north of santa ana

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No_Vas is correct. Some areas are ok, others are not. Without more info though, I would suggest that the area close to Garden Grove is not all that hot. Run "Willowick Green" through the search function and you can peruse the comments left on that topic for more.
 
The only area in Santa Ana that I can think of that's decent is Floral Park. Be warned though... its not cheap....

otherwise i'm not a Santa Ana Fan.

-bix
 
Floral Park is best, but Fisher Park and West Floral Park are fine too. Portions of Park Santiago are ok, but if the money is the same, I would go for Fisher Park and West Floral over Park Santiago.
 
Its a bit of the wild west there. Irvine= safest city. SA= Hi rate of crime in the county/state. Cops respond in Irvine. In SA, some nites calls don't get answered b/c they have to triage their crimes for priority.



Irvine Schools, if you have kids are best. SA has "some" schools that are decent, but most you will have to have your kid qualify for and you'll need to pay big $$$$



Here is a site that has a lot of SA issues. If you could be more specific about your circumstances, we might be able to offer suggestions. The suggestions so far are good. However there are some folks that are very charmed by the downtown area and the Santiago lofts projects.



http://orangejuiceblog.com/



You'll find on that blog that the city and school district have several bonds in place that tax homeowners for something like 10 more years. The government there is also wasteful and the infrastructure is grossly neglected. It's like the city is run by a bunch of little kids with credit cards - constantly taking trips on the taxpayers dime to dream up ridiculous projects that are too expensive and just don't fit into a coherent plan.
 
In my experence, the infrastructure is woefully neglected and the city staffers are band-aiding it along as best they can.



After watching the tizzy the residents near 17th and Tustin found themselves in after some BBQ joint/sports bar wanted to *GASP* stay open after 10pm I just shook my head. The dolts who populate the Orange Juice Blog are absolutely what is wrong with the world. Fix what wrong with my neighborhood, but for chrissakes, get somebody else to pay for it, don't you dare raise my taxes and CERTAINLY don't bring a business who might have customers who might - maybe - inconvienence me once every 18 months.........
 
<em>After watching the tizzy the residents near 17th and Tustin found themselves in after some BBQ joint/sports bar wanted to *GASP* stay open after 10pm I just shook my head. The dolts who populate the Orange Juice Blog are absolutely what is wrong with the world. Fix what wrong with my neighborhood, but for chrissakes, get somebody else to pay for it, don?t you dare raise my taxes and CERTAINLY don?t bring a business who might have customers who might - maybe - inconvienence me once every 18 months......... </em>



N_V,



There certainly is a lot of chaos and drama at the OJ. However the residents have had their water prices doubled, have taxed themselves for school bond measures (despite the fact that the last school bond measure fell woefully short and it had the appearance of gross mismanagement and fraud) as well as passed a city wide bond measure, further taxing the residents by the same city leaders who have consistently mismanaged and mis-planned those resources. I think the citizens, for the most part, are resonable in their expectations. I don't think the city or the school district leaders are capable of delivering results from those taxes in a responsible/effective way, if past history is any indication.



As far as the Buffalo Wild Wings project goes, there are a group of residents that are claiming that they will be severely impacted by the restaurant/bar. I am not sure if that is true or not, as the city made sure to keep the details out of public debate. So what you have are alarmed residents who see a modified project approved, initially by the city planners, that now has morphed into bigger parking demands as well as possible noise abatement issues and hours of operation that vary, depending on who is addressing the issue. It is a typical tactic of bait-n-switch in which a business is coaxed to come to the city with "the sky's the limit!" promises, while keeping the impacted residents in the dark about the details and then lying to residents as the project commences. This is how Santa Ana is run. By the few, for the few.



Most SA neighborhoods don't have vocal residents to protest new developments. What makes this case unique is that this particular neighborhood is, in fact, organized and informed, so they are demanding their rights to be involved in the process of bringing new business developments into their neighborhoods and having a say on what that impact will be. IMO the city blew it by not tricking the business into building in one of the crummier parts of the city - where there would be no resistance.



