Best Place to Live in CA? (Long Beach, Sacramento: crime, home, university)

[wyldeflower]

how about the sierras.................placer valley.............grass valley

[greatbasinguide]

The Sierra foothills are nice, Grass Valley is not as progressive as Nevada City, lots of old hippies and old hippie homesteads in the surrrounding area,

All of the foothills south to Placerville, Angels Camp etc are good. My beef is the crowding.. I don't care for masses of people and areas of high growth.

Personally, I can't recomend anything south of Bakersfield, but that is me.. I like wide open spaces.

My family has farmed in the San Luis Obispo Santa Maria area for 100 years.. I know it well, but again, the masses of people and lack of public land bother me.

I live near Lake Tahoe, which is paradise,,, but again, in our town there are plans for 8,000 new homes and right now, six golf courses. We will be bailing out as soon as the girls finish high school.

[wyldeflower]

I lived in a town called Buelton for a short time...........sortof down the road from Santa Maria..........it was very nice........but the price of housing was climbing faster than I could keep up with. Its very nice thruout the Santa Ynez area..........alot of wealthy people with ranches. So owning would be out of the question for me. I work for a company thats building a facility in Rocklin.............I guess thats by a place called Auburn.............what do you think? Is this also a place thats attracting the masses? Is this area around the sierras as nice as the Santa Ynez valley?

[greatbasinguide]

Rocklin is nearly very nice, the foothills are attractive, close to skiing and hiking in the Sierra. You can run to Sacramento for shopping. There is a big good mall in Roseville. Hot summers rainy winters, check real estate prices,,,

[brian_2]

"We will be bailing out as soon as the girls finish high school."

If you don't mind me asking greatbasinguide, what places are you two considering when you bail from the SLO area?

[greatbasinguide]

Actually,, we live in Truckee, the 9 month winters are getting to us, I have been in Truckee for thirty years.. So,,, where will we go? (snowed last night)

Depending on family affairs we would return to one of the family farms near SLO ,,, the house I grew up in.. Good weather, nice house, the lack of public land and the volume of people are the drawbacks.

If we do not return to SLO area, we would go to Central Nevada. We have land out there, I like the emptiness, the fine wilderness areas and the lack of people.

Either way we are likely to winter in Mexico and spend Summers in the states.

[alex537]

I recommend you San DIego, San Diego is the perfect place to live.. It's very nice and the coolest city in America

[outofcal]

California like any other place has its virtues and its evils... I have lived in various places in California from San Francisco to the Central Valley. Each having something to offer... There isn't a place free of crime...and wherever one goes, safety is always an issue--even in Amish country. That out of the way, being that you are a writer and perhaps enjoy relative solitude I am going to suggest a place that although nestled in the metropolitan area of the East Bay offers one that feeling of being in a faraway remote place... Drums please.... The Castro Valley Foothills! Surrounded by the Lake Cabot hills. Where the deer and wild-turkey still roam free... good luck. PS--Castro Valley is on the other side of SF across the bay, more southward ( I am not a city person but when I visit and stay there with a friend I feel as if I were in Colorado Springs CO without the cold. By the way it never gets cold. Houses could be pricey up in the hills but as you descend into the valley prices are more reasonable as anything can be reasonable for CA)

[kajmir1971]

Redding ca in the shasta county is very beautiful. We have the trinity alps to the west of us. Mount Shasta an hour north of us great skiing. Small but good. We have San Francisco 3 hours south from us us and SAC is 2 hours. We are 3 hours east from Reno. We have all four seasons. However if the heat bothers you do not move here because in the summertime it is HOT. We have Lake Shasta and Whiskytown National Forest with a great Lake too. No seadoos allowed which makes it not so busy. We hyave waterfalls you can hike to that are just beautiful. Also Burney Falls which I have to say is one of the most beautiful I have seen and I just got back from Maui. Which was beautiful but I was like where is the water in these waterfalls. The housing is calming down. Appearently word got out about us when the housing industry went crazy. We are thre hours from the nearest ocean. Humbildt county, Trinidad area is awesome. Redwood forests and Patricks point state park.
Email me with any q's you have. Good Luck.
Jeanette

[hagar]

If you have to work (commute, traffic, gas prices, etc) or worry about taxes, stick to FL--IMHO (been there dun that)