santa barbara, ca

if that part of LA county is unknown then here's the full list of places i would check out: la cañada/flintridge, altadena, pasadena, south pasadena, glendale, eagle rock.

all are at varying places along the walkable/farmers market to proximity to horse country scale.

if you find stabling (is that a word?) near the 2 freeway then echo park and surrounding neighborhoods (los feliz, silver lake) might actually work out for you because even though they're in the city of LA's urban core echo park sits right at the end of the 2 (which is a pretty chill and short freeway by socal standards).

What's traffic like in SB and surrounds?

Carpinteria is much smaller than all of these other locations. I'd worry about the IT job scene there. The commute up the 101 to an IT job in SB is rough, but one could take a train.

Oh and caek yes, stabling is a word, but "boarding" is the usual term for housing. Google doesn't show me a ton in the altadena area, but I will look further.

We've been looking at houses for sale in SB and I basically want to move there tomorrow despite never having visited. We'll do a trip out later in year. Would probably rent the first year just to make sure we don't actually want to do SF.

the 101 is typically not jammed within SB. But you are stuck between mountains and ocean, so any issues will cause unavoidable traffic. Montecito is a bottleneck because the insanely rich people won't allow more than 2 lanes on the 101 there. So I wouldn't want to commute through montecito during rush hour and when school is in session. The other jam occurs where the 217 hits the 101 near the airport. All of the university and airport traffic uses the 217. If you can live and work btween turnpike and cabrillo, traffic shouldn't be a big part of your life.

OK that is super useful info. I think we'd try to live near downtown, but spouse may need to do goleta because IT jobbies. Pony can live up in the hills and will evacuate to the earl warren fairgrounds, this is already an established thing unfortunately.

If anyone wants to take a drive to check out San Marcos Stables, it looks great for me and pony.

did you look at la cañada/flintridge, altadena and then points east along the northern edge of the SGV, i.e. toward the race track at santa anita?

SGV represent! (at least two ILXors are out here) Some areas of Duarte, Monrovia, and Bradbury are horse-friendly plus you're somewhat close to the Gold Line into downtown.

I thought she wanted to be away from the megalopolis, but yeah, I'd pick Altadena if I had a horse.

Santa Barbara is great, though, and if I had a bit more money I might move there.

San Marcos Rd. is very popular with cyclists. I'd imagine your pony would be very happy there, and it'd be a good place to spend time yourself. If you end up looking outside of the city and closer to the pony, it's a very easy commute to Goleta tech jobs via cathedral oaks. You can avoid the 217 traffic this way. In general, I'd worry if santa barbara is enough of a city for a "city lover". The restaurant level won't be comparable to SF or LA. The Bowl is great for music, though. There are uncrowded beaches where you'll see dolphins.

Santa Barbara is great, though, and if I had a bit more money I might move there.

― nickn, Monday, July 6, 2020 2:00 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it seems more appealing as more companies become remote-friendly and i don't expect to fly more than once or twice a year.

lol I am emailing our mortgage broker. This is making me nervous about waiting to move.

Hang on to your condo and rent it to us :)

We do plan to rent initially, just to make sure we don't pine for SF.

For our usual day-to-day activities and overall quality of life, I think SB would be great.

Pandemic living has definitely shifted us away from city folk shit and more toward home and outdoor shit. I think that will stick even post-pandemic.

Oh and I asked spouse, "is there a reason we haven't talked about San Diego" and he said "I think maybe it is a cultural wasteland?" but this may be entirely untrue, sorry SD. Pls proceed with an SB vs SD fite, that would be cool.

Santa Barbara isn’t exactly the Lincoln Center you know?

SD is full of cop and navy humpers

SB is too (basically reagan democrats) but they're tasteful about it

True, caek but ask me when I last went to the Kennedy Center, which is about 2 miles away.

Or a museum, of which DC has a billion.

I'm into diff stuff now, I go to bed at 10, I am a boring middle age person, oh well.

Sounds like you’d love San Diego!

For some reason I was under the impression that SD is pretty right-leaning, is that a fair assessment? And with a very suburban feel, but without having an anchoring downtown? IDK why I have a "meh" sense about SD. I haven't been there since I was like 5.

“Santa Barbara without the fire”

I think that’s all true relative to the LA basin but it’s moved left, and it’s left of a lot of the country. It also has sprawl which Santa Barbara doesn’t but the flipside of no sprawl in SB is “it’s a sliver of land that depends on a single freeway and it catches fire/gets covered in mud”. I also don’t know it well. It does have a ritzy farmers market loft living urban core IIUC.

the "outdoors" in SB i think is closer/more diverse than SD. YOMV on that. also, i suppose, your next major cultural centers from SD (in USA) are LA, Vegas and... PHX(?). Whereas I think you could say that with SB it's LA VEG and SF, with the stuff in between SB and SF being "better" than that between SD and PHX. Again, YOMV.

