Places to live - input please?

[sorraia]

I wouldn't leave SoCal. I grew up in N.Y. which is nice but there is no better weather and economy than SoCal. Most folks I know that left wanted to come back but can't because now they cant afford the homes they used to own. The weather here is the absolute best. Try living in a real winter for a year and you will be real sorry you left. Not sure what area you live
In but there are many different areas from city to suburbs, rural farm land, mountains, beach, yuppie, bohemian, you name it. Do your homework because leaving is generally a lot easier than coming back.

I really am torn. I know if we leave, chances of coming back are slim to none.

I grew up in Redlands, have family there as well as Orange County, Ontario, and near Palm Springs, and have worked all over the place. I really liked it growing up, but it is getting harder. Currently we are living on my modest income alone. My husband has been out of work for 2 months. He has been applying to multiple places, getting interviews, and then nothing. Like a bunch of dead end streets. It is depressing. Meanwhile I suddenly see a paycheck cut AFTER getting a raise, thanks to taxes, so suddenly we are caught a little off guard with a sudden tightening in our budget. Still able to survive, but things are tight. And commuting sucks. I have done it my whole working life (since I was 15 years old), and I am getting sick and tired of it. My commute depends on where I get sent on any particular day. One of my work sites is 3 miles from home, which is GREAT! My office is about 30 miles from home, not so bad. Another work site is 87 miles from home, that is not so fun. It isn't so much the distance that's the problem though, it is the traffic (something that's pretty much expected for any metropolitan area). Traffic is the worst, and it isn't just the freeways, but surface roads as well (I need to give myself a half hour to drive 12 miles across town from my office to another office where we have our staff meetings). Half of my commute to the office is on surface roads through farmland, and all in all it takes me 45-60 minutes one way. When I have to drive out to Huntington Beach it takes me 2 hours without traffic. And then there's the crime... Crime is getting worse, and will only continue to get worse, and I'm getting sick and tired of it. My house was broken into a couple years ago, my neighbors' houses have recently been broken into, just got done dealing with drug dealing, car stealing, meth addict neighbors after a year. I'm seriously contemplating just moving to a different city, BUT there's no escaping the crime. My dad's house was also recently broken into (and unlike mine, he actually had stuff stolen), my coworkers in other cities are dealing with similar problems, crimes are occurring in all cities all across the map. There's going to be crime in every city, every state, but the difference is the per capita rate of crime and what kind of crimes. Another problem with simply moving to a different city is the affordability: We practically stole this house, getting another house with land for the horses is going to be at least double and on my paycheck alone we can't afford that. Moving further east or north into the High Desert aren't options, because then the commute would be impossible. If my husband could get a job, affordability will change, BUT with unemployment being so high in this state, we really don't have high hopes in that area. I do LOVE the weather out here, and I LOVE having every kind of scenery with just a short drive in any direction. Those are things I won't find any where else. BUT we need to decide what's worth it and what isn't. We have a baby to worry about too. There isn't much else to makes you question your safety and comfort than to have a meth addict hop your fence into your yard at 2AM, looking straight at your security camera and giving the bird, and harassing your horses, and knowing he can't be arrested and held in jail because he's considered a "low level offender".

I haven't worked out a full list yet....
Pros: weather/climate, things to do, landscapes, most of our family lives here
Cons: housing costs, taxes, crime/AB109, high unemployment rate, traffic, high population, hard to find housing with land that's affordable but still near work