Undiscovered town in California

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Originally Posted by Algiz

My initial concern was for pesticide spraying, but when you mentioned the rice burning and the air quality from plowing, I just about fell out of my seat in appreciation for your post. All three combined makes the choice to explore the area further a non-issue. Now I'm wondering if other places along 99 have similar issues, such as Chico. I know it's in the valley, but so is Sacramento, so maybe air quality isn't affected so much by agriculture?

Look at the valley in an aerial type of viewpoint. How can plowing in Yolo County, up to and including the area very close to the Sacramento airport, not affect air quality in Sacramento? Or Chico?

They share the valley. They're not that far away from each other. The valley has the coastal range on the west, and the Sierra Nevada range on the east.

There's a lot of agricultural plowing and spraying and burning. Not just rice, but tomatoes by the score. The nickname for Sacramento is "The Big Tomato." And following the tomato harvest is the melon plantings.

People just don't normally think of agriculture meaning horrible air quality. We think, oh how lovely - farms! Must be rural and nice and clean. But agriculture in CA is not all organic, which means toxic pesticide and herbicide spraying (and I'm not an extremist). And burning, and plowing, and aerial spraying.

And when you do this in a valley that doesn't have a source of air flow to blow it away quickly - it means terrible air quality.

And, like I say, I'm not a fanatic about this stuff, and I don't suffer any respiratory ailments, and it made my life uncomfortable when I lived there - both in Yolo and Sacramento counties, and specifically in Davis, Sacramento, Woodland, Folsom, and Capay.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by NoMoreSnowForMe

The nickname for Sacramento is "The Big Tomato."

aka: Sacratomato

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

aka: Sacratomato

LOL, exactly. I learned to stay away from those tomato harvest trucks when I lived in the area. They don't cover the pile of tomatoes on their huge semi trailers that are open bins. So, if they make a turn and you're on the wrong side of the truck, next thing you know, your car is in a tomato avalanche!

At one point, I lived in Davis on the main route to the old tomato sauce factory that used to be in Davis. I'd go out to the road and pick up tons of Roma tomatoes that had fallen off the trucks.

The highways are covered in smashed tomatoes during harvest. Crazy.

[jtremue]

How about further up 16? Past Capay towards Guinda and Rumsey?
Do those areas have the same air quality problems?
My husband may take a job near Davis. we are hoping to find somewhere with a better environment than here in central Iowa. Too much mold and ragweed here, in addition to being surrounded by corn and soybean fields.

[voxon]

[quote=nightlysparrow;45750060]OP, did you actually investigate Fillmore? You didn't comment. Checks all your boxes. A hour from Los Angeles. Here's a real estate sample:

I did check it out a little. I grew up in Simi Valley and for some reason I always heard bad things about that town.

[voxon]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

I doubt there's an undiscovered town in the entire state. In fact, most have been discovered more than once.

I know! I guess why I really posted this was because in other states you can find a decent town with nice people, good schools, low crime and it's a fraction of the cost. Here in California you can find that but it will cost you. I was curious about Northern California (especially past the Bay area) because I've never been up that way and I see so many different towns on the map but I've never known anyone who actually lives in this part of California.

[xani]

Originally Posted by Algiz

What great information, really useful, many thanks! There are so many things you can't know about a place because you don't know to ask. I wouldn't have considered air quality due to burning. They burn rice fields? Oh! I never knew that! It's like when I moved to my current property from having lived in the city all my life. I thought because I'd gone hiking in the local CA mountains that I knew some things about rural living. Oh, what a joke, what HUGE joke on me! Ya learn fast, though, and praise be to the gods that we'd had the sense to rent for 6 months before buying. We learned enough in that time to avoid buying next to burning rice fields.

Air quality is going to be horrible anywhere in the Sierra foothills above the Valley. Regarding Chico: on a lot of days, the place is sitting in a big cloud of agricultural smog/haze. This stuff is visible and looks like LA smog. This summer I spent a month in Paradise, which is 25 mins up the hills directly from Chico -- I had breathing problems throughout my stay there from day 2. There was very visible smog moving from the Valley, up the mountain valleys, it was everywhere and when you look down at Chico it was looking like LA and mountains were all smoggy. I've been watching air quality reports throughout the year and they were 'unhealthy' on a few days and 'moderate' on other days (moderate is bad enough for smog to be visible and felt). My breathing problems went away once I drove back to the state of Washington.