Fresno: A City of Worsts (San Francisco, Sacramento: high crime, unemployment, neighborhood)

[Harrier]

Fresno - within 2 hours of almost anywhere you would rather be.

[Senno]

Originally Posted by KC6ZLV

That is when it is on the ground. When people talk about fog in the San Joaquin Valley they also include the endless days the stratus covers the valley. On those days Fresno has high temperatures from the upper 30s through the 40s with drizzle while the coastal cities have sunny days in the 60s, 70s, sometimes the 80s. From November through February the sun is just strong enough to warm the surface and dissipate the fog near the ground, but not create enough warmth to mix out the inversion layer. The result is very chilly days with high humidity and a "bone chill" factor.

We get it in Sacramento as well, but not quite as consistent as from about Stockton and south.

Fog in California - Images - redOrbit

Ain't seen that many foggy days in a few years. I used to love those foggy day schedules when I was a kid, though.

Originally Posted by Harrier

Fresno - within 2 hours of almost anywhere you would rather be.

Kinda, although I use 4 hours as you can reach LA, SF, Sacto or the Central Coast within that time generally; makes vacationing north, south or on the central coast pretty easy while enjoying the relatively lower COLA of the valley.

That's if you own a car and aren't one of those "extreme walkability" types. I guess you can fly or Amtrak around, but then ya gotta rent a car anyway.

[BeauCharles]

Originally Posted by Senno

Ain't seen that many foggy days in a few years. I used to love those foggy day schedules when I was a kid, though.

Its been about 15 years since a predictable Tule Fog season in the Central Valley. Bay Area and SoCal people still like to trot it out as one of the big minuses about live there, but its a rare occurrence now.

[Harrier]

Originally Posted by Senno

Ain't seen that many foggy days in a few years. I used to love those foggy day schedules when I was a kid, though.



Kinda, although I use 4 hours as you can reach LA, SF, Sacto or the Central Coast within that time generally; makes vacationing north, south or on the central coast pretty easy while enjoying the relatively lower COLA of the valley.

Yes, and that is why i included the modifier "almost".

[Fontucky]

Originally Posted by BeauCharles

Its been about 15 years since a predictable Tule Fog season in the Central Valley. Bay Area and SoCal people still like to trot it out as one of the big minuses about live there, but its a rare occurrence now.

However, those massive pile-ups tend to keep the fog in the news. Was this the last one, or have their been any since then: "On the morning of November 3, 2007, heavy tule fog caused a massive pile-up that included 108 passenger vehicles and 18 big rig trucks on Northbound State Route 99 between Fowler and Fresno. "

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by downnice

Not as bad as Stockton

Just put FRESNO over that sentence and you have the perfect T-shirt.

[mak2675]

People who paint Fresno as the dirtiest, most boring, most violent place seriously have no clue what the hell they are talking about. It's a giant suburb and that's kind of boring - so what the hell was anyone expecting? Stop treating us like we're the only suburban jungle out there or city with some crime problems. For a giant suburban mess - all too common in California - Fresno is actually pretty decent. A huge section of the Fresno area, particularly North of Fresno (North of Herndon) + Clovis - AKA, Northeast Fresno - is easily just as good as a city in San Bernandino, the OC (minus the beaches), South Bay or anywhere else. This isn't some small section of the Fresno area, it is a HUGE chunk. If Fresno North of Herndon and Clovis - AKA, Northeast Fresno - were one city, it would easily be about 30 percent of the city. And I'm saying this area is better than 70-80 percent of major suburbs in the state.

Just take our Riverpark Shopping Center - I would say it is about 80-90 percent of the Irvine Spectrum Center, and the Irvine Shopping Center outside of the beaches is probably THE shopping center of the entire Orange County (more on Fresno retail if you scroll down). But even the highly esteemed (for a suburb) Irvine and most other cities in California can't match our public schools. Which brings me to my next topic - we have some of the top public schools in the state. Our GATE schools generally score in the top 10-20 on California exams. You won't even get that in the big 3 cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, or San Diego.

If you are a frequent traveler and want to see all of California, Fresno is the IDEAL location - 3 hours to both San Francisco and L.A, we are in the middle of everything. We are an hour away from Yosemite, hence the "Gateway to the Yosemite". If you want to see really nice neighborhoods, check out Van Ness Street where you will see some of the best homes you will see anywhere and most are uniquely designed, not carbon copy. Going east of that you will see more of the carbon copy suburban homes and they go on for many, many miles, but crime is low and the area is pristine.

