Santa Monica Measured Residents’ Well-Being for Four Years

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/santa-monica-well-being-index_us_5a572e08e4b0a300f905fa58?m=false

by lnguyen • 9 years ago

44 33 9 years ago

maxxxxx2• 9 years ago

Santa Monica people look like a pretty happy crowd to me whenever I get there. Perfect weather, lots to do. As long as you can afford it.

cryptoz• 9 years ago

Perfect weather

People say this about a lot of places in California, but it's not my experience. "Perfect weather" seems to mean a dystopia of identical days, no changes, no wind, no clouds, just constant sun. Living in Alameda/Oakland drove me crazy in the summer. Nothing ever changes, every day is exactly the same. Yuck.

Santa Monica weather isn't nice for everyone. But I get it, there's a lot of sun and not much rain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Monica,_California#Clima...

neonhomer• 9 years ago

Sounds a lot better than the 2 seasons we have here in Pittsburgh: summer and winter. Especially with the deep-freeze we've have this winter.

maxxxxx2• 9 years ago

I think weather a few miles in from the coast is pretty good. They often get fog but also a lot of sun. It also never gets hot. I live 40 miles inland and there the sun and dryness can be oppressive and relentless. I never thought I could get too much sun but now I crave bad weather. I can live without German winters though.

ng12• 9 years ago

There's something about late summer California nights that I haven't experienced anywhere else. It just feels (and smells) beautiful the second you step outside. It's the one thing I miss most living in NYC.

I guess my point is the spectrum of weather is very narrow but there's still some diversity.

outlace• 9 years ago

Interesting how divergent perspectives can be on this. Your dystopian view is my utopian view. As a California native, I literally exclaim "it's a beautiful day!" every single morning when I look outside and see it's perfectly sunny and blue.

For someone who probably has mild seasonal affective disorder, sunny days really make a considerable boost in my mood.

CalRobert• 9 years ago

My experience was that Santa Monica was too hot once you got more than a mile from the beach (I lived 2 miles from the beach). People say they loved the weather but almost everywhere I've lived in CA was miserably hot in the summer. Poor apartment design may have had something to do with this as well.

Also, it was fairly hostile to cycling (albeit better than anywhere else I've ridden in southern California). Gotta say, though, the pool at Santa Monica College was spectacular, and the quality of instruction in their night classes is how I got my career started (and learned a bit of German!)

Axsuul• 9 years ago

I can certainly relate. It's definitely awesome having Los Angeles as your home base, somewhere you can come home to and know what to expect and how it will feel. That excitement of coming home to a sunny and beautiful Los Angeles from a bloody cold climate after traveling is what makes this place have the best weather in the world.

But don't get me wrong, it does get old. Whenever rain is in the forecast, it gets me and many others pretty damn excited. That's why often times I'll go up to Seattle for a week just to work in the rain.

cafard• 9 years ago

Have a look at Mark Twain's remarks in Roughing It. Some from the East and Midwest take to California weather, others (Twain, my wife) don't.

kenhwang• 9 years ago

I want to believe it's a local cultural thing. We, the locals and the companies, definitely encourage our friends and employees to be happy and healthy.

The 70-80F always sunny weather and relative affluence definitely helps too.

jboggan• 9 years ago

The south side of Santa Monica (Main Street, away from the Promenade and tourist area) is essentially a small town. I know a lot of people not from work or leisure but just from walking up and down Main Street. I don't know a lot of their full names but you tend to make a lot of "heavy acquaintances" here that really improve your quality of life and make you feel more connected in a relatively alienated metro area.

When I had to leave Santa Monica for a few months in 2014 I had a number of people I knew from walking around town excited to see me back and noting my absence. It's a strange thing to have that level of familiarity with your extended neighbors, especially in the midst of such an anonymous city.

It is also radically expensive to live here. It helps to be in engineering. Most of my close friends employed in entertainment, fashion, and office work have been pushed out of Santa Monica and the Westside and into the Valley over the past 5 years.

bllguo• 9 years ago

That's pretty cool. Just moved out here and have been wondering about how to meet people. Maybe I'll do what you do!

wjossey• 9 years ago

Just moved from Main Street to the Beverly Grove area and I can attest that I knew a lot of people by face (and dog) but not by name. Having moved here from Boston I found the neigborhood remarkably friendly and welcoming.

searine• 9 years ago

Link to actual data instead of clickbait : https://wellbeing.smgov.net/about/wellbeing-index

stickydink• 9 years ago

Is it really clickbait though?

The article felt well written and useful enough to stand alone. The data you linked has nothing to follow, and seems broken for me - several charts are showing no data and the text is misplaced (https://i.imgur.com/UzZJdMc.png).

trevyn• 9 years ago

It is! The actual article title is "A California City Measured Residents’ Well-Being For 4 Years. What Lawmakers Discovered Surprised Them."

The simple fact of a city measuring residents' well-being is not really interesting. Even after quickly skimming the article trying to find the answer, I still don't know what lawmakers discovered that was surprising to them.

oil7abibi• 9 years ago

Of all the cities in the 25 different countries I traveled to, Santa Monica is definitely up there. Great location in LA, amazing food, vibrant neighborhoods, beautiful (and mostly friendly) people. Biggest downside to me is that there isn’t enough tech opportunities there. Else I’d move there in a heartbeat.

johnwyles• 9 years ago

I'm here. I moved from Austin (call me crazy). I haven't seen a slowdown in recruiter spam since I've arrived.

southphillyman• 9 years ago

Isn't the Venice/Santa Monica area known as Silicon Beach? I was under the impression there were relatively many media related software jobs there.

I was just there 2 weeks ago and loved it. I like that area much more than some of the popular neighborhoods like SilverLake, etc.

davidy123• 9 years ago

Silicon Beach is used to refer to Los Angeles.

jaaron2• 9 years ago

It is.

that_one_fool2• 9 years ago

When you say there aren't enough tech opportunities, what cities is this relative to?

starpilot• 9 years ago

beautiful people

No kidding. Quite a distraction, though.

jaaron2• 9 years ago

Not sure how long ago you were here, but there's an increasing number of tech opportunities here and nearby. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, Hulu and more are all in or next door to Santa Monica. Over at Riot Games, we've got at least a hundred open engineering positions ranging from entry level to senior leaders. There are dozens of startups.

No, it's not the bay area and it never will be. But I'm fairly certain any reasonably skilled engineer is not going to have trouble finding work on the westside of LA. Compensation is competitive too, since we have to lure folks down from the bay but our cost of living is not nearly as expensive.

ipsin• 9 years ago

Former Santa Monica resident. The problem with Santa Monica feels like the problem with Silicon Valley.

It's nice if you can afford to live there, but current residents seem hell-bent on blocking new housing.

In particular I'm thinking of the Bergamot Transit Village [1], a proposed mixed-use project that spent years in limbo. Current residents complained about traffic impact.

Eventually, the developers gave up and turned it all into office space, which has a similar traffic impact, but didn't involve the same level of scrutiny.

[1] https://la.curbed.com/2015/1/9/10003866/developer-giving-up-...

nugi• 9 years ago

You basically just said its expensive to live there, and residents should somehow feel bad for not making their city worse, to support more people.

Santa Monica Measured Residents’ Well-Being for Four Years

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