Married? Downtown if you want to be in the thick of things. If you want a slightly more chill feel, consider North Park, Kensington, etc. Those areas aren't the suburbian acres and acres of newly built tract homes like you will find in Eastlake, but you can get single family homes (small and generally older) but still be able to walk to a bar and a restaurant. Both of which will serve organic, free-range, gluten free lettuce, and martinis with artisanal, cruelty-free, zero carbon footprint olives, or some such. These areas don't have a lot of large apartment complexes, but there are smaller ones and homes for rent. Lots of homes there have small back houses that they rent out.
Eastlake seems to be the go-to place for people with 2.4 kids and a Labra-poo-triver-mation in the yard. Large houses, cheaper, tons of military, a minivan in every garage and charter school on every corner.
PB has beach access, and access to beach bars. The smell of weed hangs over the city, and you can't go more then 3 days without seeing someone playing hackeysack. Great, relaxed bar culture. Except for the Bro-Diego crowd of MMA wannabes. Property crime is kind of a thing. IMO, you should have friends who live in PB so you can crash at their place, but you shouldn't live there yourself.
This island is great, but so friggin expensive. And most of the apartment complexes there have pretty awful reputations these days, so you are better off with a private rental. (Check Yelp if you do consider the larger complexes.) For O3 BAH, you'll get about 9 sqft of space, but you can walk or bike to anything on the island, including work, restaurants, bars, the beach, etc. If your wife plans on working, she'd likely have to drive off island every day, so the benefit of being close to everything is diminished. If one of you has to commute anyway (though she'd be going in the opposite direction of bridge traffic), to me, it stops being worth the extra money to live on the island.
Eastlake seems to be the go-to place for people with 2.4 kids and a Labra-poo-triver-mation in the yard. Large houses, cheaper, tons of military, a minivan in every garage and charter school on every corner.
PB has beach access, and access to beach bars. The smell of weed hangs over the city, and you can't go more then 3 days without seeing someone playing hackeysack. Great, relaxed bar culture. Except for the Bro-Diego crowd of MMA wannabes. Property crime is kind of a thing. IMO, you should have friends who live in PB so you can crash at their place, but you shouldn't live there yourself.
This island is great, but so friggin expensive. And most of the apartment complexes there have pretty awful reputations these days, so you are better off with a private rental. (Check Yelp if you do consider the larger complexes.) For O3 BAH, you'll get about 9 sqft of space, but you can walk or bike to anything on the island, including work, restaurants, bars, the beach, etc. If your wife plans on working, she'd likely have to drive off island every day, so the benefit of being close to everything is diminished. If one of you has to commute anyway (though she'd be going in the opposite direction of bridge traffic), to me, it stops being worth the extra money to live on the island.
