Please help with general & job info for San Diego.
My wife and I want to relocate to San Diego.

Please give us input on a good area there to live, as well as areas to stay away from.
Any other great info and tips about the San Diego too.

Also, any feedback on the job market.
I'm currently a Sr. Art Director (Graphic Designer) in print advertising, with 8 1/2 years experience.
If anyone here has names, phone numbers or weblinks of freelance Graphic Design type of staffing companies to sign up with, that would be very helpful.
OR, if any of you want to hire me that would be even better.

Currently I drive a 2000 MR2 Spyder and my wife drives a 1998 Integra GS-R.
Our relocating to San Diego would be a good excuse to sell the MR2 Spyder here in Minneapolis and buy a new S2000 in sunny San Diego.

Thank you,
Kozmo

 

Got to say great place to live if you make 100,000 plus a year Del Mar or Carmel valley is the best. Over 450,000 Farbanks ranch. Under 75,000 oceanside to national city. ( rather big area. ) What I am trying to portray is that san diego is expensive, you can't get a old 2 beadroom apartment in del mar for under 1600 a month. I will see if my staffing agency has anything that they could place you with though, you chould not have a very diffficult time finding a jpb out here, it's just the sun shine tax and cost of living that can really bring you down.

 

I've heard 1 bedroom apartments are about $800 - $1,100/mo in Oceanside, Chula Vista, etc.
What are Chula Vista, Santee, Oceanside like?
Is the northside "safer" (lower crime)?
Eventually, if good jobs happen for the both of us there, we would want a small condo or townhouse in a decent enough area. (Just my wife and I plus one small dog.)
Housing is somewhat expensive here (Minneapolis, Minnesota) as well.
A small basic 1950s 1 1/2 story "starter home" with detached 2 car garage is about $200k
Anything under is bad area, or in bad condition.

The weather is the big reason to move there, We are tired of the freezing cold snow and Ice winters here and the 80-90 degree (too hot) and very humid summers (10,000 lakes must make it very humid in summer)
I really dislike the humidity.
I like driving RWD sports cars, Flying R/C planes, etc and Minnesota weather is really not great for those things.

When you say it's expensive there, are you just talking housing? or are day to day things like food, meals out, products, etc also expensive?

Also, If we bring our 98 Acura Integra GS-R there, do we need to get a California emission system added?

Thanks for your help.

 

You fly RC, small world. I have been flying for almost 4-5 years. I am into the electric plane world now and will never go back to nitro.

Crime wise you will not have a problem anywhere. Just stay north of the 52 freeway and you can leave your house unlocked door open and your neighbors will watch it for you. Stay out of national city, city hights, university hights and some parts of mira mesa and you will be fine.

I will PM you a local placment company that I have used for a while Yoh Scientific. They place high level scientists/web/tech people. If you need info on a specific area give me a ring. The biggest peoplem after finding a job is finding a area that you like to live and understanding the traffic levels during the week.

 

I've been building and flying Zagi 400 Electric for almost 2 years now.
Lots of fun.
Had been thinking about getting a mini IFO (cause of winters here) that I could fly in a gym or the racketball courts at the office.
Thanks again for the good info.

 

San Diego is a large town with a variety of areas, but generally much over the national average for costs.

For recommendations about where to live in San Diego, see this thread:

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/showthread.php?...t=Mission+Beach

I spent a couple of hours with David (realdeal) this afternoon showing him around San Diego's better beach areas, so you might want to PM him and see what he has to say.

I suspect that SD is saturated with graphic designers, so you're going to find it tough to connect with a job here in that field. Griffindodd, you want to chime in here? (He's an AD/copywriter who hasn't had a lot of success finding work here in San Diego).

 

Myself

2 zagi 3c's plus about 4 crushed cores.
2 400x's
1 wedgie (got to get on of these stock 400 zagi internals plug right in and you can hit 60+ mph right out of the box for less the 30 bucks for the kit.
Dragon Fly and a few others.

If you want somthing slow go witha urban flyier. Rocky mountain models make them, A guy named co climber on the ezone board makes them.

See if you can time a trip out here around the 14 for the big san diego electric fly in. You have torry pines cliffs the 2nd or 3rd best cliff in the world. You get carlsbad cliffs one of the largest combat sites next to poway both within 30 minutes of anywhere in same diego. I will send you yoh scientifics number tommorow.

 

Hi, StormBringer,

Could you please PM me the info about your local placement company also? I'm looking for a job right now in SoCal.

Thanks a lot,


/Rog

 

I called Yoh Scientific today.
I got their number off their website.
They do not employee Graphic Designers/Art Directors, etc.
-Koz

 

Take a look at hotjobs.com or monster.com. You'll want to live close to work as SD is 50 miles top to bottom. Traffic is heavy southbound in the morning (7AM-8AM is the worst) and northbound in the evening. You don't want to live south or east of downtown. Price goes up as you get closer to the beach. 858 area code is best but again it depends where you have to work. SD is expensive but pay rates generally compensate for that. A 1 hr commute can ruin your whole day even if it is top down.