>>513050320
san diego is legitimately paradise on earth and its constant celebration and jubilations and its very art/techie. if it was more affordable i would live and die in san diego. It is probably the most coherent culture in california of the places i have lived with a certain continuity to its past and a mix of the pioneer and beach bum ethos that I would ascribe to the ethereal californian.
san jose is all hustle and its the most soulless place i have ever worked in my life. unless you put a gun to someones head there, you cannot trust their word or contracts. its like miniature china there in terms of how detatched people are. besides SF i think it also has the most visible disparity between rich people and normal people. great place for a job though because wages are high there.
SF and Oakland are both the same right now where all the safe areas are being subsumed by the sprawling slave/homeless/drug addict dregs of society class. I went to berkeley for college, that area is unrecognizable since 2014. SF is genuinely hell right now.
LA irvine pasadena (RIP) santa monica etc are over crowded but irvine is a real gem of the coast with all of the smartest people in america. Lots of money and modernism which I personally like but /pol/ finds modernity and 21st century character soulless for some reason. I think LA and its surrounding satellites have a culture that is pretty distinct from the rest of california and it could become a state by itself.
I lived in orange county for a few months and I think those people are the least californian people in the state. They don't care about time, they talk to strangers like family, they are super conservative and forgiving and all these other traits that just seem to fit more with a southern state archetype than a californian coast archetype. They even have their own accent in OC that sounds more mexican than californian. A lot of contractors and people that work with their hands.