Santa Cruz vs Sacramento (city or areas) (Los Angeles, Carmichael: home, neighborhoods)

[DoctorRain]

I have a question regarding the areas of Santa Cruz and the areas of Sacramento. I am more than likely to end up in Sacramento, but maybe a small chance I go to the Santa Cruz area.
I do know basics like Santa Cruz is an expensive hippie beach town type place with hardly any minorities.. Sacramento being the capitol, parts look real nice, but a weird statistic of under 50% caucasian?? Wow.

This post is to ask about comparison with these cities, but also the area.
Socially, how do the 2 cities differ?
How far do you have to go to run into the heavy cookie cutter sprawl from both cities?
I am currently in the farther Tampa FL/Sarasota exurbs and once I leave here, I never wanna see 55+ communities mixed with cookie cutter new housing developments en masse again. From how they describe it, Sacramento suburbs seem nicer than that, but wanna live as close to the city core as I can if possible or a really near outskirt of the city.

Stuff like that.

[clongirl]

They are both vastly different so it's really hard to compare them. They are also about 4+ hours away from each other!

Santa Cruz is fairly small, beachy, laid back, liberal, college town surrounded by forested landscape and mountains. It's costlier to live there but it's also very desirable for the landscape and perceived lifestyle. I'm not intimately familiar with all the housing options, but I haven't seen any cookie cutter housing at all. It gets a lot of cool coastal fog in the evenings/morning then often burns off by noon.

Sacramento is a very large city. Most of the big sprawling new housing estates are in the West Sacramento and Natomas areas. There are a lot of non sprawly towns that don't have any new developments (like Fair Oaks/Carmichael and feel very small town). Sac has a huge variety in housing styles depending on the neighborhood. It's very hot and dry in the summers and flat overall (but not a far drive from snow and forests, lakes and rivers).

You might want to post in the Sacramento forum for more specifics on neighborhoods to investigate. There are a lot of them. I still get completely lost in Sac despite living in the region for a couple of years.

[Bulldogdad]

I think plenty have been posted on both. These two communities are about as diametrically opposed as you can get from each other in California.

No brainer for me Santa Cruz gets my vote, coming from a Valley resident for what it's worth.

[DoctorRain]

Originally Posted by clongirl

They are both vastly different so it's really hard to compare them. They are also about 4+ hours away from each other!

Santa Cruz is fairly small, beachy, laid back, liberal, college town surrounded by forested landscape and mountains. It's costlier to live there but it's also very desirable for the landscape and perceived lifestyle. I'm not intimately familiar with all the housing options, but I haven't seen any cookie cutter housing at all. It gets a lot of cool coastal fog in the evenings/morning then often burns off by noon.

Sacramento is a very large city. Most of the big sprawling new housing estates are in the West Sacramento and Natomas areas. There are a lot of non sprawly towns that don't have any new developments (like Fair Oaks/Carmichael and feel very small town). Sac has a huge variety in housing styles depending on the neighborhood. It's very hot and dry in the summers and flat overall (but not a far drive from snow and forests, lakes and rivers).

You might want to post in the Sacramento forum for more specifics on neighborhoods to investigate. There are a lot of them. I still get completely lost in Sac despite living in the region for a couple of years.

Either way your opinion is something even if you supposedly don't know a ton like you say. I heard how California in general regulates their sprawl in parts or how Los Angeles is the area with the most of it, but they restrict it in the mountain areas and stuff. I realized this kinda thing is more important to me as yrs go on and based on my not so good experiences in cookie cutter housing developments with home owners associations here in FL.

Both SC and Sacramento both seem like good choices in their own ways though.

[eureka1]

I can't think of any SIMILARITIES between the two. I personally find Santa Cruz very limiting and would pick Sacramento but it all depends on what you want. Are you a beach person? Or do you like river rafting? Spend a week in each place before you decide. And let us know where you end up. Good luck!

[MattClyde]

I hate Santa Cruz so my opinion is biased... go with Sacramento

[the city]

Sacramento is a large city while as Santa Cruz is a small college-based city. Santa Cruz is similar to Berkley in some ways. Sacramento is flat and Santa Cruz is hilly. Sacramento is in a valley where Santa Cruz is in the hills and is next to the beach. Also, there aren't alot of big box places in Santa Cruz where as Sacramento has all those cheap sprawl places.