Visalia (Tulare, August: apartments, rental, crime)

[Shellybee]

I am considering moving from Northern California to Visalia.
Can someone give me some advice as far as what you like and dislike about the city and best places and neighborhoods to move into and ones to stay away from?

Is this city a great place to raise children?

Any and all information would be helpful.

Thank you.

[MWJamesLDS]

Well, there are a couple other posts on this, but since I'm putting off some reading I'll give ya some opinions. First of all, in regards to Visalia being a great place to raise kids, Thats going to depend on who you ask. Is it a great place to raise kids on a budget, heck ya. Mountaints are right there, Lake is 20 miles away, ocean 120 miles. Visalia has a nice downtown, especially for dinning. A good portion of the big box stores and malls are located on one long strech down Mooney Blvd. There is convience to this so long as you know not to actually try to drive down Mooney blvd. Spend some time getting to know the streets and this is easy to do. Most of the older parts of Visalia are more or less on a grid. You will want to avoid living in north central Visalia (north of the 198). North west visalia is fairly new, maybe a little more pricey. South Visalia has a lot of nice neighborhoods, only one or two worth avoiding. North east Visalia is a hopscoth of good/not so good neighborhoods. The Best Elementry school is currently Oak grove in the NW. Linwood Elementry is coming in a good second in the SW. Sadly, none of the High schools have really high API's. I would probably try to steer towards El Diamonte HS. It has the least gang issues. (I substitute taught at all of them, my wife is teacher at El D.) Redwood has issues with rival gangs, and that seems to be spilling over to Mt Whitney as well(sad, my alma matta).

As I mentioned earlier, visalia has a couple of Malls, though one has gone down hill. Tulare outlet malls, just a few miles away are nice. Theres 2 active movie theaters in Visalia if I'm remembering right, and Tulare Outlet mall has one as well. Theres Walmarts, Targets, Home Depots, Lowes, Sears, Mervyns, Gotchalks, Best Buy, Circuit City, Radio Shack, etc in the city, so most of your basic shopping needs will be meet.

There are many different Dinning options. You have some of your standard chain resturants. Chili's, Applebees, Olive Garden. However, there are many (much better in my opinion) other options in town as well. Fugazzi's is a great fusion resturant downtown. There are several itallian places as well. I like Rosa's in the down town area, but theres also Little Italy, and Ginas that I can pull right off the top of my head. Shorter waits than Olive Garden, Great food. Mexican Resturants can be found all over town. There are several Japanese Resturants, Tokyo Gardens, Tachibanas, Gozen, Masarus (quick food). A couple Thai, Sy-Salathai (my favorite, but be prepared to wait, its family run). I'm sure you can find lots of other options online.

Lastly, The housing prices are much better then the rest of the state. A New small 3 bed to 2 bath can be found for about 170K. If you are a proffesional your pay won't be all that much worse then the rest of the state. Teachers start at 42K a year. Nurses, $34 an hour. Rental prices are great too. I was renting a nice older (1970's) 3bed 2 bath 1600sqft home in a good neighborhood for $875 a month. Apartments are strangly as expensive as many homes, so look for homes being rented by property managment companys, there are many that can be found online. Also, if you run the A/C all summer be prepared for expensive electric bills $200+ for some people. I've even seen $500 from people with a pool and less then electric conservative behaviors.




Now the bad.

It can be cool (50's during the day) and foggy over the winter and It's HOT over the summer!!! You must have A/C to be comfortable. The worst is july/August. You'll have day time temps over 100 and nights that don't go below 80. That being said, most of the year is comfortable.

The Air quality really sucks a good portion of the year as well, especially bad if you have allergies. When the air is clear, the view of the Sierra Nevadas is amazing, it appears as if your at the foot of the Mt. However, you can't see them most the year.

Anyway, I hope this wasn't to long, sorry for any miss spellings as I did this quick.

Best!

[jedimko]

Stay away from the Central Valley unless you all ready have a job lined up. Gottschucks, Mervins, Circuit City and Foods Co have all closed in the last year. Unemployment is almost 20% and crime is starting to go up as well. Did I mention how hot it is here too? Just a friendly warning.