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Are you thinking of moving or relocating to Long Beach, California? Would you like to know what the quality of life is like living in Long Beach?
Bahar Mirhosseini reports in this review:
| Weather | | How much crime? | | What are the neighborhoods like? | | What are the people like? | | Long Beach, CA has typically fair coastal weather. Summer mornings are gray and often overcast but by noon the sun has made its way into the sky and a morning that starts cool and cloudy becomes warm and sunny - particularly between 1-3pm. In recent years, perhaps due to global warming, it has rained often and there have been heavy rains and more floods - despite this however, Long Beach still maintains an overall sunny and mild climate. California - including Long Beach - is not prone to tornadoes or hurricanes but earthquakes. You want to take a jacket in the morning but you will want to take it off at noon on most days and then put it back on when the sun sets. By the beach, there is a cool breeze. | | As for crime, once our family minivan was stolen from a parking lot while we were inside a store shopping. The police found it and returned it to us. Then, the same minivan, was stolen from our drive way one very early morning (or night) without enough sound or commotion to wake us up. It was then found at the ports and stripped into parts. | | Long Beach is very diverse and has neighborhoods that are starkly different from each other. The racial and cultural diversity of Long Beach ranges from Black, White, Vietnamese, Mexican, Thai, Arab, Cambodian, Samoan, and beyond. The Naples area of Long Beach contains the most expensive homes, some like mansions, resting along manmade canals that lead to the ocean. These are multi-million dollars homes - each with their own unique look and character. There is also the area by California State University of Long Beach - middle class homes, "middle" size, walking distance to solid public schools, parks, and chain grocery stores. Downtown Long Beach- revitalized several years ago is a hot spot for families, couples, and groups of friends - movie theaters, a comedy club, a convention center, a performing arts center, hotels, walkways by the water and loads of restaurants. The area between downtown and Naples, runs along Ocean Boulevard with old homes - the lucky ones facing the Pacific Ocean. Belmont Heights, near Naples, also has older homes which are upper middle class. West Long Beach and North Long Beach can have rougher neighborhoods. | | Long Beach is very diverse. There are strong immigrant communities, predominantly from South East Asian and Central American countries. There are many families. Long Beach has people both young and old and there are vastly different income disparities depending on the neighborhood. There are military families, often who live on the naval grounds. There are war veterans. There are college students - from both Long Beach City College and California State Long Beach. There are families that are small business owners and those who work in either LA or Orange County. There are people young and old, there are atheists, activists, and church-goers as well. There are blue collar workers and educated professionals - depending on the neighborhood. Everyone will fit well into Long Beach - because it is so diverse. | | Downtown Area | | Restaurants | | Schools | | Single life | | The downtown shopping area was revitalized in the last decade or so, some of the buildings are new and it is very nice. There are not couture shops - like Gucci for example - but there are stores like Express that middle class shoppers enjoy along with tons of restaurants ranging from fast food to fine dining. | | So many options, my favorites are Enriques Mexican food, Babbette's Feast (a bakery in two locations), and Pappaluci's Italian food on Second Street. | | The quality of the public schools is decent. It depends on the neighborhood. The public schools in the more affluent areas seem to have better resources, except that Long Beach Poly High has the PACE program which is very academically rigorous and reputable. | | Long Beach is a city with theater, art exhibits, movies, museums, shopping, and beach events where singles can meet and mingle together. Second Street has a bars and restaurants with a local, yet buzzing nightlife feel. Long Beach also has an openly LGBT community. | | Noise | | town comparison vs. | | Best hospital | | Tourist attractions | | There is an airport in Long Beach, so certain tracks of homes beneath the path of planes tend to receive the sound of planes departing and arriving. In the area near the university, it is apparent, but not so loud that it is bothersome. | | Compared to Seal Beach, Long Beach is a better place to live. They both have beaches and nice homes but Long Beach is larger, more diverse, which means more options in terms of food and public schools. Seal Beach is not a far drive from Long Beach, but it is also a more expensive place. Technically, Long Beach is LA County and Seal Beach is Orange County. Compared to nearby Compton, Long Beach is a better place to live also because there is more diversity - it seems - in Long Beach - it is a bigger city than both Compton and Seal Beach. Also, Compton does not have a beach! | | Long Beach's main hospital is Memorial Medical Center and it is a major hospital servicing various aspects of the medical-needs community. They conduct all kinds of surgeries and care ranging from heart operations to delivering babies. | | Walking around the canals in Naples, El Dorado park, and riding a bike along the path that runs at the beach are some of the best things to do in Long Beach. It is also nice to stroll on the pier and then go out to dinner at Second Street in Belmont Shore or at an eatery in downtown Long Beach. | | General comments | | | | | | | | To me, Long Beach feels like a sunny break. A stroll along the beach. A swim in the Olympic swimming pool during lap swim hours. It feels like an ocean breeze. Smiling and chatting with the cashier at the nearby grocery store. Running to a late night junk food spot - like Del Taco - off the freeway. It is beach cruisers and sunglasses (you will need sunglasses) and warm mugs of coffee for the cloudy mornings. There are parks all over Long Beach, filled with birthday partiers hitting a pinata and soccer moms speed walking the calories away. Smaller than Los Angeles but still a large city. Its not a small town. | | | | | | |
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