Santa Cruz STILL sucks!!!! 2011 version (Los Angeles, San Jose: homes, place to live, lawsuit)

[X_travelbug_X]

Originally Posted by isabella20

Well, it isn't funny. Try living it and I'm sure you wouldn't be so glib. Being the target of bigotry isn't funny.

I agree 100% whole heartedly that any form of racism is NOT funny. I want us ALL to get along. Regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation.

But, I did find your description funny. Sorry, it seemed over dramatic. I apologize if I have offended you.

[isabella20]

Originally Posted by X_travelbug_X

I agree 100% whole heartedly that any form of racism is NOT funny. I want us ALL to get along. Regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation.

But, I did find your description funny. Sorry, it seemed over dramatic. I apologize if I have offended you.

No problem. The thing is that the experiences are in a sense dramatic and certainly shocking at times. I'm white and have always been open to all types of people. It's hard for me to begin to understand bigotry. My husband is multiracial and has had so many terrible experiences from when he was a small child...mostly because he is part Japanese. A lot of this comes from WWII and it has gotten better, but it's still way worse than I would expect in California in 2011. Even this past week something happened...I won't go into the details, but it was an anti-Japanese thing here in Santa Cruz county. We just ignore it, but when I hear people talking about how tolerant people are here I just can't agree. Sure, there are plenty of nice people who feel the way you do, but there are also quite a few people here who have "white is right" attitudes and feel superior to other races and there are some who are downright mean about it.

I think that a lot of what people are talking about when they say people in Santa Cruz are tolerant is that they are accepting of different lifestyle choices or self expression. That may be true, but our experience as a multiracial family is that there is a lack of tolerance here in regard to race compared to many other areas of California we've lived.

[Hegotsoul831]

Originally Posted by TigerBlood

The Boardwalk is now gang territory, tourism is at an all time low, and the city is VERY broke, but again, the locals don't care.... To anyone who wants to move here, please, think again. These locals are very close minded, they don't want you here. If you do decide to move here, don't take sh*t from them ever. And no one can tell you where you can and can't live. They don't have that right.

Im starting to notice a correlation between critiques from Northern California and midwestern to east coast folks, about how crummy Central and Southern California is. Im not sure why this seems to be. But I will mention that the complaints here are pretty generic nowdays. I dont think there are many cities, where if you go there expecting perfection, that you wouldnt notice some of the same things said here about Santa Cruz, which I found on my visits to be quite charming. But then, I have never lived there either. But if you are disappointed, I therefore recomend as it was to me, when I whined about how inadequate Sacramento seemed, that since "no one can tell you where you can and can't live", you simply move on, and "let the screen dor hit'cha where the dog shoulda bit'cha."

[MtnSurfer]

Originally Posted by isabella20

No problem. The thing is that the experiences are in a sense dramatic and certainly shocking at times. I'm white and have always been open to all types of people. It's hard for me to begin to understand bigotry. My husband is multiracial and has had so many terrible experiences from when he was a small child...mostly because he is part Japanese. A lot of this comes from WWII and it has gotten better, but it's still way worse than I would expect in California in 2011. Even this past week something happened...I won't go into the details, but it was an anti-Japanese thing here in Santa Cruz county. We just ignore it, but when I hear people talking about how tolerant people are here I just can't agree. Sure, there are plenty of nice people who feel the way you do, but there are also quite a few people here who have "white is right" attitudes and feel superior to other races and there are some who are downright mean about it.

I think that a lot of what people are talking about when they say people in Santa Cruz are tolerant is that they are accepting of different lifestyle choices or self expression. That may be true, but our experience as a multiracial family is that there is a lack of tolerance here in regard to race compared to many other areas of California we've lived.

I guess this seems strange to some of us when the entire Bay Area has such a huge asian presence. Just head over the hill into San Jose and visit any company, school, store, etc... and you will find many, many asians. Nothing unnusual, peculiar or otherwise, its simply the norm. In fact in some cases whites are the minority.

Then head south a little ways and you have the Salinas Valley where hispanics are the majority. And here in Monterey we have tremendous diversity because of the huge emphasis on languages. Monterey ia also known as the Language Capital of the World because of our many linguistic programs, school, institutes. I work with foriegn nationals every day and constantly hear languages I don't know. That pretty normal stuff.

So when SC sits right in the middle of so much diversity its hard to imagine it being as backwater/racist as described. I have also been visiting the area for over 25 years, have friends in the area and never really noticed racism or even heard much about it. Certainly the ppl I personally know aren't racist. I'm not denying it exists at least with some or in part. It's just not something one normally associates with SC as a whole.

Derek

[Mach50]

Jersey Shore > Santa Cruz....

LOL

[bigdumbgod]

turd > last post

[nancy thereader]

The absence of these set SC apart from the rest, and residents live there, in part, because of this difference. Go just about anywhere in the country and you'll see the sad, grotesque rampant homogenization malls, Walmarts, McDonald's, Starbuck's etc. have done to small towns. All look the same. Nothing like they used to. Good on SC for defying that. Cuz it sucks.

Santa Cruz is wonderful for tourists and college kids. You have to realize , though, for mothers & people with families who are on budgets, there is nowhere to shop in SC. Target , for one, has prices for food and everyday items that are incomparable to the boutique stores in town. No one I know shops there at all.

[MtnSurfer]

Originally Posted by nancy thereader

Santa Cruz is wonderful for tourists and college kids. You have to realize , though, for mothers & people with families who are on budgets, there is nowhere to shop in SC. Target , for one, has prices for food and everyday items that are incomparable to the boutique stores in town. No one I know shops there at all.

So as another person mentioned do you normally drive toward Monterey to shop (e.g. Marina & Sand City) or do you head over to Watsonville? I have one friend living in SC on a pretty frugal budget (school teacher). He is has a family of 4 kids and a wife he supports. They shop at Costco pretty often. Though Costco doesn't have everything.

The boutique shops are definately higher priced though you can bet everything is sustainable. Just not necessarily for an average family living on a middle class income.

Derek

[nancy thereader]

I do go to Costco,, but they (as you said) have a limited amount of items.

Sometimes we go to Target or Grocery Outlet in Watsonville ; we are very impatiently waiting for Target to be opened in the Capitola Mall ( next year). It's also a treat to go over the hill to shop at Valley Fair & all. They have Nordstrom's, Tiffany's and other really upscale stores there, but (most of all) they have The Cheesecake Factory!

[Hwy phantom]

I grew up in Santa Cruz and the OP does have some valid points. Many locals swear as if Santa Cruz is the greatest place on earth and by being a local you are somehow automatically cool and superior to anyone who isn't , this is especially common amongst the younger crowd in there teens and 20's. They rant none stop about how San Jose sucks and everyone from there sucks. They also don't have the greatest sense of geography because according to them anything that is over the hill all the way up to San Francisco is considered San Jose.

Their entire wardrobe consists of skater/surfer clothes, their tattooed head to toe, and often drive large trucks with large Indepedent stickers. I guess you could call this the BRO phenomenon which is fine but they tend to not accept anyone who doesn't mirror their appearance and they often will accuse anyone of not having the same interests as theirs as being from San Jose, as in not being cool like them.

They're provincial twerps, and their mantra is Valley people suck, ie San Jose, UCSC sucks, (these types tend not to go very far after high school if they even graduate possibly due to the fact that they smoke pot all day everyday), SoCal Sucks, ie other surfers not from Santa Cruz, and because I'm a local, I'm so cool, notice the Santa Cruz clothing company often use the abbreviation SC it might as well stand for so cool!