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Honestly, Santa Barbara gives off a vibe in a way that Ventura (a town literally 30 miles away) does not. Ventura, IMO, is the quintessential SoCal Beach town, right down to the architecture of the hillside homes. It's hard, at least for me, to consider Santa Barbara as a SoCal town. IMO, it has much more in common with a place like Carmel and Monterey than it does with other seaside SoCal towns.
And yeah, it's Rancho Nipomo. Really awesome sandwiches, but a bit pricey. I still love it though.
Santa Maria is an agricultural town, which is why it gives off a much different, more "redneck" and "bro" vibe. People refer to it as "Fresno by the sea", but I think its a more southerly version of Salinas. All I know about the people there is that my cousins got the **** out as soon as possible. It just seems boring, if anything.
Going back to this thread, towns like Santa Maria and Salinas have been growing a lot lately as well. The main highway that goes through both cities (US-101) have been expanding lately, with homes on the outskirts rapidly developing. Same thing with a lot of Central Valley cities (Fresno, Bakersfield, Merced). All areas are a bit too far to commute to either LA and SF, yet are growing. Farm and oil jobs can't be all that these areas provide.
I was just looking, in 2000 Santa Maria had 77k people - it just broke 100k in the 2010 census, which is pretty impressive growth for a small city. Especially considering it didn't really grow outwards all the much, though the new outward growth that did occur undoubtedly was of the kind that caused the recent housing bubble. My dad said at the height of it all, some of those houses were going for 600-700k, which is ridiculous if you know what Santa Maria is like.
I agree that Ventura feels like a quintessential Southern California beach town, moreso than SB, but I do think that SB has that Southern California vibe, especially meeting people that grew up there. Sound more like Hermosa-ites than Carmelieans.
Isn't that what pretty much most Central Coastal towns are? Weekend getaway destinations?
For the most part yes but I wouldn't call SLO one though. And aside from that I don't see too many similarities with Carmel and Monterey. Weather, culture, architecture, scenery, vibe, etc.. are closer to La Jolla and Laguna Beach than Carmel or Monterey imo.
Well, that's the assumption: that there is NO such thing as Central California. Between NorCal and SoCal, well yeah it's SoCal. But ultimately, if I had to choose an area that Santa Barbara is most associated with, its the Central Coast.
Growing up in Santa Cruz, we used to remark on how Santa Barbara felt so very "Southern Californian" when we drove down there--but then the people I'd hang out with who lived down there would always make the claim that SB was a different vibe than the rest of Southern California and that the true border was south of Rincon Point towards Ventura. As far as looks and culture, Santa Barbara has felt pretty much just like an outpost of Southern California in many ways--but I guess it depends what side of the region you're looking at it from.
I think Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz are sort of the start and end of the Central Coast region--as they're both sort of associated with the larger metros just to the north and south of them, yet they feel a little more secluded and idiosyncratic. Though I'd say that really the border between Northern California and Southern California is somewhere around San Luis Obispo(which itself sort of feels like a mix) and the Central Coast just straddles the divide between North and South.
Topographically, Santa Barbara is roughly where the gentle rolling Coastal Range meets up with the more jagged Traverse Ranges, and both can be seen there.
Palm Trees, there are palm trees all over the coastal valley towns of the Central Coast. IMO, there are more palm trees in San Luis Obispo than Santa Barbara.
Architecture, maybe, but not anymore so than any other mission towns in Central California. Refer to SLO.
People and culture, SB is a LOT more laid back and even slower than anywhere in the LA and SD area.
For those who grew up in Northern California, I can see how people there would refer to Santa Barbara as SoCal. As someone who grew up in SoCal, it's not 100% SoCal, but rather a transition to the Central Coast. In fact, most publications in Santa Barbara refer themselves as the "Central Coast"
And the media market is shared with SLO, which definitely is considered Central Coast.
Of course, Monterey and Carmel aren't SoCal, but IMO Santa Barbara has more in common with Monterey and Carmel than Coastal SoCal towns like Laguna Beach, Ventura, etc.
They have the same geographical confusion in Florida. No one knows where coastal South Florida ends and begins. The boundaries aren't clear.
This means that if you could balance all of California's population at one point, it would be there. There is the same amount of population east/west of there and north/south of there if you drew a line in those directions. I don't know how they calculated the most bottom line if that's the case.
I actually think the most accurate of those maps is the one where survey makes drew a line and it was averaged out. That, I feel like represents the reality the most.
The sports one I find interesting: the split areas in SoCal are college towns (Goleta, Westwood, University City in SD) and my hunch about the areas of "NorCal teams" in the LA area is because of the Raiders who were here for 13 years. However for NorCal college towns, SoCal team support isn't nearly as strong (Berkeley, Chico, Santa Cruz, etc.) It's also important to remember that there really is one sport that has equal amount of percentage support in both parts of the state and that is the MLB. NBA is decidedly stronger in SoCal (Lakers/Clippers) while NFL is decidedly stronger in NorCal (Niners/Raiders). Sacramento Kings/Warriors and the Chargers in their respective sports have never been particularly strong for an extended period of time, and in the case of the Sacramento Kings and Chargers, both have huge attendance problems despite being the only major teams in their media market. Then there are the retirement communities that are huge anomalies despite being surrounded by other team areas.
I find Fresno to be fascinating though because it's decidedly tilted more toward Northern California despite being right smack in the middle of the state. I always wondered why that is. I know historically farm trade went to SF via the San Joaquin River, then the railroads, but that can't all that it is since the same can be said for Bakersfield. Anyone have the answer?
