Walkable and safe neighborhoods in San Diego?

[traal]

Right now, I live in the Phoenix, Arizona area, but my company wants me to work at their Poway location. Poway doesn't seem to be very walkable or have very good public transportation. So when this article claims that San Diego is walkable, I guess it doesn't mean (all of) San Diego County.

But is all of San Diego City walkable? And how much of it is safe? What neighborhoods should I stay away from? And how good is the public transportation system?

[colin]

Right now, I live in the Phoenix, Arizona area, but my company wants me to work at their Poway location. Poway doesn't seem to be very walkable or have very good public transportation. So when this article claims that San Diego is walkable, I guess it doesn't mean (all of) San Diego County.

But is all of San Diego City walkable? And how much of it is safe? What neighborhoods should I stay away from? And how good is the public transportation system?

[Urbane]

Once you get there, Escondido and Carlsbad in North County have blocks of walkable businesses and housing. It's fairly easy to walk in downtown San Diego, from Ash down to the ballpark area. Parking is free on Sundays, so take an afternoon to explore. Hillcrest is walkable as well.

[SouthParkRocks]

Colin got the description very well. Poway is the ex-urbs and the "downtown" is going to be pretty typical new suburban development; vast parking lots fronting strip-malls and national big-box stores accessed by very wide multi-lane streets with totally unused and intimitating sidewalks and cross-walks. Just about 95% of the housing is set up in the rugged hills and not at all accessed by walking. Its all very up-scale, but certainly not walkable.

Escondido and Carlsbad are going to have more of a downtown feel. Older neighborhoods surrounding Balboa Park are going to give you the feeling you are looking for and are quite safe- crime is usually limited to car related but there have been an unusual spike in some street crime recently in a couple of normally safe neighborhoods.

... and now a shameless plug for my own neighborhood

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/6..._san_diego.html

Try this a couple of times it was coming up blank but then worked-or search South Park

Good luck.

[traal]

A coworker living in a condo in the brand-new 4S Ranch area had an extra bedroom, so I moved into that. I still have to drive to work (the closest bus stop is almost 2 miles away) but almost everything I need is right across the street including a grocery store, plenty of restaurants, a drugstore, and stores providing other necessities. So that's kind of nice.

Thanks for the ideas. When the lease on this condo is up, I may move to Hillcrest.

A friend of mine lives in Oakland but is planning to move to San Francisco. So I tried figuring out how I might get to San Francisco from San Diego by rail. It doesn't seem to be very practical. Amtrak even wants me to take the bus for some legs of the trip. I guess I'd have to wait for the high-speed rail line, if that ever gets built.

EDIT: I guess it's easier to take Amtrak just to Oakland (Pacific Surfliner from San Diego to Los Angeles, Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to Oakland) and then find my way around from there using BART and local bus transit. www.amtrak.com, www.511sd.com and transit.511.org don't seem to integrate their trip planners together.

[FromCityToRural]

It seems to me that San Diego will be the next place in CA to have an urban feel to it. LA is still expanding east into the San Bernardino Valley, and the Bay Area has the Tri-Valley, Delta, and even the Central Valley area as well. It's sickening how many make a daily commute from as far as Lodi and back. San Diego has pretty much hit its natural limits and with demand remaining high, up is the only way left to go.