Davis California, worth moving to? (Sacramento: houses, public schools, university)

[Sebsmash]

Is Davis California a good place to move to? And more importantly, are there any job opportunities there? I plan on eventually finishing up my college degree but just need a place to get started with a normal job and housing.

[Steve97415]

How avid a bicyclist are you?

[Shope]

^lol. I would make this post in the Sacramento forum since Davis is in the Sacramento area. You will get a lot more responses. It's a small college town that has a lot of Bay Area commuters. It is fairly exspensive to live there when compared to the rest of the Sacramento area. As far as jobs, the University as well as the Medical center are probably the biggest. There are a lot of research labs there as well. Outside of Davis it is mostly agricultural work. If you limit yourself to looking for a job in just Davis you might be in for a struggle. And yes, biking is a big deal there.

[Steve97415]

Originally Posted by Steve97415

How avid a bicyclist are you?

The reason I ask, is that every city has certain liabilities and certain payoffs for any prospective resident. Whether or not the payoffs offset the liabilities depends on what any particular person values and disdains when it comes to livability.

Myself, I would love to live in a well-planned mid-sized college town where automobiles are acknowledged as being the wasteful outmoded class of transport that they are and bicycles reign supreme. So, Davis, in many respects, is a dream community for me. There are things I don't care for: houses there are uninspiring and very expensive for what you get, yard sizes tend to be very small, salaries are generally rather low considering the COL and it gets quite hot in summer. But the bicycle infrastructure is such a strong draw that the payoff of living in one of America's best planned communities would make up for the shortfalls...for me. If there isn't something in Davis that you see as a huge attraction, then it might just be another exurb of Sacramento sitting in an agricultural valley that is largely flat and a long ways from either the coast or the mountains.

[wburg]

Davis is about 10 miles from Sacramento, a significant chunk of UCD students/faculty/staff live in Sacramento because Davis is expensive. Most of the economy centers around the college.

[angelbug]

I live in Davis and work at UC Davis. The University is talking about furloughs and not replacing faculty members when they retire because of the State budget cuts. Non-University jobs are hard to come by because there are so many students competing for them. This is one of the few times recently that I've been glad I work on soft money. My grant comes from the Federal gov't, so no furlough for me!

I do enjoy living here very much. It's safe, my son thrived in the public schools here before he started college, and I have great, friendly neighbors. The bike trails and parks are superb for a town this size. But I agree with Steve; the housing here is "uninspiring." When I retire in a couple years I won't be staying here. The housing is too expensive (so my property taxes are awful) and I don't care for the heat. But, for what I've needed the past few years, it's been great.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by Sebsmash

Is Davis California a good place to move to? And more importantly, are there any job opportunities there? I plan on eventually finishing up my college degree but just need a place to get started with a normal job and housing.

Where do you live now? Do you have a job? Do you like the liberal life style? DAvis is a college town, very nice, on the liberal side, but as for jobs, remember no place in CAlifornia has jobs right now. Of course add to that, housing isn't cheap.

Nita