How would you rank these Central Valley cities (San Jose, Fresno: crime rate, home)

[Valley Boy]

1)Sacramento -an actual mid sized metro stretching from the Sac River to the Sierra Foothills
2) Davis - the nicest on the list but still a pricey, pretentious, college town
3)Chico - but for the state college, it would probably be more like Redding. Surprisingly pleasant
4)Redding- Where the valley starts to meet the mountains. Feels like a "front range" inner mountain west vibe.
5) Visalia- If you have to hang your hat in deep San Joaquin Valley, Visalia (and Ripon) are the places to be
6)Fresno-Meh. Large enough that you have a real airport, some minor league sports, and all the creature comforts of suburbia
7)Merced- Give it time. It's got a newer UC and will get more of a college town vibe as time goes on
8) Yuba City/Marysville -As far as the Central Valley goes, you can actually do much, much worse than here (believe it or not)
9)Bakersfield- the Texahoma of California. Complete with oil rigs, cowboys, and hardcore redneck/mexican culture
10)Modesto- Meth-death-sto, Mooodesto, whatever. At least you can spend 5 hours a day commuting to and from a Bay Area job
11) Madera- WTF. The epitome of a podunk valley shyte town
12)Stockton- Hell, CA. It's not the town, it's the people. Take all the bad stereotypes of every racial group. That's the average Stocktonian.

[dontbelievehim]

1) davis: the crown jewel of the central valley. Great place to raise a family. Great food scene. Great location. Slightly more scenic than sacramento, too.

2) sactoe - the big daddy of the central valley. Best overall food scene and best weather. Starting to get a little over hyped. But it Still has Lots of potential.

3) chico - the quintessential valley town. A Hip and a fun place to be. Very underrated city. Held back a bit because of isolation.

4) fresno/clovis bleh downtown and westside. Has loads of potential. Improved park system is coming, new uc med school, lots of mixed used housing, etc. It's going to look like a new city in a few years.
Has my favorite housing stock in all the valley. Townhomes, bungalows, tudors, mansions, mcm, modern homes, etc. Central valley is known for bland housing, but fresno bucks the trend a bit. River area is about to be built up

5) merced - nothing has been built of note since the uc arrived. Progress has been pretty slow. Downtown is cute and gentrifying. Has potential. Not as scenic as fresno or visalia. But it has slightly better weather than fresno/Visalia.
Edit: visalia is the better city, but i put merced ahead because of potential.

6) visalia - most overrated on this list. Nothing of note has been built in ages. Lack of college is obviously holding it back. Most humid part of the valley(ew). Doesn't get much wind to help with cooling during hot summers. crime isn't low anymore. Biggest thing being built in visalia right now - a church! Facepalm.
Might be the most scenic spot in the entire valley, but you would never know cause pollution hides the mountains. You can get beautiful sunrises and sunsets in fresno, yet see nothing but dust/pollution in visalia on the same day.
Has loads of charm, a great downtown, but it's about to get left behind.

7) redding cute downtown and cute area. But so isolated that it doesn't deserve a high placement. Worst overall Location, imo.

8) Bakersfield - great location, lots of potential, good housing stock. Might be the most underrated city on this list. Bakersfield will be moving up in a few years.
Cons are that it's dusty and has crime problems.

9) yuba city - i know nothing of it except that close friends have told me that it's much better than it's bad rep.

10) madera - kind of scenic with some nice parks. Okay housing stock. Lacks character and amenities - big time.

11) modesto - it's not stockton . Only good thing I can come up with right now.

12). Stockton. Overpriced for what you get. And Dumpy as hell. Go live in lodi or tracy if you have to be in the area.

[Bill the Butcher]

Originally Posted by General I80

9. Bakersfield (Marked down due to areas like Oildale and Arvin)

Oildale I could see. Oildale is a complete dump. But Bakersfield is large enough that nobody that lives in the nice parts of Bakersfield ever has to deal with it.

But Arvin isn’t even connected in any way to Bakersfield. You might as well as say you are marking Bakersfield down because of Taft. Or marking Fresno down because of Madera.

[Des-Lab]

IMHO, of all the cities mentioned, Madera is going to be the shocker/"sleeper hit" in five or ten years.

It has made amazing strides at transitioning from a sleepy farm town to a gang infested hellhole to a serious contender for future growth and family-oriented towns. They are building and cleaning up a lot. It'll never be a Davis or Irvine, but would definitely give northeast Fresno and Clovis a run for the money. Parts of it already do.

And I live in Tulare. We're getting an In-N-Out.

[dontbelievehim]

Originally Posted by Des-Lab

IMHO, of all the cities mentioned, Madera is going to be the shocker/"sleeper hit" in five or ten years.

It has made amazing strides at transitioning from a sleepy farm town to a gang infested hellhole to a serious contender for future growth and family-oriented towns. They are building and cleaning up a lot. It'll never be a Davis or Irvine, but would definitely give northeast Fresno and Clovis a run for the money. Parts of it already do.

And I live in Tulare. We're getting an In-N-Out.

Are you claiming riverstone/tesoro viejo for madera? Those are fresno suburbs, not madera burbs. They built them with fresno in mind, not madera, ca. If I'm ignorant and madera ca has amazing housing that I'm not aware of, let me know.

Madera needs a hsr station for it to really explode. If it gets a HSR connection it could take off. It will stay rinky dink if it can't get one.

[sacreole]

Originally Posted by Msw120

Why Shasta lake and Anderson?

TBH, I couldn’t think of any other North Sac Valley towns. Both towns are in the Redding area, so it may have been redundant to include them.

[Valley Boy]

Originally Posted by sacreole

TBH, I couldn’t think of any other North Sac Valley towns. Both towns are in the Redding area, so it may have been redundant to include them.

Sacramento Valley has always been more prosperous than San Joaquin Valley.

[Pro1000]

Originally Posted by dontbelievehim

Are you claiming riverstone/tesoro viejo for madera? Those are fresno suburbs, not madera burbs. They built them with fresno in mind, not madera, ca. If I'm ignorant and madera ca has amazing housing that I'm not aware of, let me know.

Madera needs a hsr station for it to really explode. If it gets a HSR connection it could take off. It will stay rinky dink if it can't get one.

Does it really matter since Madera is like an extension of Fresno imo. Fresno, Clovis, and Madera was always like a trifactor-three headed monster

[Msw120]

Originally Posted by ykcawtsrif

The OP didn't mention Porterville, Lodi, Manteca and Turlock. Porterville isn't much, IMO, but Lodi, Manteca and Turlock can be very nice.

I didn’t include these cities as there’s larger cities in their county. I only wanted to do one city per county. That being said Lodi and Turlock are nice, Manteca is a crappier version of Tracy, and I’ve never been to Porterville but heard bad things about it.

[Valley Boy]

Davis is the nicest. But it's small size means it is lacking in amenities outside of what is typically found in a college town. It's insanely expensive, given it's central valley location. But that being said, it's public schools are really good. Not a lot of violent crime, and a short commute into Sacramento for a job.