This also highlights a major difference between a city like Irvine and a city like Santa Ana. Irvine will thoroughly PLAN new additions to the community and will let its citizens stay informed and involved in the whole process. SA operates with sneaky backroom deals and lack of transparency. There are constant charges that SA's leadership enriches themselves first with big business deals. Serving the city at large is not their primary focus.



These things may be poo-pooed by some as not important. But they indicate a much larger problem of citizens being reduced to ineffective complainers, after the fact, because there is a lack of transparancy, lack of representation and lack of competent leadership to ensure the rights of the city's citizens. It is no biggie until YOU are the affected party being ignored and retaliated against if you DO bring your concerns before the planning commission.
 
[quote author="NoWowway" date=1215545917]This also highlights a major difference between a city like Irvine and a city like Santa Ana. Irvine will thoroughly PLAN new additions to the community and will let its citizens stay informed and involved in the whole process.</blockquote>


That has not been my experience. In fact, in the last year or so Irvine changed the way it databases documents on its website that makes the <em>harder</em> to find and completely unGoogleable. So while it's "open," it isn't really, unless a resident of Irvine makes the time and energy to go down to City Hall (just like any resident of Santa Ana would apparently have to).





<blockquote>SA operates with sneaky backroom deals and lack of transparency. There are constant charges that SA's leadership enriches themselves first with big business deals. Serving the city at large is not their primary focus.</blockquote>


Well, you may have us there. The City Council of Irvine tends to serve The Irvine Company first and not, per se, themselves. TIC repays that by not running candidates against the incumbents. I really ought to pull the campaign finance statements from the last election and see who got what from whom.



If Santa Ana truly has a lack of transparency (violation of the Brown Act, etc.), then there are things you can do about that. Otherwise, to be a fully informed citizen one has to do the legwork of obtaining documents (and if necessary, familiarizing oneself with the public records act) and asking questions about what the docs mean. This is no different in Irvine. And the County (I'm looking at you, No_Vas ;-) ) is worse than Irvine and SA combined.
 
"By a few, for a few."



I don't know if you noticed, but Santa Ana is a city in decay. IMO this is the result of 30 or 40 years of habitual neglect. Attracting new business to SA is super tough. Thier infrastructure and budgets are streched to the max. In short, they never have adapted to the influx of working class residents in the late 1970's/early 1980's.



I'm pretty liberal, but I try my best to be objective. It appears to me the shoulders of a 'few' are going the distance to support the 'many'.



That proposed resturant is in an underutilized shopping center that is underperforming. Nobody's getting rich there. I shop at that OSH two or three times a week specifically because it's underutilized. It would be better if they were swamped. The newly redeveloped shopping center across the street is quickly turning into a ghost town.
 
[quote author="EvaLSeraphim" date=1215555925] And the County (I'm looking at you, No_Vas ;-) ) is worse than Irvine and SA combined.</blockquote>


No doubt, but I know how that sausage is made. And for the most part, I'm pretty happy because nobody is going to put a strip mall in the middle of North Tustin (except MAYBE the corner of 17th and Newport). The whole point of moving to the county island is to get away from the meddlesome city folks...........
 
NV - Your take is very close to mine. Neglect was not the only issue, but the car culture, suburbia, and the highway helped to destroy downtown and split the city. SA is not the only city to have suffered with a collapsed "old" downtown, but I sure would like to see them revive it. Being a Jane Jacobs fan, I think of the worst decisions the city / county made was to mow over a lot of the old city and lump the government buildings in one place. Downtown (except for 4th Street) is deserted after 5:30 or 6 pm because all of the workers have gone home - and have gone home to their 2000+ square foot homes with multiple bathrooms on larger lots, something not available in the historical city center.



I have mixed feelings about the One Broadway Plaza project . . . but I will have to save that for later. I have got to get some work done today.
 
Every downtown I've ever been (in California anyway) after 6pm was so quiet you could fire a cannon and not hit anything.



Fresno spend a trainload of cash for the past 25 years to redevelop downtown. A new baseball park for the AAA Grizleys. Tons of infrastructure. Relocating the regional law school. Result? Nobody there except homeless people.



Bakersfield? Same.



Los Angeles? Same.



San Jose? Same.



San Fransisco? If we're talking the financial district, same.



