u/projectmaximus

Added RB straight to the top of our list after a recent visit to SoCal. Now I'm trying to dig in and catch up on some research. Is RB the place for us? Primary alternative is South Pasadena. Welcome all perspectives and suggestions!

• 2 boys likely moving for 6th and 8th grades (targeting Parras then Redondo Union)
• no commute for work
• planning to stay for approx 8 years and move away when the kids are on their own
• should be able to afford any reasonable rent budget, but not so wealthy that we're price insensitive. Eg, if South Pasadena was $3k cheaper, it would be hard not to go that route. (It's not, is it?)

What we want:

• decently walkable neighborhood. Ideally, kids can walk/bike to school and lots of their classmates do the same
• 4 bedrooms so grandparents can live with us for long stretches of time. Ideally one bedroom is accessible on the ground floor so they don't have to walk up and down stairs all the time (agnostic to property type)
• convenient to music venues to watch shows, to perform, and to collaborate with other singers/musicians
• an environment where it's not mandatory (due to peer pressure) to get a vehicle for every kid when they turn 16. Electric bikes? Fine.

Thanks in advance!!

Hi, prospective resident here and hoping to get some insight from people living near the LRT station. Do you find it useful at all? Just looking on paper it seems like it could be helpful for leisure trips to DT/Little Tokyo/Chinatown...other points of interest for me would be Highland Park and Pasadena for nights out and Arcadia for Asian food. But would I realistically ever take it for any of those close in places over just driving myself? And far less likely if there are 2-4 of us traveling, right?

I could also see going to Pomona to visit my cousin/nephew in Claremont area, but only if they were gonna be coming to pick me up and drop me off. Again, more limited in scope.

Lastly, would it be useful for tweens/young teens to get around on their own? Would you let your kids travel on their own via the A Line or is it not safe enough? Thanks!

Cerritos was recently recommended to me as a place to consider for my family, given the high quality schools and the fact that it MIGHT be somewhat walkable (These are our top two desires for a place to live) On paper it looks pretty borderline. Perhaps just barely walkable in the right spots. What are your thoughts?

We would have no commute...just need to get my kids to school and get Asian food for the family haha. Would we be able to live car-lite, only needing a car for special trips and not on a daily basis? Or would we literally be the only people trying to walk around the neighborhood for necessities?

Just trying to see if I should bother to investigate further or not. Thanks!

We will be stopping by in July to check out South Pas with the idea of potentially moving in a couple of years. Kids are 10&8. What do you recommend that we see/do to get a feel for the neighborhood?

We’re interested in South Pas for the good schools and the walkability so would be mostly focused on the central area roughly from the middle school up to Mission and over to the light rail station.

Thanks for any tips and advice!

Hiii I just received a few questions in another post asking about our experiences and I feel like I’ve typed out too many of the same long answers, so why not create an AMA that I can point to if this ever comes up again! Bear with me as I’ve never done an AMA before and maybe this isn’t even the best use case, sorry!! I set the start time for now and end time for 24 hours from now, but I plan to just keep answering questions as long as there are more. If you’re interested in my music you can go to my profile. I just started releasing original music again.

Relevant details:

-I am Hakka, born and raised in Florida. (Family is from Malaysia) Wife is Cantonese born in Macau but raised in FL. Our kids were born in FL

-We arrived in summer of 2022 when our kids were 6&4

-came on a gold card (arts) now have APRC

-wanted to move somewhere in the Sinosphere for our kids to learn the language, the culture and be closer to some relatives on this side of the world. We eventually decided on Taipei because it was our favorite city

-originally planned to stay for 2-3 years. Now here indefinitely

-we were r/LeanFIRE when we moved here

-we started a business in Taipei about 1.5 years after arriving and now it’s grown quite a bit!

-at the time of arrival, kids spoke zero Chinese, wife was maybe 40% fluent in Mandarin but could read and write, I was maybe 20% fluent and couldn’t read