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iajo - Whoa! Thanks for that! I'll certainly have a look at some of the nearby areas you mentioned. In general, I wouldn't want to get too far from a "major" population area as I'd like to increase my chances of meeting a variety of people. But you do provide more food for thought.
I had looked into Davis briefly, but I thought it might be too small. And just college kids and families. Is there much to do there if you're not a student and not married (spending time w/ your family)? That DavisWiki website list quite a lot of stuff, but does that reflect the "on-the-ground" day-to-day feeling?
daves357 - Thanks, I kind-of got the impression that midtown wan't all that "gentrified", but like you say, neither is it a ****-hole. I think that's probably right about what I'm looking for. I like the older houses/mansions that have been split into 2 or 3 units, and the "vibe" of older (40s and earlier) buildings that have been updated. I can't stand "sterile" 'burbs, but I don't exactly want to find a bum in my doorway in the morning either. I'll take a look at Roseville - maybe being closer to outdoor stuff will balance the somewhat cookie-cutter, less diverse feel you mention. What do you mean when you say "Roseville does stuff right"?
Roseville isn't just "relatively conservative," it is far more conservative than Sacramento. I suppose you don't find as many Confederate flags on the back of people's pickups as you do in the small mountain towns, but Placer as a whole has the highest rate of Republican registration in the state, along with Orange County, and Roseville is the population center of Placer County. It's also a LOT less diverse than Sacramento, in all respects.
If Sacramento's central city is only marginally bikeable, Roseville is outright bike-hostile. There is a huge farmer's market/flea market (Denio's) but you pretty much have to drive there, it's basically a giant parking lot. Roseville was a fairly tiny town until 10-20 years ago, and it does have a charming little small-town "downtown" area with an equally charming little residential area of early 20th century homes, but that is surrounded by a large quantity of very recent just-add-drywall suburbs, "power center" strip malls, and parking lots. Technically you're a bit closer to "outdoor stuff," but you still have to drive to get there. Public transit consists of a handful of buses, almost exclusively commuter lines that stop at night.
Meanwhile, you can hop on a bike in Midtown and pedal up to the American River bike trail in a few minutes, or take light rail to the SP depot and walk across the river to Discovery Park (or ride it the other way to Folsom and pedal to Folsom Lake or Lake Natoma), or bike down the Sacramento River into the Delta. The central city is mostly mutli-unit housing, but there are still plenty of single-family homes. I have friends who bought older houses split into duplexes and turned them back into single-family homes, if you're into fixing up houses there are still some projects. The "victorian split into apartments" was done sometimes, but there are also older houses that were purpose built as duplexes, fourplexes or sixplexes (as well as newer post-1950 apartments.) Most are rentals, but a couple have gone condo. There are also a few for-sale lofts in old brick industrial buildings, but their number is limited--sadly, a lot of Sacramento's industrial buildings were demolished before the market for industrial lofts was big enough here.
I suppose "upper-echelon housing" is a matter of degree. If you really insist on a gated mansion with horse property, or neighborhoods where everyone is wealthy, the central city doesn't have that. There are million-dollar condos, in buildings that are mid-rise rather than high-rise, and lots of great older single-family homes on very elegant streets, but neighborhood income as a whole is mixed. As to who you might find on the front porch, that kind of varies by neighborhood--generally, the quieter central city neighborhoods are east of 21st Street. The northwestern quarter (Alkali Flat/Mansion Flat) is the most affected by Sacramento's fairly large homeless population, and one will frequently see street folks passing through, but generally they don't sleep on your porch. The "fancier" neighborhoods within the central city are Boulevard Park, Poverty Ridge and, to a lesser extent, Winn Park and Marshall School.
Davis is a college town. It's basically set up around student life, if you aren't a student and don't like hanging out with students the social options are kind of limited. Davis is technically "smaller than Midtown," but it's a town of 60,000 surrounded by farmland and floodplain, while Midtown is one neighborhood surrounded by other neighborhoods in a city of 400,000.
Speaking of which, the neighborhoods that surround the central city are: Land Park (early 20th century streetcar suburb, fairly wealthy), Curtis Park (ditto), East Sacramento/McKinley Park (double ditto), Oak Park (late 19th century streetcar suburb, very poor, probably the next Midtown), and Richards Boulevard (cannery/industrial area, homeless shelters, warehouses, and vacant lots where industrial things used to be) with West Sacramento (small farming/industrial town sprouting suburbs and urban infill) across the river in Yolo County.
The League of American Bicyclists ranks cities by bike friendliness. Local cities of note, Davis is ranked Platinum. Folsom is ranked Silver, Sacramento and Roseville were both ranked bronze.