I can think of a few examples where it might of worked, sort of. San Diego being one and Santa Maria the other. Maybe Beverly Hills, but that's not exactly a redevelopment project. People in California don't want urban living because it isn't workable for 'lifestyle' reasons.
 
I don't have much familiarity with that neighborhood, but I think it is reasonably ok. She can always make a trip to the police department and ask them about how often they have to respond to calls there and of what type (e.g., property crimes, violent (personal) crimes, etc.).
 
[quote author="no_vaseline" date=1215559608]Every downtown I've ever been (in California anyway) after 6pm was so quiet you could fire a cannon and not hit anything.



Fresno spend a trainload of cash for the past 25 years to redevelop downtown. A new baseball park for the AAA Grizleys. Tons of infrastructure. Relocating the regional law school. Result? Nobody there except homeless people.



Bakersfield? Same.



Los Angeles? Same.



San Jose? Same.



San Fransisco? If we're talking the financial district, same.



I can think of a few examples where it might of worked, sort of. San Diego being one and Santa Maria the other. Maybe Beverly Hills, but that's not exactly a redevelopment project. People in California don't want urban living because it isn't workable for 'lifestyle' reasons.</blockquote>


Paso Robles' dowtown redevelopment has been very successful, but it's not a big city. SLO downtown is pretty cool with nightlife and restaurants alive after five.
 
Paso Robles downtown redevelopment has been "earthquake induced" and was heavily influenced by it's "NO GROWTH" neighbor SLO. I spent my 1st anniversary at the Paso Robles inn. Half the buildings in downtown are still redtaged or torn down.



SLO's downtown is successful because they did not allow thier downtown to be canniblized by developer driven exurb strip malls. It's also hellish to shop in if you're a local. You can tolerate it if you're on vacation.



Paso (and to a certain extent, SLO) is an odd case. I'd argue that Paso's success is induced by 'dead money' moving to town, either to retire or to start a winery. In the early 1980's, everybody in Paso drove a pickup truck with a gun rack and wore cowboy boots. This is because virtually everyone in Paso ranched. Indeed, you could buy a home in Paso for about 1/3 what a similar home would cost you in Bakersfield or Visalia or Hanford. This was because there was hardly any work to be had in Paso. Fast forward 20 odd years, and the trucks are still there, but so are the BMW's. Housing prices are double what Bakersfield, Visalia, or Hanford command. And there is still no job base to support it. Farm labor pays about $2 over minimum wage.



SLO works because of the college (provides a source of cheap labor for resturants and shops), and the constant flow of nearly dead retirees who pump a constant stream of "cash out equity" into the economy. There is no industry base there unless you are a doctor or a boutique law firm.



Nobody from Paso or SLO can afford to stay unless they live with the 'rents forever. They continue to close schools at an alarming rate on the central coast. These are not healthy communites.



Now I gotta go to work.
 
Re: Marcella Ln.



I wouldn't live in that area. It is close to Floral Park and in the Riverview Golf Course neighborhood (not a very nice neighborhood). I am thinking it is in a gated development over there (lots of foreclosures). Spend some time in the neighborhood and I think your sister may change her mind. It's very close but to great neighborhoods but not exactly IN one.
 
I spent my 1st anniversary at the Paso Robles inn. Half the buildings in downtown are still redtaged or torn down.



When was that? Even in just the past year the downtown has transformed quite dramatically. I was last there in March and the old auto parts store that had been empty was filled with an art center and more businesses opened. There are a lot of small business owners who are doing well. It has one of the country's few straw bale brick companies. The ranchers are going organic and the agriculture as well to cater to all the zagat rated restaurants. The population is growing 3.5%/yr, but I agree that a lot of it is influx for wine country lifestyle.



Housing prices have dropped ~25%, but are still higher than they should be. For $250K-$300K you can get a decent 3 bd single family on the east side. West side downtown is still pricey, but it also peaked much higher than the east side. A police officer married to a school teacher can afford an SFR in Paso, which is more than I can say for OC.
 
<em>"A police officer married to a school teacher can afford an SFR in Paso"</em>



OK, now I just need to find myself a teacher ! (.....but not hs_teacher.....) ;-)
 
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