Anybody know how Visalia is doing? (Walnut, Farmersville: crime, houses, neighborhoods)

[conovercourt]

I moved from Visalia about ten years ago, and have not been back since 2001.
It was growing so fast, but the growth wasn't necessarily smart growth.
Is it still a nice place to live and raise a family? Are there any walnut orchards left on Walnut Ave. between Lovers Lane and Farmersville?

My wife (and children) are native Visalians, and we hope to get back some day ...

[mono#9]

[SIZE=2]Visalia has really changed over the last twenty years or so. Downtown is fairly cute with some nice restaurants and a weekly farmers market. Big box stores are moving in—Best Buy, Home Depot and Lowes, etc. No Trader Joe’s, tho’.

There are still too many dumpy, trashy-looking neighborhoods, but there are also lots of nice new housing areas and compared to the rest of Calif. housing is very cheap. My son and dinlaw moved there a couple of years ago and now my husband and I are thinking of moving there when we retire. Centex has some nice houses a lot cheaper than the same floor plan in other areas.

It’s hot in the summer and the air quality is supposedly bad—tho’ I don’t notice it when I’m there. But all in all, I like it.
[/SIZE]

[rkb0305]

The air IS bad.

[MWJamesLDS]

Visalia is no longer the "small town" it used to be. The population is up to 117,000. The crime and gang issues just keep getting worse. There are still pleanty of nice neighborhoods, but you still lock your doors. The air quality sucks, but that is no different than 10 years ago. I think the biggest change is all the development that has occured. Mooney Blvd has added a mile of shops. Bigger name resturants are coming in "olive garden, chili's Tahoe Joe's, etc", though many of the nice mom and pop resturants are still around. A good portion, though not all, of the new housing developments have been done in the northwest part of town. It feels almost like a new city. They currently have a second lowes, Home Depot and Target going in on that side of town. The city put in a really nice 83 acre sports park in that area as well. The city has began to out grow its small town feel. That brings in some of the perks of the big city, but its also stretching the cities resources thinner. As I said, crime and gangs are getting bigger and worse. It'll be interesting to see how Visalia manages itself over the next 10 years.