Last edited by Lifeshadower; 10-18-2012 at 10:44 PM..
The sports one I find interesting: the split areas in SoCal are college towns (Goleta, Westwood, University City in SD) and my hunch about the areas of "NorCal teams" in the LA area is because of the Raiders who were here for 13 years. However for NorCal college towns, SoCal team support isn't nearly as strong (Berkeley, Chico, Santa Cruz, etc.)
The dot on the map represent entire cities so it really doesn't show University City. There are a lot of Bay Area/Northern CA transplants in SD overall. When you go to a Padres/Giants game there are A LOT of Giants fans. There were before 2010 and now it appears to be A LOT more Giants fans at Padres games (bandwagon of course).
I'm not sure why what appears to be Chula Vista (the dot along the border) is split. My only guess is Mexicans love rooting for the Raiders but I reallly never noticed that in SD.
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It's also important to remember that there really is one sport that has equal amount of percentage support in both parts of the state and that is the MLB. NBA is decidedly stronger in SoCal (Lakers/Clippers) while NFL is decidedly stronger in NorCal (Niners/Raiders). Sacramento Kings/Warriors and the Chargers in their respective sports have never been particularly strong for an extended period of time, and in the case of the Sacramento Kings and Chargers, both have huge attendance problems despite being the only major teams in their media market. Then there are the retirement communities that are huge anomalies despite being surrounded by other team areas.
The dot on the map represent entire cities so it really doesn't show University City. There are a lot of Bay Area/Northern CA transplants in SD overall. When you go to a Padres/Giants game there are A LOT of Giants fans. There were before 2010 and now it appears to be A LOT more Giants fans at Padres games (bandwagon of course).
I'm not sure why what appears to be Chula Vista (the dot along the border) is split. My only guess is Mexicans love rooting for the Raiders but I reallly never noticed that in SD.
You'd be surprised how many Giants fans there are in LA. Hell, taking the train to work today, I saw 3 people wearing SF Giants gear and another person wearing an A's hat. I sarcastically wished the Giants fans "good luck" in the NLCS while they made fun of the Dodgers relevance in the past 20 years. All in good fun of course
Chula Vista and National City always seemed Charger'd out whenever I went. I mean, I wouldn't doubt there are a fair number of Raider fans in the SD area, but I never thought it would be enough to make it half of one city's sports fanbase.
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The Padres don't count?
And here's where my credibility gets thrown out the window. Totally forgot about them I should know, I'm going to that area today.
This means that if you could balance all of California's population at one point, it would be there. There is the same amount of population east/west of there and north/south of there if you drew a line in those directions. I don't know how they calculated the most bottom line if that's the case.
I think they calculated that bottom line by highlighting the concentration of California's population (which is in SoCal) and counterbalancing that concentration with the rest of the state's population. So numerically, I think they wanted the population numbers to be somewhat even, hence, that's why clear SoCal counties, like Ventura and San Bernardino, are realigned to the "north." And I think because Ventura and SB had to be realigned to make the numbers even, that's where the line came from. The math works out. The top 5 most populated counties are LA, SD, OC, Riverside and SB. According to the map, if they added LA, SD, OC, Riverside, plus Imperial = approximately 18.3 million, and if they added the rest of the counties = 18.8 million.
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Originally Posted by Lifeshadower
I find Fresno to be fascinating though because it's decidedly tilted more toward Northern California despite being right smack in the middle of the state. I always wondered why that is. I know historically farm trade went to SF via the San Joaquin River, then the railroads, but that can't all that it is since the same can be said for Bakersfield. Anyone have the answer?
Yeah, that made no sense. At all, and I'll answer why below.
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I think they calculated that bottom line by highlighting the concentration of California's population (which is in SoCal) and counterbalancing that concentration with the rest of the state's population. So numerically, I think they wanted the population numbers to be somewhat even, hence, that's why clear SoCal counties, like Ventura and San Bernardino, are realigned to the "north." And I think because Ventura and SB had to be realigned to make the numbers even, that's where the line came from. The math works out. The top 5 most populated counties are LA, SD, OC, Riverside and SB. According to the map, if they added LA, SD, OC, Riverside, plus Imperial = approximately 18.3 million, and if they added the rest of the counties = 18.8 million.
Even considering all of SBD and LA Counties, the line should be waaaaay further north than what it specified on the map, which cuts through the middle of LA County (leaving out roughly 2.5 million people because of SFV, SCV, and the Antelope Valley) and SBD County (leaving roughly another 500,000 people out in the Victor and Apple Valleys, Barstow, etc.), leaving everything below the line to be around 15 million people, which is way below half of California's population of 37.3 million.
The center of population makes way more sense, since the ~300,000 people would be made up by 2/3 of the city of Bakersfield, which is directly east of Buttonwillow.
Yeah, Fresno just seems to sort of "be there". Though in terms of sports, the SF Giants AAA affiliate is in Fresno.
However, just from my own observations from being there, I noticed plenty of 49er/Laker jersey pairs among sports fans.
What an interesting state we live in. Wouldn't trade it for the world.
Look how far off-topic we took this, haha.
I wonder what will happen to all of our egos once Central California starts asserting itself.
Last edited by Lifeshadower; 10-19-2012 at 02:01 PM..
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I should know, I'm going to that area today.
