Wondering where to live in California? The 5 best places to live in CA.
If you’re thinking about moving to California this post is going to show you the best places to live right now. We won’t be looking at cost of living or cost of housing. California is expensive, the cost of living and housing are outrageous so let’s just assume it’ll cost you a truckload to live any place nice in California. Here’s 5 places in California that are recommended.
Number 5 Danville, California. The town of Danville is located between San Ramon and Walnut Creek in the San Ramon valley up near the San Francisco bay area. Even though it’s the size of a small city, it still calls itself the town of Danville. In 2020 Danville was named the safest town in California, everything here is graded A plus other than of course cost of living and housing. Danville is clean and has great air quality, this is a nice place to live, the crime rate is 72 percent lower than the national average and they get a livability score of 86, not a bad number.
Number 4 Manhattan Beach. This was once a small surf community over the last two or three decades, it’s become a place for the rich and famous that like salt, air and the sound of waves. Manhattan beach is just south of LAX with El Segundo separating them, so you’re close enough to get to the airport quickly, but not so close that you really hear the airplanes. Manhattan has some of the best beaches in the south bay and has a truckload of celebrities and sports figures that call this place home, these are some of the ones that lived there at some point or maybe still do: Matthew Fox the star of Lost, Owen Wilson, Tara Reed, Blake Griffin, Steve Nash, Luke Walton, Josh Rosen, Rob Blake from the Los Angeles Kings and even Jordan Belfort the author of Wolf of Wall Street. Manhattan gets an 86 in livability, the beach helped boost its livability but in contrast it has one of the highest crime rates on this list, being only 1% lower than the national average. Some of the other cities listed here are about 50 and 60 percent lower, but this one’s only one percent lower, the beach really scores them some points.
Number 3 Mill Valley California. Mill Valley is one of those places you move to when you hate living in San Francisco, but you have to stay close for work. Mill Valley is right across the golden gate bridge from San Francisco, tucked up against the Muir Woods, probably one of the best places to go for a hike. The Muir Woods are amazing, it’s so beautiful. If you ever get a chance, go for a walk there and take a good camera. Mill Valley’s crime rate is 32% lower than the national average, they have great schools and the city’s employment numbers are always really good, their livability score is 87.
Number 2 Solana Beach, California. Solana Beach is a coastal town in San Diego County. Solana is just north of Torrey Pines Golf Course so if you’re a golfer, one of the best courses in the country is right there for you. It’s a nice town, great weather, great schools, people are employed with decent jobs and the crime rate is 45 percent lower than the national average. The livability score in Solana beach is 87.
Number 1 Los Altos, California. In the Silicon Valley of Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, Los Altos actually means “the heights” in Spanish. This is a great place, one of those places you’ve got to have a lot of money to live there. There are not a lot of people living in this area and it’s so close to San Francisco and San Jose which are packed and crowded. It’s a nice small town with an almost rural feel to it and they kind of want to keep it that way. Los Altos strictly limits commercial zoning, the downtown area has small shopping and some office parks, that’s about it. It seems like they want to maintain that small town feel. They’ve had some very interesting people live there over the years and probably still, Shirley Temple lived there at one point as did Steve Jobs, the guys who started Google lived there and Nancy Holder, she wrote Buffy the Vampire slayer, SmallVille and Angel. Los Altos has a crime rate that is 57% lower than the national average and everything else besides cost of living and housing is great. Just to give you an idea what it’s like to live there financially speaking, the median household income is $187.000, that’s 239% higher than the national average. Also the median home value here is two million dollars, that is 983% higher than the United States average. The Livability score of Los Altos is 88.