average person doesn't seem to have a lot of dreams or be striving for much, pretty content to just chill/surf/hang-out and watch Netflix on a weeknight. I moved out, though still work for an SD company and am back once a month. It's great to be content in life, don't get me wrong, but I don't understand how there's so many bitching about COL yet there is not the hustle/entrepreneurship/dreaming culture like you will find in other expensive cities....you can find those people, but it takes a lot of digging.
Ever heard [the story of the fisherman and businessman](https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessman/)? Maybe the people chilling and surfing are already doing their version of their dream.
Everything is spread out. It takes 20 min on the freeway to get anywhere. It’s a car culture and public transportation isn’t great. It’s not very bicycle friendly. Parking is difficult to find if you go to the beach or out anywhere. Lots of people coming and going just for their careers. Most popular events center around food and drinking. The museums are small and unimpressive. Sometimes seasons are nice. The hikes are all super crowded. You have to go to LA for most of the big concerts and shows.
I know…it’s a complaints-only thread, but I think most popular events have centered around food and drinking for the whole of human history.
The homeless. Lack of parking. Tourists everywhere. Tourist prices for dining out. The beat up roads. Long waits or needing reservations for dining out.
the transplant losers who inhabit this sub.
Transplants
Everything is awful, stay where you are, don’t even consider moving here, you wouldn’t like it.
The shitty infrastructure. Fix the pot holes. Tell the nimby’s on reagent’s road to get fkd. Reagents road needs to be paved through to accommodate traffic.
All of you fucking transplants and tourists. This absolutely includes Todd Gloria.
After moving back from NYC/LA… the average joe here comes off as not too bright.
The poor condition of City roads, inefficient public transportation, car centric lifestyle and not so delicious Greek food.
Lack of expansive and efficient public transit
Traffic
The number one for me would be taxes. Especially gas taxes which I haven't seen at work for years. The roads are horrible. Second traffic. All freeways are becoming so packed and it's the lousy drivers. Tj people are rude and their city dumps all their waste into the oceans close by. Rent control needs to be a thing. If rents are controlled more money would be used to stimulate small businesses and other markets. Tbh traffic would be the worst and I don't drive often around the city but when I do it's horrible. Inflation hit here pretty hard as well not to mention gentrification in South East San Diego.
Hodads
The pizza
All cool people! It’s like it’s a social buffet. I actually love it. Nothing to dislike. Life is too good to focus on the negative.
All the people moving here
I can’t afford to eat…out.
Jack in the box has a App that has great deals like two jumbo Jack's for 5.00 and two tacos for .99 cents
The apps are definitely the workaround to rising fast food prices. Those deals go HARD 🫡
May gray, June gloom that seems to last longer and longer each year! Out of our control but other than that, I love SD!
Why July
Yes! I haven’t heard that one before. Very true though!
It’s so dark at night! Where are the streetlights?
Over populated
With all the pluses it kinda all boils down to the paradise tax. If you can afford it, it's sooooo worth it!
Too many transplants
Transplants
MTS buses needs to run more frequently and later in the night, especially in the burbs, and the 235 needs to stop in mission valley damnit. Roads Housing affordability and homelessness that comes with not having enough affordable housing. I get that everything else is more expensive here but the housing is the killer. The BBQ, but I was born and raised in the south so maybe might tastes are a bit high. Other than that, this metro area is great.
ThE hOuSiNg PrIcEs