Talk Elections

Very much a HC in the past, somewhat less so today.

It may be improving but it's still a HC in its current form

i'd say neutral. It depends what part really. Much of the southern part of the county is more scenic with more beaches and has more of a culture with the UC Irvine.

In the northern part you either have slumlike areas with illegals (Santa Ana and parts of Anaheim) or ultraconservative socon areas like Yorba Linda, east Anaheim, Villa Park etc.

There are much worse places out there. That being said, I wouldn't choose to live there.

FC.

One of the few areas of Cali I'd even think of living in (others being: San Diego County, Los Angeles County.)

Terrible place

The coast is beautiful (as close to paradise as you can get I suppose) and I like Irvine as well. Even though the city is basically owned by a corporation....but let's ignore that. I certainly wouldn't mind living in that area again. Then there are places like Yorba Linda which is full of the worst sorts of people on earth...so neutral on balance.

Some parts are OK... many parts are disgusting.  I voted HC

My presence there makes it all just fabulous. :)

FC. Very beautiful. Great freeways. Some good schools in the country. Not as great as LA Country however. ;)

I'm willing to bet the majority of HC voters have never been to OC.

Objectively horrible; there's something about the morass of Southern California suburbia that makes it especially awful. Only Kern County is worse.


Only the toll roads could possibly be described as "great", and those of course have the fundamental problem of requiring tolls. In any case, when the second positive thing that comes to mind about a place is the freeways, it probably doesn't have much going for it.

The "morass." I live on the hill to the right.


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I drive to San Diego from LA County frequently. When you drive through OC a lot, freeways become pretty great.

We should seriously look into selling it back to Mexico.

I was referring more to this:

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Cuz there are no congested freeways in the Bay Area...
High prices and congested roads are the price you pay for living in a very large metro. If you don't like it, move to Memphis :P

That Freeway pic Xahar is not in OC.  :)  I know because signs in OC point to LA, or Santa Monica, not Sacto. :P

The freeways do clog in spots sometimes in the OC, but nothing like in LA County.

I was going to say: That picture looks a lot like the way I-405 did this morning, and I was nowhere near OC.

I've never seen I-35W look anything like that unless there's an accident or something else holding up traffic. That pic is awful and indeed representative of why I'd never want to even visit there.

I live in Los Angeles County--Hollywood.

I have some family that live in coastal orange county which isnt as bad as the inland area's as others have stated.

Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Laguna Beach and Dana Point would be the only area's that I like. As a gay man of my personal interest these cities also had eithier voted no, or came close to a no vote on prop 8.  The coast line is very beautiful and I love Laguna Beach.

However the inland area's are where I would avoid:
Buena Park, Cypress, La Palma, Yorba Linda, Placentia, La Habra, Orange, Brea, Villa Park, E Anaheim. Parts of Fullerton, Ghetto Santa Ana and Garden (Garbage) Grove and ALL area's that border Riverside County....The IE is an armpit. (Im sure Ive missed a few more horrible area's but you get the idea.)

I voted HC but have mixed feelings.... Cant stand the politics of the county. That alone could make it a HC. I also do have personal history with the county having lived in Anaheim years ago (thought I was the only Kerry vote there). While some coastal pockets and area's are nice its just not enough for me to give the county as a whole a positive opinion...HC or Neutral at best.

I enjoy making fun of it, but really, I'd still rather live there over ~90% of America.

You have quite obviously never traveled down the 5 from LA into OC. It's a huge difference. It suddenly turns from a 6 lane mess to a bigger, nicer 10+ lane freeway with barely any traffic outside of rush hours.

To be fair to Xahar, the vast, vast majority of Socal does not look like that. :P


The 405 in OC from Irvine to Westminster is pretty damn bad. I had to make that commute for a while. But of course it's nothing compared to what the 405 is like near the 10. :)

Socal in general?

Pretty much, yeah. It's kind of similar to Florida in reasons why I don't like it, even if all the olds takes Florida down a further notch.

