Davis or Roseville (Sacramento, Folsom, Rocklin: houses, neighborhoods, buy)

[lalawonder]

Greetings. We are relocating to the Sacramento area in January and are looking for a nice place to live. We have heard great things about Davis... the Spanish Immersion programs at Cesar Chavez Elementary and Montgomery Elem. I'm also attracted to the lush neighborhoods and bike friendly vibe of the city. However I find the houses a little pricey and small for what you pay.
I haven't visited Roseville, but some people I met said it was very family friendly. After doing some research, I see it has good schools, but apparently none have Spanish Immersion programs. It is also bike friendly, but the housing is much, much cheaper, from what I can tell. My question is...Is Roseville a nice place to raise a family? I understand that there's a lot of shopping there. Does this mean it's a strip mall suburb? We are looking for a nice town with an independent personality and good schools. Does this sound like Roseville? Please let me know...and please suggest any other towns in that area that fit the profile. Thanks!

[wburg]

Sounds more like Davis than Roseville.

One potential decision maker is your political party. Davis is a college town, and very, very liberal. Roseville is a strip mall suburb built around a little railroad town, and very, very conservative. So if you vote Republican, you might feel more comfortable in Roseville, and if you vote Democrat, you might feel more comfortable in Davis.

Davis is also legendary for its bike culture--the whole city is laced with bike paths, and the city's logo is a penny-farthing bicycle. Because it is a college town and they have a growth boundary, prices tend to be high. Roseville is profoundly car-centric, I don't even know if they have any bike lanes.

There is kind of a charming little "downtown" Roseville, at least until the new city manager's buddies buy the whole place up and level it to build stucco boxes. "Downtown" Davis is a typical college-town downtown, with lots of cafes and a few good bookstores and is fairly charming.

[volleyballer]

Sounds like you'd like Davis more. I do agree with Wburg on all. You might want to consider your political views. Davis has its own unique entity that is not like any other place in the Sac area. Roseville is always compared to Rocklin and Folsom. But there really is not comparison to Davis. People who love Davis put up with the high home prices and small houses to live there. But be warned that your kids might not get into Caesar Chavez school. It's a great school, but there's only 1 in the city and you'll be in the same boat as many parents who want their kids in an immersion school. So please don't buy just for the school because there's a good chance your kids might be put somewhere else.

[bluevelo]

Oh, that's an easy choice if you're bike-centric. Davis. Yes, Roseville has bike lanes but you are taking your life into your hands to ride around the arterials in Roseville. I've tried some of the group rides that the Sacramento Bike Hikers do out of Folsom that go through Roseville and its SCARY.

[miau]

I'm biased-- we bought in Davis. We decided that it was worth it, despite getting half the house for the same price as anywhere else nearby. The character of the town is something that really was what we wanted... Farmers' Markets twice a week, easily accessed by bicycle or foot, given that the entire town is connected by bike paths. Interesting cultural events. Educated people. Good schools.

Yeah, the politics can be a bit crazy, but I guess the rest of the aspects just weighed more to us. In the summer, it's DEAD (which I love actually) because all of the college kids go home for the most part. In the rest of the year, it's hopping and full of things to do.

I've been to Roseville, but I really cannot give any input on it.

[ukiyo-e]

I recently moved from Davis to the Olympic Peninsula. I had quite a few friends who lived in Roseville - most of them were liberal, actually - and I never "took" to the place much. There are roads you drive on there that have tan housing developments as far as the eye can see...which is fine if you like that kind of suburb, but I don't. After 8 years in Davis, however, some things about the place were wearing on me - things it took me awhile to see.

Without going into tedious detail about those things, though, I do want to address the school situation. My son graduated with a 4.3 GPA and wasn't even in the top 10% of his class. He "only" took 3 AP math classes (2 years of calculus and one of stats) and AP physics - his choice, not mine; he really liked math. Some of the kids in his class took 8 and 9 AP classes, so they had even higher GPAs - much higher, in some cases - I think one had a 4.7. My son had a friend who was valedictorian of his high school class in a rural town in Yolo County, and only had a 3.4 average with no courses in calculus or physics. He got into some top colleges that many of my son's "AP friends" didn't. So the schools are a double-edged sword, IMO. Your Davis child is competing with some very intense, pushy parents who drive their kids to excel in school, sports, and the arts. Of course, when they graduate, they're pretty well-prepared for college. The friend ended up going to UCD and flunking freshman calculus, and my son ended up with two scholarships at a small private college and doing very well. So I'm not knocking the quality of the education they get in Davis, just pointing out it's a very dog-eat-dog academic environment and some kids won't thrive in it if they have pushy parents whose expectations they can't meet.