Why does living in San Diego FEEL so empty?

Question

It is such a beautiful place but it feels like the loneliest place on earth at times.

I mean "emotionally bankrupt"

Answer 1

Because it is a congested tourist city made up of relocated people. No one is emotionally invested there anymore. It has become worse then Los Angeles.

Answer 2

Because most of the old neighborhoods have given way to urban sprawl.

When I was a kid, if you wanted to go from Point Loma to downtown, you drove down Talbot to Canon, Rosecrans to Harbor Drive, took that all the way down to Broadway or Ash, and you got the feel of where you lived.

The corner of Nimitz and Harbor drive used to be the Point Loma Little Leage Field.

Also the economy took a big shift a few mayors back, and all urban development was geared to draw in the yuppie dollar.

I love the Padres, but they built the stadium (PETCO) right in the middle of homeless land...now all of the people from St Patricks get hasseled all the time so that the fine citizens can walk and not be scared...BOO!!!

I really grew up in Ocean Beach, and it used to be like Andy Griffith's Mayberry. It's one of the few places that I still like to spend time when I am "home", but it sure has gotten dirty over the years.

Maybe you aren't hanging out in the right places....like watching people fish on the pier, or buy a one year membership to the zoo, or go downtown with a roll of quarters in your pocket and stay there until everyone who asks for spare change gets one.

You will connect with 40 people you've never met before.

Be brave, invite one of them to lunch at the chinese buffet or Burger King.

Lots of ways to volunteer in San Diego. They usually have a list at least once a week in the paper.

All this to say that, it sure isn't the town I was born in anymore, but it's a heck of a lot better than a lot of other places.

Answer 3

Go live in a more active place like Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, Hillcrest, ect... There are always people out and about there so i don't see how's it's lonely. If you live in some house out in a boring suburb of course it will feel empty b/c suburbs are so sterile and lifeless. You also need to be outgoing yourself if you expect to meet and hang out with people. I think San Diegan's are friendly and outgoing b/c many of us are transplants and just looking to meet new people. I always see locals trying to help out tourists and such. I live in an apt complex in PB and all of our neighbors are cool and we've become friends with some of them. And other people I know are like that too; they've moved into an apt complex and just become friends with the neighbors. Maybe it's just where you live, must certain areas like PB have a lot of outgoing and cool people.

Answer 4

San Diego is a really great city. I used to go there every day hauling lumber from Huntington Beach. Beautiful drive. There is a lot to see there. Try the museums in Balboa park. Or the zoo, sea world, wild animal park just south of Escondido.

Answer 5

Trickledown from The Great Development Game: post-postwar times till the late '80s, the focus on getting raw lands onto the grid and turning out revenue, especially after Proposition 13. City-core values flattened from blight, ungoverned in-fill and infrastructure decay. Technocrats tend to see no further than the ends of their tenure, no room in that mandate for landscape artists, civic-space designers, feng-shui sensitives, all the lot that harps on about village commons and wilderness set-asides. Yes, that dog's breakfast of mostly treeless asphalt you see before you was planned and paid for.

As I've observed during visits, pick the right neighborhood or regret later. Once options are looked at honestly, that's either Hillcrest or Ocean Beach for most. At the start, the left flank of Bankers Hill was a trolley hub; OB was a vacation-rental bubble and amusement park. Each orbits one of the region's world-class treasures: quirky old Kate Sessions' magnificent Balboa Park; the shoreline from Sunset Cliffs to Dog Beach. These are communities that have succeeded in putting families' needs before the demands of the automobile-bus-rail cacophony that blankets the rest of the county, where residents are sports-minded and vocal on town planning boards, so crime rates are low and improvements are moderated.

Residing where the fabric of habitat and society hangs comfortably on ones shoulders is everyone's dream. Except for long-honored traditions of planning myopia, it's a dream whose pursuit could be a lot easier in beautiful San Diego. Knowing the prize is commonplace in at least two neighborhoods may lift a few disenchanted transplants' spirits.

Answer 6

It is quite possible to feel lonely amidst a crowd of people. Especially with everyone busy working and doing their daily grind.....

If you feel lonely and it's an uncomfortable feeling, I'd recommend you consider making some changes in your life that will let you meet some new people. Take a class, join a club....do something that interests you where you will have chances to meet people. You are not the only who feels that way!

Answer 7

I don't think San Diego is empty. I believe that it is YOU who is empty. You probably do not have any one to love or spend time with, that's why you feel like places are empty, nothing to do or exciting happening that your mind tricks you into thinking that it's the city's fault. TRY GETTING A DATE OR A COMPANION, then maybe you won't feel so empty anymore.

Answer 8

There's very little there of any substance.
Everything consists of too much hot air.