The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon.
QUESTION: Why did you move to Contra Costa County? And if you grew up here, what’s keeping you here?
Talk about it….
Job had moved to SF …commute was reasonable via BART then …CCC was nice area then (sure has changed 🙁
The taxes, the District Attorney and the fantastic voters! Kill me now.
Just married and thought this would be a great place to raise a family. This was back in the 1970s. A lot has changed since then but still like it much better than the East. Bay.
SSTRAD: Contra Costa County *is* East Bay.
I’m confused, you say you like it much better than the East Bay, but Contra Costa county is the East Bay. None of my business, but do you live here in this area or some other place?
My Father lived & worked in Southern California for 10 + years. Married my Mother, then and moved back up here to be near both Families. I was about 3 years old then.
What keeps us here for now, … Our house is paid off, the weather is mostly good, and Hubby retires next year.
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Because San Francisco is a bastion of horrible liberal policies.
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I moved out here from San Francisco in 1981. In 1980, my wife died from cancer, and all of a sudden I was a single dad. So I left San Francisco, and moved out here to buy a house and raise my daughter. It was a time when Concord’s motto, “Concord, where families come first,” really meant something. That motto doesn’t seem to have much meaning anymore.
Although I didn’t move to Concord until 2008, I had friends here since 1984, and would often come out here from Foster City. A lot have changed, some things for the better, I don’t remember Todos Santos Plaza being much of anything, now it is very nice. It seems to me that Concord have more personality now than back then. Walnut Creek was always nice, and I always liked Clayton, there use to be a place that had a band and dancing, we (my friends and I) use to go there off and on.
The weather, sunshine and the swimming pools. Now, it’s the potholes keeping me here.
We lived in the fog of San Bruno for eleven years. Top of the hill. Did a job in Walnut Creek one day and started house hunting a few days later
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Ugh. My cousins live along Skyline Blvd in Daly City.
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It was so depressing at their home environs… thick, dense fog while SF was sunny.
I started out to paint my house one sunny morning with an airless paint sprayer I got some doors and windows masked off,got the paint ready and started spraying. Half hour later the wind and fog came whipping around the house so I put everything away. The last twenty feet didn’t dry and the paint ran down in streaks. Had to wait for another good day to finish.
I lived in Foster City from 1982 to 1998, when l moved to Benicia. l had a business in San Bruno l agree about the weather, Foster City a little better than San Bruno. Benicia the best, still miss it weather and love being by the water (that’s the Viking in me). Lived in Benicia for 10 years, was in outside sales, so didn’t have to cross the bridge every day. Might move back to Benicia some day, but have gotten use to Concord
I came for the crime, the traffic, the homelessness, poor streets and high real estate prices. Worked out well!
I was already here… born in Walnut Creek in 1957.
I have family & friends here and it’s too hard to move away.
Being in a rural area of the county is the best I can do for now.
Moved here from out of state after getting a good job offer. No regrets. Good place to earn a living and raise a family. Love the weather and the great outdoors.
Took a new job in the area and moved up here from Los Angeles in 1999. I was familiar with the East Bay as I went to college here.
Much has changed here since then but I still believe that this is the best part of the Bay Area in which to live.
I am originally from the South Bay and my family moved to Concord in ‘89. My husband and I stay only because the house is paid off and he has a reverse commute to the Central Valley
After they adopted me at 9 months of age; my folks wanted to get out of Oakland. In 1948 they bought a 1/3 acre lot in Lafayette’s Happy Valley for $4,000, and paid $20,000 to build a house on it. All their Oakland relatives said they were crazy! “Nothing but Walnut and Pear Trees” out there! After my dad’s death in 2002 and my mom’s Stroke in 205 we sold that home for $1.5 million. (3yrs before the big Real-estate and economy collapse! Great Timing!!
That money kept our mom in a very nice (expensive) assisted care living home for 7 yrs, and she still had a good bit left to leave my brother and I when she passed away in 2012 at 100 years of age!
Forced here as a child. Lived in Lafayetter at that point. Lived as an adult in Alameda, El Cerrito, Martinez and Concord. Retired in 2016 before becoming elderly and not able to enjoy my retirement and left CA
When we first came out to California from a wintry New York, we were pulling a travel trailer and needed to find a place to park while we found jobs and a place to live. San Francisco had a lot where we could park, but prices were astronomical. So we ended up in Contra Costa County and really loved the heat and Mount Diablo, so we wanted to be as close to the mountain as possible. My husband knew of Clayton and the first time we visited, it was a beautiful, warm summer night and I was sold!
The question should be…”Why did you leave Contra Costa Country and / or the state?”
@HAYDEN BARSOTTI…..I saw this crap 20 years ago and did get out, sad to say I only visit occasionally but that’s enough.
Military transfer and then hubby was honorably discharged. His family was here so we had ties to the Bay Area. Only a few family members still live in this area though.
I moved to Contra Costa (not Concord) in the 70s because my parents wanted a safe place to raise children, with good schools. I later bought a house in that same town and raised my own kids there until about 10 years ago when I moved to Concord. Since my kids had long since grown up and moved out, I wanted something a little less expensive than where I was living. If I knew 10 years ago what I know now, I’m not sure I would have made the same decision.
I was hired to do computer maintenance at the Naval Supply Center in Oakland, and Pittsburg was what we could afford. A year later, we decided Cowell was where we wanted to settle and raise our family. Once we retired, we had a lot of reasons to return to Tennessee, but the cost of housing was a major factor.
Left SF to come to WC to raise a family. We preferred the community and cost of living over that of the Peninsula but wanted to have better access to SF than Marin. The schools and access to outdoor space were really second to none. Then we realized the school are actually crap and some mythical lie allows them to be well rated. Then we stopped being able to access outdoor space bc of various rules. Smoke. Wind. Covid.