Why doesn't California's northern third have a higher population? (Redding: unemployed, living in)

[Chimérique]

From North to South

Hilt, CA (top of California) to San Isidro, CA (bottom of California) Rounding up = 800 miles (795 actual miles)

Sacramento Int'l Airport to Hilt rounding up = 270 miles.

Sacramento Int'l Airport to San Ysidro, rounding up = 530 miles.

Sacramento lies right at the bottom 1/3 northern part of the state.

San Francisco lies just below the bottom 1/3 northern part of the state.

From north to south, Sacramento and San Francisco are no where near the "middle of the state"

San Francisco, and especially Sacramento are in Northern California.

[NORTY FLATZ]

Oh brother. We can find anything to argue about. Who cares if a city is North or South?

Now, if we were to divide Calif into 2 separate States, then maybe a dividing line location could be argued.

Knowing our Government, they'd try to divide it into "right/left" pieces, rather than "up/down" pieces...:\

[Radaghast]

Originally Posted by EckyX

By "Northern" I don't mean to include San Francisco and Sacramento, which are more approximately at the middle of the state, but the actual northern third. E.g. Redding, Eureka, Crescent City. What are the population constraints of these areas? Weather-wise, they're still more pleasant than a vast majority of the country. Best I can tell, the northern third of the state isn't really lacking water, either.

It's a combination of factors.

The first of which is that so much of the land is still set aside for agriculture. That means cities can only grow so much, housing development is limited and struggles to keep up with demand, and then businesses either move away or decide against establishing in those areas because it's difficult for their employees to afford the cost of living, or they can't even hire enough people to begin with. This is going on in Chico right now, housing demand shot through the roof a couple years ago, aided in large part by the Camp Fire creating a big influx in buyers/renters, but also just natural growth. But the Green Line along the west boundary of Chico limits where housing can be built because they don't want urban development to encroach any further into ag land.

Economies are also different in these areas, usually only a limited industries (i.e. Chico's biggest sectors are education and healthcare) so there just aren't a ton of career level jobs available. Outside of those two sectors much of the work is in agriculture and retail, with a significant portion of the latter being part times jobs for college students.

The weather is also more extreme inland compared to the coastal areas, you'll see summer highs go well over 100 in the valley. An argument could be made for higher risk of fire danger (except in Crescent City, arguably the wettest area in the whole state). The Northstate does suffer from water issues, but they usually don't hit as early or as hard as the southern regions who have to import their water resources from up there.

Then you have the issue of access. Some people don't like to be so far away from a major freeway or the interstate, and only a handful of the communities in the Northstate are on I5, with Redding being the biggest one. I personally think it's a good thing to be away from the interstate: less traffic, and it tends to slow growth a bit, but not everyone has the same priorities.

Those are the main factors I can think of why it tends to be less populated.

[BayAreaResiding]

I am assuming the main reason is there are no jobs up there. What industry is in Redding, Eureka, etc? I can't think of any?

Where would you work, McDonalds? Subway? Taco Bell? The mom and pop store?

They are just those boonie towns you see scary movie takes place, where life moves slow and everyone knows everyone. lol.

That is why most people don't live there.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by BayAreaResiding

I am assuming the main reason is there are no jobs up there. What industry is in Redding, Eureka, etc? I can't think of any?

Where would you work, McDonalds? Subway? Taco Bell? The mom and pop store?

They are just those boonie towns you see scary movie takes place, where life moves slow and everyone knows everyone. lol.

That is why most people don't live there.

That could change, though, due to more people being able to work remotely now. And some people are able to score decent jobs at the CC in the area, and the state university. What the area needs, is more doctors and surgeons, though....

[thrasybulus]

I always understood the main distinction to be Southern California and that border clearly being the Tehachapi Mountains, with everything to their north being not-Socal or, derivatively, Northern California. Clearly, many more subregional designations could be sensibly argued for.

[Steverino63]

Originally Posted by Chimérique

I hear ya OP,

Just clarifying, you do know that Sacramento is around 80 miles NORTH of San Francisco, and San Francisco is no where near the "middle of the state" either.

At least half of the Sacramento metro lies within the northern 1/3 of the state. All of the Sacramento Metro is well above the top northern 1/2 of the state.

A decent chuck of the Bay Area is within the northern 1/3 of California as well (parts of Marin, all of Sonoma, and part of Napa Counties)

Like I said, most of what you are describing and apparently want to know about is in the northern 1/4 of the state, not 1/3.

Most of all the jobs in this 1/4 northern top of the state are County, State, Federal, or hospital/medical jobs.

BUT .... per the map posted, Sacto and definitely San Fran ARE the "middle one-third."

The only other geographic denialism this bad is in Tampa-St. Pete, where people there deny they're in "South Florida" when they actually are.

[Valley Boy]

Nothing in the northern 1/3 of the state but meth, weed, and REDNECKS

[evening sun]

Originally Posted by Valley Boy

Nothing in the northern 1/3 of the state but meth, weed, and REDNECKS

What an ignorant remark.

[Racer46]

Originally Posted by evening sun

What an ignorant remark.

Tells you who you don't want for a neighbor doesn't it.