Yeah, I have noticed the similarities. Of course I like South Florida as well so.....:P

Anyways, you would have way more places that you would enjoy living in Los Angeles than you would in Miami. Of course the rents are going to be quite high. But I think you would be quite happy living in an up and coming neighborhood in Hollywood. And I don't know if you care much about crime but Los Angeles is much safer than Minneapolis.

Southern California, on paper, does look pretty bad.....but there's something attractive about it. Dunno why but I do have a rather positive opinion.

Florida is flat. Florida is hot and humid in the summer. Florida's architecture sucks. Florida does not have the creative industries SoCal has.

There was a TV show named after the county that was pretty "hip" among the girls in my class when I went to highschool between 2003 and 2005:

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Don't know if the actual county is anything close to how it was portrayed in the series. I only remember that most of the shows characters seemed to be Democrats, while the county is heavily Republican.

Because I've never been there, I abstain.

HELL NO!!!!!!!!! That show is crap and so is that related show on MTV with Laguna Beach. In that area Laguna Beach is actually quite Democratic. It's 80% white (very white by Socal standards) and voted about 65% for Obama. But other than that the coast tends to be Republican but socially moderate. And there aren't as many fundies/racists as you will find in inland OC or the IE (Riverside, San Bernardino).

Horrible county, freedom skapunk tradition.

Wiki helps. The show plays in Newport City. It's quite rich, like in the TV series. How about voting trends ?

Newport swung quite heavily to Obama. And it swung back hard in 2010. It's that sort of a place. Balboa peninsula have smaller houses and more rentals and has a quite large student population from UC Irvine. It barely voted for Obama, I believe. The rest of the place is rich suburbia but again, pretty socially moderate. If California votes on Gay Marriage again this year, that sort of a place will swing the hardest towards the equality side. It also voted against legalizing Marijuana by only a slightly larger margin than the state. Nearby Huntington Beach was right at the state average and Costa Mesa actually voted for it IIRC.

Newport Beach?

I think so, yeah.

Because I am such a cool guy and estimable human being, I made (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=150097.0) an OC muni mappie of the Prop 8 results. :)

Like I said, most people hating on OC have never even been there...

That picture would the 405 in LA County on it's worst day. The OC comes no where close. Freeway traffic isn't really a problem if you're smart about it.

But if you want to stay in the ubiquitous wasteland that is Minnesota, be my guest. :) It's beach weather on the coast today, and the ski slopes are open in the Mountains.

West Coast, Best Coast.

Worst county in the worst state.

Oh please.

Hey, if that is true, given what I am savoring at this very second (beautiful day (77 degrees), with the view at its most stunning - the hills are green, the ocean blue, the Orchid Trees behind my gazebo beginning to bloom with their luscious fuchsia colored flowers, the purple leaves of the flowering plum trees at their most magnificent, the iceburg white roses so heavy with their bloom that their branches are drooping,  it being  so clear that you can see San Clemente Island, 40 miles offshore), then the United States is a Garden of Eden, and the Jubilee has already occurred, the Messiah returned, and the US is indeed a Shining City on a Hill.

Here is a snap which I just took 5 minutes ago.

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Torie let's kick it. :P

Kern strikes me as a bit worse.

Nah, Placer is the worst.

Imperial is probably the worst.

Auburn's no Placerville (which, confusingly, is in El Dorado County and not Placer County), but it has an interesting history.

Skapunk?

LOL Torie is an old. He just really proved that right now. :)

The consensus seems to be that it's crowded, expensive, and relentlessly sunny. I'll pass :P

Southern California should be excluded from the definition of West Coast.

My grandparents live in OC. I think it's beautiful and has lots to do but the people can be quite conservative at times. It's also not a super white area. Parts of it are but the overall county is minority-majority I believe.

Overall, I'm neutral. I think they have better freeways, malls, and beaches. Just wish the people weren't so conservative and materialistic.

Ugh.  As far as I'm concerned, if it doesn't rain in the summer and snow in the winter, it's an HP.  I like having seasons and weather.

I will say this for the OC: it's better than Arizona.