Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t stand Irvine, personally. You must visit before you decide. It’s a planned community- by the Irvine Company- and not a particularly attractive one at that, sort of dated looking. Also, not sure if you care, it’s about half Asian and Indian.

+1 if you like cookie cutter planned communities, then it's great. But, I hate those.

And yes, Irvine has TONS of Asians. Wherever there are a lot of Asians, you can expect a ton of pressure in the schools, and I say this as an Asian American former SoCal resident.

Irvine is cookie cutter, but if you like the cookies then whatever.

I moved here from the East Coast and have not found the public schools to be as good, or as competitive, as anyone says. Maybe by California standards.

Anonymous wrote:I can’t stand Irvine, personally. You must visit before you decide. It’s a planned community- by the Irvine Company- and not a particularly attractive one at that, sort of dated looking. Also, not sure if you care, it’s about half Asian and Indian.

We moved to Irvine from the DC suburbs. I’ve lived in five cities and Irvine is by far the best. I think it looks really clean and well maintained, but anyway what it looks like isn’t a priority to me. I love that the neighborhoods are neatly planned, with parks everywhere.

And yes I’m Asian-American, as is much of Irvine. We have big celebrations for Lunar New Year and Diwali.

If you find that scary and want to be surrounded by exclusively white people, this isn’t the place—move to South OC or Idaho.

If you are black, unfortunately you will be in a really small minority and I don’t know that this is the best place to live.

downtown santa ana has nightlife that Irvine doesn’t, and is undergoing gentrification from being a mexican barrio. It has a more “urban” feel. More interesting than Irvine certainly, but it has a “sketch” factor that is noticeably absent in Irvine. Downtown Santa Ana has a big homeless problem.

Is there a reason no one suggested Tustin? I don’t know the relevant housing stock/prices, but parts of it are close/convenient to SA and it splits the difference between some of these extremes. But that may just mean there’s not enough of anything to make it interesting.

Anonymous wrote:I can’t stand Irvine, personally. You must visit before you decide. It’s a planned community- by the Irvine Company- and not a particularly attractive one at that, sort of dated looking. Also, not sure if you care, it’s about half Asian and Indian.

+1 if you like cookie cutter planned communities, then it's great. But, I hate those.

And yes, Irvine has TONS of Asians. Wherever there are a lot of Asians, you can expect a ton of pressure in the schools, and I say this as an Asian American former SoCal resident.