Is Rocklin a suburb of Roseville?

[Mr. Ozo]

Wburg, do you know anything about commuter rail to Walnut Grove and Iselton? I know the railroad ran through there when my dad was a kid (the 50's and 60's), but I don't know if was only freight or passenger too. That would have been so cool. And yes, I've taken the train from Davis to Sacramento when I lived in Davis. It was great, but the bus was a lot cheaper, actually it was free because I was a student.

As another, sort of off topic comment, the original causeway was made entirely of old growth redwood, my grandparents house was built from that wood when it replaced by cement in the 60's.

[edwardius]

You might find these maps interesting.

According to the census bureau, more than 35k people commute into Yolo County for work vs just 24k commuting out of Yolo County. Does the fact that more people in Sacramento County commute to Yolo County, than people in Yolo County commute to Sacramento County now somehow make Sacramento County a suburb of Yolo County?

http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/commut...olocommute.pdf

Placer County seems pretty balanced. Roughly the same amount of people are communting into Placer County (45k) vs commuting out of Placer County (46k).

http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/commut...acecommute.pdf

See the data for Sacramento County here. 100k commuting in and almost 83k commuting out.

http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/commut...saccommute.pdf

At the county level, El Dorado County seems to have the worst housing jobs balance 8200 communting in vs 32k commuting out.

http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/commut...dorcommute.pdf

[NorCal Dude]

I know those places are just as old as sacramento. The fact of the matter is all sorts of towns get engulfed in the sprawl of a metropolis. Farm towns, rail car towns, rail suburbs, free way towns, industrial towns, college towns.

I do agree that davis for all extensive purposes is a rather self sustaining town. But the metropolis which davis is connected to is Sacramento. When people turn on their tv and look at media outlets or their radio stations or head out of town to go to the meuseum or go bar hopping or catch a baseball game, it is sacramento. The town is very large and very suburban like in nature. Single family homes and store fronts, kind of a hometown usa feel. But seperated by about 15 miles of open space from the city of sac.

Auburn seems very much like an exurb of Sac to me. It is kind of the place everyone seems to go to "get away from it all". Seems to me when I see traffic backed up its headed in from Auburn in the morning and headed out to auburn in the afternoon. There are a good amount of people who commute into the sacramento metro because that where most of the jobs are.

Woodland is more or less the same story. That whole town is not made up of farming folk. Many people commute into the sacramento area for jobs. It is also known as being a really affordable place to live. Very suburban style town. Newer tract home developments and some strip malls.

I suppose though they have their own things going on, I've always considered them linked to the sacramento metro and exurbs. An exurb to me does not always have to be a sprawled up out of the ground place like say vineyard. It can be a city that formerly really had nothing to do with the metropol that is sprawling towards it.

[wburg]

Well, technically they're not quite as old as Sacramento...Sacramento was first settled in 1839 when Sutter started the fort, these other towns were founded 20-30 years later.

edwardius: That's a definite side effect of car culture and late 20th century urban design--our postmodern urban realms really don't have a center the way that early 20th century cities did.

Mr. Ozo: The "Sacramento Southern" (a branch of Southern Pacific) was originally supposed to run all the way to Antioch, but an electric railroad called the Oakland, Antioch & Eastern got from Oakland to Sacramento first (but, ironically, never to Antioch.) The OA&E later combined with the Northern Electric (who ran a branch to Woodland), becoming the Sacramento Northern--you could ride the electric interurban from Chico to Oakland in about five hours (and from 1939-1941, all the way to San Francisco via the Bay Bridge.)

Sacramento Southern operated McKeen gas motor cars, basically a gasoline-powered self-propelled cars, from Sacramento to Isleton until 1927. They operated mixed trains (trains that included passenger cars as well as freight cars) until 1932, but no passenger trains since then. My friend Kevin Hecteman wrote a book on the Sacramento Southern if you want to know more about the line:

Sacramento Southern Railroad - Arcadia Publishing

[ThatOneDude]

Originally Posted by Mr. Ozo

On the other hand, we have Plumas Lake. It's nothing but suburban style homes in the middle of nowhere. No downtown, no retail, no and I mean not one jobs.

While Plumas Lake is by no means a large community, to state that there is not ONE single job is incorrect. Plumas Lake Elementary School District employees enough people to run three schools, a charter school, and a district office, most of which live right in the community. We also just had a Walgreens open, which employs a few people.

It may be in the middle of nowhere, but its the best kept secret in Northern California! 28 mile commute to Sacramento, approx 30 minutes... I beat my friends home everyday of the week!