Any advice for young family moving to Rockin/Roseville? (Sacramento: low income, to rent)

[pikwiks10]

Hi everyone,

My family and I are moving from NJ to the Sacramento valley and are pretty nervous about this move across the country! This would be our first move with a toddler.

We live currently in a very cosmopolitan and multi-cultural part of NJ and are hoping to find something similar on the west coast. We have a large Indian community here with a lot of Asian restaurants and proximity to NYC and Philli. We love it here but are so done with the weather and the roughness of the east coast that going west seems like a refreshing breath of ocean air.

Just wanted to make sure that as we fantasize about a better quality of life in the Roseville/Rockin area, we aren't deluding ourselves!

Hence this post and need for some solid advice. I am going to be working in Roseville and my hubby mostly will be commuting by Amtrak to SF. We are looking to rent a town home or a good 3 bedroom in a family oriented community with all the amenities and close to schools, highways, entertainment, etc.

I have looked at Woodstream Town homes and town homes in Cirby way. Any reviews are greatly appreciated.
Also how about the Roseville and Rocking city based daycare/Montessori/pre-schools? Any good recommendations for a superior level Montessori?
How close are Indian restaurants in Yuba city viz Roseville and Rockin?
Lastly, is there a large south Asian community in these two areas?

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

I appreciate your help and feedback.

[scorpio516]

Small Indian community. I only know one Indian - she's from the southeast. A couple restaurants, but nothing much. A small Indian grocer right where Antelope, Citrus Heights, and Roseville hit. Corner of Roseville Rd and Antelope rd.
Quite a large SE Asian population though, a lot of Vietnamese. And a lot of hispanics, and a whole lot of white people.
All of Roseville and Rocklin is family friendly, except MAYBE the triangle area between 80 and the railroad tracks and Cirby. But it depends on what your comfortable with - lots of families, but it's one of the only low income areas.
I don't know exactly about the complex you looked at, but the area is nice. very close to the galleria, IMHO within walking distance of Johnson Springview park - has a preschool there and real nice playgrounds. It's too bad they moved the library to off Rocklin Rd by 80, it used to be in that park too. I've got some friends who lived on the other side of 65 from that complex in Roseville. They loved being able to go up to all the resturants at Creekside without any problems - Italian/tex-mex/american chain fare though.

Yuba City is a decent drive up 65. About 45 minutes through mostly farmland, unless you hit all traffic going to Lincoln.

But it's quite easy to take the train from Rocklin or Roseville to Richmond then hop on BART. It just takes a while. I haven't heard anything about bad daycare/preschool either.

[wburg]

Roseville is very very very very white. And while East Indian is technically considered "Caucasian," by "white" I mean European white. It's about as far from "cosmopolitan and multi-cultural" as one is likely to find in California. Now, Roseville has grown by leaps and bounds over the past couple of decades, but most of that growth is basically things like auto malls and suburban subdivisions, not cultural amenities or urban form. For entertainment, there's a mall. Politically, Roseville is very conservative, with about the highest percentage of Republican-registered votes in the state. I suppose with the growing yuppification of the city you don't see as many Confederate flags as one used to.

There is only one actual train from Roseville to the Bay Area per day in each direction, one in the morning and one in the evening--the rest of the Capitol Corridor runs use buses through Roseville and the trains start in Sacramento. It's about a 2-hour trip.

Roseville (and Sacramento in general) is nowhere near the ocean air--that's a trip of an hour or two to the west.

[Think About It!]

Originally Posted by pikwiks10

We live currently in a very cosmopolitan and multi-cultural part of NJ and are hoping to find something similar on the west coast.

Just wanted to make sure that as we fantasize about a better quality of life in the Roseville/Rockin area, we aren't deluding ourselves!

I appreciate your help and feedback.

Well...what do you really want? Rocklin / Roseville have a really good quality of life for a family. However, you will not find it very "multi-cultural" at all.

It sounds like you want the urban life in the suburbs? You will not be able to get that anywhere around Sacramento.

The Amtrak commute to SF is pretty unreasonable also. Honestly, pick whichever job is the better one and you or your husband will have to find work closer to the others job. After you decide whose job is better I would find a city near that.

If you think your husbands job is better take a look into Fremont. It has a decent population of Indians and has great schools.

[Ronnie2011]

If you are looking for east asian community in Sacramento area, you have to go either
1) north to Yuba city: Sikh farmers settled here for almost a century
2) east to Folsom: many Indians working with Intel and UC Davis medical center
3) west to west sacramento/davis/fairfield - this would probably mean a shorter commute for your husband
4) south to Elk Grove: not the nicest area to live though and a lengthy commute for you to Roseville

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR MOVE!!

[Bulldogdad]

Well one thing is for sure you wont find many Guidos out here. I bet your sick of hearing that.

Roseville/Rocklin is a very nice place to raise a family. Plenty of cultural diversity within the greater Sacramento Region. Everything is very spread out including the cultural diversity. Not as dense as the area you are coming from.

Relax you'll enjoy it. Well except maybe for your husband who will be making one of the worst commutes in California.

Have a safe trip and welcome to the tax base.

[sms1967]

We love Rocklin... but cultural diversity isn't the specialty here. We're like 90% Caucasian. It's easily reached in 30 minutes, however, but then you start to compromise on safety, education, etc.

The Montessori school near Wildcat and W. Stanford Ranch is supposed to be solid. Again, we do education and family life very well but you'll have to find 'diversity' somewhere else.

[wburg]

I'm pretty sure that the original poster of this thread is not white...thus is it safe to assume that, if those in Rocklin and Roseville prefer to find their "diversity" somewhere else, that they would also prefer that the OP and her family found somewhere else to live?

[daddiesgirl]

I live in Lincoln and there are a lot of Indian families here, Rocklin, and Roseville. There may not be Indian supermarkets, restaurants, etc. as you'll find in large cities, but everything is within a driving distance. The population isn't as large, and as the previous posters have mentioned, it is mainly Caucasian, but growing rapidly in diversity. In the 3 years we've moved here, we are definitely seeing many more minorities than our first year up. A community needs to be built one family at a time.

[Marsh511]

No, I would not consider our neighborhood (Whitney Ranch in Rocklin) "diverse", but each of our daughters (3rd and 5th grade), the ethnic/cultural makeup is about like this (around 30-32 students):
Caucasian/European/Anglo - 18-20
Asian American (incl Filipino) - 3-4
Hispanic - 3-4
Indian/Pakistani - 2
Middle Eastern - 1-2
African American - 1

This isn't meant to be accurate or representative of all classes, and certainly, the 'groups' I listed above may not be politically correct or the official classifications used by the census bureau. This is just based on personal observation from "knowing" my kids friends and classmates. Among the above are quite a few multicultural/mixed families (like us!).