In addition to Riverpark (which I mentioned earlier), we also have the Tower Shopping District, Fig Garden Village, and they seem to be for real about revitalizing Fulton Mall in downtown Fresno (although I don't expect it to be all that outstanding - but at least something worth visiting once in a while, at least for the nearby Farmer's Market which I hope still goes on). Clovis has downtown Clovis which is a quaint, walkable downtown. Both this area and Riverpark Shopping Center seasonally host Farmer's markets with not only fresh produce, but trip tip, mexican food, hot dogs, live music, and I even played a K1 simulation game in the last one at Riverpark. We also have a neat shopping mall with 150 shops (Fashion fair) and another with about a 100 (Sierra Vista) and they all have all the name brands although they both are missing a top tier department store like Nordstorm or Dillards. Btw, I should metnion our 450,000 square feet Save Mart Center hosts top musical and comedy acts like the upcoming Tiesto or Jeff Dunham shows.

Food - If you want really good Trip-Tip, you will find it in Fresno. Doghouse grill and Mike's Grill serve the best Fresno-style trip in the city. We also have mexican food with restaurants such as Toledo's, Castillo's and fast-food spots all over town like Robertito's, Arsenio's, and Wahoo's (not quite super authentic) and others. We have really good Japanese Tapanyaki as well (we have one owner who has started several locally famous restaurants here and I encourage people to try out Edo-Ya or Sakunaya's if they ever visit). We also have a unique style of Pizza typified by Me N Eds and Dominion's - I urge people to try it if they are ever in the Fresno area. Some mentioned in some forum that we have a Limon (which I believe is from the Bay) which is supposedly really good and we also have some superb gourmet Chinese food at Hunan's. There's a handful of South American and East African food as well. There's actually a ton of other food, but I'm just trying to convey that the food here is worth checking out (under the advice of a local) and that it is pretty damn good for the type of city we are (again, we're not the only suburban jungle in the state so people need to stop treating us like we are).

Fresno can do all of the things any the cookie cutter suburban cities in California do and probably better than most of them. But somehow we get the finger pointed at as though Redlands, Bakersfield, Carlsbad, Fremont, Cupertino, a great deal of Los Angeles Metro, and dozens of other such cities aren't just as boring as we are (actually we are less boring than most of these) and as though Oakland, Stockton, Vallejo, Compton, and a whole bunch of cities aren't just as violent as we are (actually these cities are worse). I mean our air quality is not nearly as bad as Bakersfield and there is much more to do here than there and far superior schools.

We aren't a bad city for a person to live in. A person who can actually afford to live in any decent pockets of the Bay Area, LA Metro, OC, or San Diego metro would not be dwelling in the bad parts of the city that earn Fresno it's undeserved reputation but would live in that sizable North Fresno+Clovis chunk area where they would find that not only would they get much better housing for their dollar, but also close access to some of the best nature, access to most if not all of the sort of retail they had to previously and most likely better schools as well.

Fresno is an okay mid-sized suburban city on the whole and quite good one if you stay North of Herndon and East of Blackstone. I challenge anyone to see the areas of Fresno I'm describing and then compare them to the best of, say, Fremont, Riverside, Bakersfield or any other of the numerous suburban-mess cities in California and tell me that the areas of Fresno I'm describing aren't at least just as good if not better than most of them.

[Harrier]

Originally Posted by mak2675

People who paint Fresno as the dirtiest, most boring, most violent place seriously have no clue what the hell they are talking about. It's a giant suburb and that's kind of boring - so what the hell was anyone expecting?

LOL!

A suburb of what?

[Harrier]

Originally Posted by mak2675

If you are a frequent traveler and want to see all of California, Fresno is the IDEAL location - 3 hours to both San Francisco and L.A, we are in the middle of everything. We are an hour away from Yosemite, hence the "Gateway to the Yosemite". .

Ha! - I said the same thing above.

Originally Posted by Harrier

Fresno - within 2 hours of almost anywhere you would rather be.

[Harrier]

Originally Posted by mak2675

. There's actually a ton of other food, but I'm just trying to convey that the food here is worth checking out (under the advice of a local) and that it is pretty damn good for the type of city we are (again, we're not the only suburban jungle in the state so people need to stop treating us like we are).

You keep using this term.

Fresno is the 5th largest city in California - after Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco.

It is quite a distance from SJ and SF - so I hope that you aren't pretending to be a suburb of the Bay Area.

No, Fresno is a metro area in its own right, the biggest city in its area, and a suburb of nothing.