In California bike trails are ranked by a series of classes. An off road bike path is considered a class 1 bike route. A marked bike lane along a road is a class 2 facility. A route signed as a bike route is considered a class 3 bike route. Most major streets in Roseville have class 2 bike lanes. Additionally Roseville has been much more aggressive about building new class 1 routes especially in new developments. It also has fairly ambitious plans for adding much more class 1 routes in the future to create a bigger class 1 route network. Denio's is on Vineyard between Atkinson and Foothills Road. Vineyard has a class 2 bike lane on it. (similiar to what one finds throughout the grid)
Proportionately less of the City of Sacramento is new development. For the most part this means that most bike access in City of Sacramento is still from class 2 routes. There are some class 1 routes, notably the American River Bike Trail, but the American River Bike Trail was built where the trail was cheapest to build, so it is mostly on the North Side of American River. On the south side of the river, there are rail road tracks, levees, the Blue Diamond Almond Factory, the old city dump, that all kind of cut off access to the American River and to the bike trail. There are some bike bridges along the lower American that help provide access, but the bike trail along the lower American doesn't feel safe because of all of the homeless people who are camping out in that part of the bike trail.
When it comes to bikes, I see midtown as so far more of a missed opportunity. In mixed use neighborhoods, trip lengths are shorter, so potentially there are a lot more trips that could concievably be done by bike. The more you slow down traffic speeds below 25 mph, the safer people feel on class 2 bike lanes. Second, the City of Sacramento needs to stop dumping green waste on the streets (usually in the bike lanes). Wet leaves cause people on bikes to fall over. Its time to get rid of the claw. Third its really lacking in modern bike infrastructure. No bike boxes, no loop sensor activation for bikes, no bike scramble intersections and not enough traffic calming. There is no reason for any street having traffic speeds above 25 mph in the grid. There should be enough traffic calming measures to insure that.
If you are into getting around by bike Davis is Mecca. Its one of three Platinum rated cities in the Country. It has the highest share of people getting around by bike anywhere in the country. Because of its lore in American Bike Lore, the Bike Hall of Fame just opened this last week in Davis.
Baseball has Cooperstown. Football, Canton. Bicycling ... yes, Davis - Cycling - sacbee.com (http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/25/2703855/baseball-has-cooperstown-football.html - broken link)
The area that is really convienent to get around by bike in Davis is much bigger than the areas of the grid that are sort of okay for getting around by bike. In this region, Davis by far has the highest share of people living car free and the highest concentration of people living with out cars. Its not just the incredibly high numbers of people getting around by bike, but its also the share of people getting around using transit. Its also probably worthwhile to look at both the route frequency of the Unitrans buses in Davis and how late they run.
Davis is a city of 60k people that is accessible by bike and transit to all of those people. While the City of Sacramento has 450k people in it. To get to most of those neighborhoods in the City of Sacramento generally you are going to want a car. The parts that feel comfortable and safe for walking or biking is probably closer to about 20k.
Greg given your interests before I signed a lease, I would probably look at and investigate Davis, midtown and Folsom. There is an older historic part of Folsom that might work. Its the only place that has nearby places to mountain bike. Its also a regional employment center in its own right. In terms of bike facilities its ranked Silver compared to the bronze for Sacramento.
Folsom is more moderate than midtown or Davis. It also doesn't really have the homeless issues that midtown has.
What midtown has is a lot bars and nightclubs. A lot of the frats from CSUS have there frat houses in the grid. But from your intial post, I am not sure that is what you are looking for. It might be exactly what you are looking for or it might not.
Thanks guys, this thread has been very helpful. (almost TOO MUCH info to process!)
@wburg - I'm certainly not looking for "upper-echelon housing". My price-range is $800-$900ish. Looking at online ads, that seems very reasonable in midtown. But of course, it's impossible to know for sure without seeing places first-hand.
@kim racer - Sounds like I need to check out Folsom a bit. You're correct, I'm not interested in bars and nightclubs, but I am interested in independent cafes, bookstores, restaurants, etc. that can be walked to and that don't close at 8pm. It's fine if there ARE bars and clubs, as long as that's not all there is. And as long as I don't have to live across the street from them. My biggest "worry" about Davis is lack of things to do - being that I'm single and well-past the age of hanging out with the student crowd. (And thanks for those links - some are very eye-opening!)
As someone who went to U.C. Davis and now lives in Midtown, the O.P. is correct in that there isn't tons going on for the older than student crowd, unless you have a family. There are far more options in Sacramento and Davis is easy enough to visit, which I do often. Unless you work in Davis, I can't really see a real reason why a single person would want to live there over Sacramento.
If you're not looking upper-echelon, $800-900 is certainly feasible for apartment rent. Again, look at the neighborhoods east of 21st Street. The neighborhoods south of R Street and west of about 16th tend to be pretty quiet, rents are a little cheaper but the places are less fancy and more scruffy. Apartment prices in Davis and Folsom will probably be higher than Sacramento, and in Davis the apartments in that price range are almost certainly dominated by students.
