Must haves for rural living in California (Paramount, Bell: appointed, sales)

[notmeofficer]

What would be your parameters?

My list included

No jails or probation camps
(what is missed were juvenile group homes which are scattered around and not advertised.. now I can spot them a mile away with a local practiced eye)

No natural hazards,, dams (flooding), one way roads (exits in fires), power stations (ugly/emfs), railroads (haz mat incidents)

Industrial waste/dumps etc

Good water (in my case community water.. with a fire hydrant)
This became paramount after I lived through a couple of wildfires

Easy commute to town with level 1 trauma facility
hey.. we all get older.. in my case I wanted no more than 30 minutes.. I got 15

Easy access to recreation
In my case it ended up being 10 minutes door to boat launch

Area of nicer homes
This is subjective,, and where I live homes are all over the map

Nice local college
I have that.. Shasta

Quieter community..
I could care less about night life.. the only night life I want to see are the animals.. and NOT the two legged ones

Affordable land
By California standards.. which again is wholly subjective


What would each of you like to see???

[Charles]

High speed internet access. (more important than air, water, food, shelter,...)

Sustainable wealth or a job for cash flow.

Close to a fire station. (you can define close).

Cell coverage.

Gasoline or diesel generator, preferably with 220, three phase to run your well pump.

[humboldtrat]

Originally Posted by Charles

High speed internet access. (more important than air, water, food, shelter,...)

Really ??? Give me a break Charles !!! Twenty years ago, nobody had internet access and they all managed to survive. How did you get by without it?

[DMenscha]

None of that sounds like rural living to me Y'all got modern conveniences right nearby.

I do appreciate having broadband access. It's not provided by any big company, just a local geek who wanted broadband and got a T-1 line and he broadcasts wirelessly from his hilltop.

Then again, I consider any town with a traffic signal to be a big city.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by humboldtrat

Really ??? Give me a break Charles !!! Twenty years ago, nobody had internet access and they all managed to survive. How did you get by without it?

Survive with what quality of life? People survived before penicillin, surgery, antibiotics, and toilet paper too.

It was a lot harder to make good decisions back then. When making a purchase, people often relied on the advice of sales weasels. It's so easy to research now - the world's biggest high speed library.

In my next life I'd like a on board wireless card on my brain.

[timelesschild]

Originally Posted by Charles

In my next life I'd like a on board wireless card on my brain.

I tell my husband he needs a USB port in his head he can plug his flash drive into.

[notmeofficer]

Power is important...

PG & E is outrageous in price... and if you have to bring it very far it can be prohibitive.. way more than I have found in other states... 50k a mile..or more...and thats a starting price

In my case I have lines all over my property.. but I got to buy a transformer... about 3500.00 8 years ago.. and some pole wire separators to protect the birds of prey (which PGE passes directly along to each customer) another grand for two pieces of wood.. and then there was the 100 ' underground wire pull and drop from the pole.. total bill.. about 8 grand...

They made me pay up front.. including a 5k deposit.. which they ended up keeping for three years while they declared bankruptcy (which we all know was bogus and was a way to force higher rates). I finally got it back through class action court action.. but I consider them dishonorable dirtbags as a company

Ok if it comes through I have no use for PG and E... well.. its true..I dont. Im pre plumbed for major solar.. but I havent pulled the trigger on the 30k for a full time system as we arent sure we are staying here

I forgot to add about fire protection.. which up here is PARAMOUNT to safety... I get served by three entities (Shasta College, Jones Valley VFD, and CAL FIRE) so Im pretty lucky

Everything out here is on satellite... we laugh about phone service which can be iffy.. every time we see the PAC BELL truck at the end of the road we know we are going to have phone trouble because they are out of lines and hook up to any dial tone not in current use

[the_village_smithy]

Originally Posted by DMenscha

None of that sounds like rural living to me Y'all got modern conveniences right nearby.

I do appreciate having broadband access. It's not provided by any big company, just a local geek who wanted broadband and got a T-1 line and he broadcasts wirelessly from his hilltop.

Then again, I consider any town with a traffic signal to be a big city.

I was gonna say the same thing - what you want is to live in a city where all those things are available. OK, you might have to punch your own well, but seriously - if you want true "rural" you're gonna have to decide you can do without some of your city conveniences - otherwise, honestly, I can't see you moving to a rural area and being anything but disappointed, or worse, stuck someplace you're miserable. Because the rural parts - they aren't gonna change much at all, and even minor changes will be resisted kicking and screaming!

TVS

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Enough trees of burnable / lumber quality wood, with minimal harvesting restrictions, to allow self sufficiency.

[DMenscha]

Originally Posted by 5thgenSF

this thread is four years old.

Yeah but I got repped for my last post on it!