Your Impression of Santa Rosa (San Jose, San Francisco: low income, apartment complexes, rentals)

[CTC]

Santa Rosa is where Guy Fieri (From the Food Network) is from-he has a restaurant there and mentions Santa Rosa on his show from time to time.

[DjRey]

Its a suburban type town, that definatley has an hispanic gang problem. Not talked about much though.

[Ashrix]

I also lived in Santa Rosa during the late 80's and early 90's- worked at the Mall (SR Mall not Coddingtown), cruised down Mendo on Friday nights, the whole 'Rosa experience Was a great "little city" then. We lived off Petaluma Hill Road, so you had the great rural feel but you were just 5-10 minutes from the town itself. Really loved the weather. Lived in San Francisco until 2007 and it was always nice to hop up to the North Bay for a bit of a break from the overcast and fog. Love Northern Calif, would love to be able to live there again!

[eccotecc]

I would much prefer living in Sebastoplo.

[mnkrause]

I grew up there. Weather is very temperate. Wet, cool winters that never much got below 30F. Hot, dry summers hitting mid-90s a lot and 100's rarely, and it does not cool down at night. Lots of fog in the mornings. Lots of trees... oaks, maples, douglas firs, redwoods, bay laurels, tanoaks, also a lot of poison oak. It's really beautiful all around there. Actually all of Marin, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties are beautiful. Hwy 101 congestion isn't as bad as it used to be before they widened it, but there were hundreds of beautiful redwoods all along the highway before that. However traffic in town is horrid. Way too many traffic signals, major streets are not optimized to flow traffic thru town. Your've got a decent number of 4 lane roads, but too many lights. Mendocino Ave is the worst. I wouldn't say people are overly friendly there, don't dare say "Hi, how are you" to a complete stranger. Of course, that is most of California. Lots of freaks, and weirdos, and potheads, there, but also many, many good people too. About 70% of people are way to the left politically. There are thousands of Hispanic illegals there working construction and the vineyards. Housing prices have come down now, they were outrageous. We sold our house about a year after the market peaked and moved away. Sometimes I'd like to go back despite the negatives, after all it's still "home", but I doubt we ever will.

Oh and Guy's first restaurant was Johnny Garlic's. He took out a second mortgage on his house to open up that restaurant if I remember correctly.

Politically Sebastopol makes Santa Rosa look like Pat Buchanan.

[LexusNexus]

I don't care for it. Far too rural-feeling for my tastes. I'd prefer to be much closer to SF, in Marin county. If I had to live 60 minutes from SF, I'd prefer that by down the peninsula towards SJ.

[1auntie]

Originally Posted by Macrina

I loved living in Santa Rosa in the 80's & 90's and I still feel like I'm 'going home' when I go there, though I now live on the other side of the Mayacama mountains.

One of the things I miss the most is the temperate weather; I loved the fog in the mornings, with it burning off by 11 am or so and then by 4 or 5 pm one could look west and see the fog bank movin' back in. Lovely weather!

Hi, is the Santa Rosa fog everyone talks about more of an overcast cloud cover or does it settle on the roads etc? And do all of the towns around Santa Rosa get the fog too?

[Macrina]

In the Santa Rosa plane, it does not come down to the housetops....stays higher than that usually, until it burns off. And no, not all of the towns get it regularly, though some do. Healdsburg (to the north) doesn't get fog all that often, and as a result the median temperature is about 10-15º warmer.

Petaluma (to the south) gets fog, but I think about only one/half the amount as I remember. And the smaller towns to the east are warmer, with less fog as well.

The kind of fog you mentioned is called 'tule fog' I believe, and would seldom if ever be found in Santa Rose.

[1auntie]

Originally Posted by Macrina

In the Santa Rosa plane, it does not come down to the housetops....stays higher than that usually, until it burns off. And no, not all of the towns get it regularly, though some do. Healdsburg (to the north) doesn't get fog all that often, and as a result the median temperature is about 10-15º warmer.

Petaluma (to the south) gets fog, but I think about only one/half the amount as I remember. And the smaller towns to the east are warmer, with less fog as well.

The kind of fog you mentioned is called 'tule fog' I believe, and would seldom if ever be found in Santa Rose.

Thanks Macrina. Yes, I'm familiar with that Tule Fog- deadly stuff. When I was a kid I remember pulling out of our driveway onto the highway near Modesto and my father (who was driving) trying to turn around after going only a few feet. ZERO visibility. He had to open his door to try to find the center line on the road; meanwhile we all stopped breathing thinking that any minute we were going to be hit. I hate the stuff! Thanks for the info. It was very helpful

[CyanideThistles]

Originally Posted by mnkrause

There are thousands of Hispanic illegals there working construction and the vineyards. Housing prices have come down now, they were outrageous. We sold our house about a year after the market peaked and moved away. Sometimes I'd like to go back despite the negatives, after all it's still "home", but I doubt we ever will.

Oh and Guy's first restaurant was Johnny Garlic's. He took out a second mortgage on his house to open up that restaurant if I remember correctly.

Politically Sebastopol makes Santa Rosa look like Pat Buchanan.

It is true there are many illegal immigrants in Santa Rosa and I do not have a problem with them because there are too many of them and many of them are nice people for the most part, but it definitely is not a good thing to have a lot of illegal immigration at all anywhere. It is very expensive, and due to the way the city is built there is a lot of unfortunate traffic congestion that should not even exist.

But overall, Santa Rosa is a pretty quiet little city that, even if one does not like too much, is not too far away from the beautiful wineries, beautiful Bodega coast (too cold to swim or surf in though), and an hour away from SF and Oakland (and Oakland is a beautiful city if you're in the right parts.)