Folsom has a charming old town, but it's a very small part of Folsom, just a few blocks of Sutter Street, which is otherwise a fairly generic (if comfortably wealthy) suburb, mostly built in the past couple of decades on top of gold dredger tailings. Downtown Folsom is "walkable" in the sense that you can drive there, walk around, and drive home--unless you live in one of the few dozen houses in the historic neighborhood next to downtown Folsom, you can't really walk there.
Despite some of the glowing reviews of Davis, and its undeniable status as Bike-Friendly Town USA, it should be noted that Davis has a population of 60,000 and UC Davis has about 30,000 students, the vast majority of which live in Davis. This means that pretty much every other person you run into in Davis is going to be a student.
Yes, Sacramento's central city has a lot of bars and clubs. But it also has a lot of restaurants and independent cafes. Unfortunately, most of them close too early, between 6-9 PM (an unfortunate side effect of being a part of town whose population drops by 75% when office workers go home) but there are quite a few that stay open until 11 or midnight, and a handful of restaurants that stay open until 2-4 AM (Hot Rod's, Ink, Burgers & Brew, Lotus, Kasbah, Luigi's Slice, Pieces Pizza come to mind.) There aren't a ton of bookstores, but there are several (Time Tested, Beers, Newsbeat, Avid Reader, 24th Street, Richard L. Press, Book Monkey, Big Brother Comix.) Add to that the art galleries, boutiques, resale shops, a few thrift stores, assorted museums, libraries, cultural events and tourist attractions, and there's quite a bit to keep one occupied.
I want to bring up a point wburg made in another thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wburg
If you're trying to get away from students and parties, Midtown might not be the best choice. A significant chunk of the population goes to Sac State or Davis, and another chunk dropped out of school so they could take up drinking full-time.
As wburg indicated above, the social milieu in the grid revolves around a lot of different ways to drink alcohol. You are 36 years old. From your other posts, it sounds like you have moved beyond the age for wanting to live with in walking distance of a bunch of bars and people partying and drinking. In the Sacramento region the grid has a mixture of neighborhoods that are sketchy like Alkali Flat and Southside Park or neighborhoods that have lots of bars, nightclubs and frat houses like midtown.
Just given your age, I doubt you are going to want to live in the grid. I suspect you would be much happier in a neighborhood like McKinley Park, Land Park, East Sac, South Land Park or possibly Curtis Park. All of these neighborhoods are bit more residential, a lot less noisy and you aren't dealing with lots of people who came to midtown to party.
But the second issue is how interested are you in outdoor activities that don't revolve around drinking and instead revolve around being active outside? You made some indications that you are interested more in outdoor athletic stuff than activities revolving around drinking. If you are into biking, mountain biking, ultimate frisbee, kayaking, running triathlons, horseback riding, water-skiing etc. Then I think either Davis or Folsom just offer more and better choices for those types of activities.
In terms of late night restaurants and cafes, because of all of the students looking to study and socialize, I think Davis has more options especially on weeknights. The same is true for bookstores.
Well, since I'm having my own words thrown back at me, I suppose I should explain. There are certainly college students in the central city. But the OP isn't hoping to utterly avoid any contact with college students, he is just less interested in a student/college atmosphere than one that is more generally active. Sacramento has college students, and people in their 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s, and active seniors. Their common denominator is that they tend to be people who like a livelier environment than the suburbs (even the picturesque and charming streetcar suburbs like Land Park and East Sac) can offer. I think people get the wrong idea about Midtown neighborhoods if they only visit on Second Saturday or only see the busy nightclub streets. Just a couple of blocks away, in the residential parts of the same neighborhood, it's a very different story--but if you want to participate in evening or late-night activities, drinking or non-drinking, they are very convenient and you don't even have to find a parking space. In Davis, because those late-night places in Davis are there to facilitate student life, again you see a student-dominated environment. In Sacramento, there is more of an age range, and not all the entertainment options are student-oriented.
I'm 41 years old. I go to clubs and live shows occasionally but I don't hang out in bars. I live 2 blocks from a fairly large cluster of Midtown bars, and other than the occasional cluster of drunks stumbling down the alley at closing time, and slightly congested parking on weekend nights, I don't even notice their presence from my front porch.
Yes, there are sketchier parts like Alkali Flat, which is why I suggested the OP look generally east of 21st Street.
About outdoor sports: Both those organizations are associated with the college, which means that most of those participating will be college students. Sacramento's central city has multiple options for organized sports--baseball, tennis, basketball, even adult intramural dodgeball--plus close access to the American and Sacramento River, where water sports, biking, and running are common activities.
As someone who has lived in both Davis and Sacramento, I would vote for Davis. More stuff to do, nicer place to live (fewer drunks, fewer homeless people). Infinitely better bike infrastructure.
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