Also the weather is better than LA/SB.

I only hear bad bad things bout SD from friends who live there and are trying to move.

I'm also thinking San Luis Obispo, Monterey, or Santa Cruz, though I don't know the airport sitch there, or how close you want the big city to be.

My impression with SD is “not as bad as it used to be” along all axes, but that may not be good enough, it’s true.

i have never been but the way they talk about it, it seems like SD is the FL of CA but with people on meth setting fires.

re: San Luis Obispo, Monterey, or Santa Cruz. . . I think somewhat closer to a big city feels more comfortable to me? Would have to check out the tech job situation.

For pony purposes, those would be amazing I am sure.

SLO is a bit like charlottesville in that it has American University Downtown Feel that might as well be Bloomington, IN, which I kind of like tbh. Monterey is very beautiful, but that HBO show never shot Nicole Kidman walking by the oddly placed benihana, el torito, etc. San Diego has always felt strange to me. It is littered in smart scooters. La Jolla is very beautiful, though. Renting for awhile is a good idea. You can do weekend trips to all of these places and see for yourselves.

i got head hunted on linkedin for a tech job in SB for the first time recently.

Yes but are you skillz linux and lol fortran

Seems like developer jobs are everywhere, but spouse mostly does systems stuff. I think. I don't really understand what he does. Types into the black screen a lot. His dream job would be at an airport because he loves aviation.

And caek I don't exactly know where you are these days! LA? Do you get to marfa anymore?

Yes but are you skillz linux and lol fortran

― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Monday, July 6, 2020 5:09 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

in all seriousness if that's his resume then he should live in altadena and work at JPL. altadena is relatively cool weather (foothills) and cheap (terrible schools). most of the aerospace stuff is down by LAX which would be a rough commute from anywhere horse-friendly. there's more up the coast. spacex launches from vandenberg AFB.

hi! i used to live in the areas i am suggesting to you but i moved west (near culver city) because i could not handle the absolutely calamitous heat of the SGV, and it is ten degrees cooler on the west side. i haven't been to marfa for a couple of years because sprogs but i spent a bunch of time there since our paths crossed! i guess one of the nice things about LA is marfa is driveable with ~1 overnight and you can stop in ... phoenix on the way.

hi hi! Terrible schools are perfect for the non-sprogged. Are you sure altadena wouldn't be to hot for me? I am not a crazy texan like the spouse.

it might be! of course this is dry heat not texas heat. but yeah i generally find the SGV too hot. i think of pasadena as a special case because it has shade (due trees, legit tall buildings and blocks with no setbacks) and altadena as a special case because it also has trees and it's got a bit of a microclimate that's good for a few degrees of cooling due to the elavation.

Trade offs. For me - I'll take a higher temperature here in Sierra Madre (one city over from Altadena) than the traffic and concrete heat islands as you go further west.

yeah north of the 210 is lovely imo

I'm in the flatlands of Pasadena but I don't mind the heat (as long as it's dry). If you can buy a place in a canyon in Altadena that would likely be noticeably cooler.

Would a canyon place in Altadena be walkable to stuff, is my question. That is definitely still a requirement.

Altadena doesn't seem to have as many horse options as SB?

There will definitely be trade-offs regardless of where we land, this is most definitely true. At this point I'm happy to just pull the trigger and land somewhere in the SF-to-LA stretch before next summer! Getting across the country is the heavy lift, the rest will sort itself.

Would a canyon place in Altadena be walkable to stuff, is my question. That is definitely still a requirement.

That part of the world makes sense to me because it seems like it should have horse options but if it doesn’t in fact have horse options then lol.

Yeah horse options within like two hours of a major city are generally pretty scarce, unless you are OK with your horse having zero turnout. The LA Equestrian Center is a nice place to take your horse to a show, but horses who live there can, at most, spend like 45 minutes in a tiny "sun pen" as a break from their 12x12 stalls. This is akin to keeping a small elephant in a two-car garage.

My horse lives full time in a 5 acre pasture with his buddies. The only time he is in a stall is if I'm keeping him in for the vet or farrier or something for an hour or two.

Where do all the horses that race at Santa Anita live? The must be somewhere up there.

I know of one in Altadena. https://www.altadenastables.com/

True though, that if you find a place tucked into a canyon it's not gonna be walk-friendly to much else.

Race horses spend 23 hours a day in their stalls at the track. They don't get turned out unless they are on layup for a while, in which case they get shipped out to country livin'

Nickin I took a look at that place's website and was immediately put off by "parties and events!"