Anne

My husband and I are thinking of moving to Sacramento California. I know very little about the city. Can anyone tell me what it's like: conservative? diverse? expensive? We are looking for an older neighborhood with some access to the arts, culture, restaurants etc. Thank you!

Suzie

Though I don't live in Sacto I worked downtown for many years. I personally like the midtown area. If I could afford to live in the Fabulous Forties I would! The McKinely Park area has some very nice streets as well. Lots of tasty restaurants downtown and midtown.

Quite a bit of theater. Been a season ticket holder of the Sac Theater Company since '86. It's changed alot but still gets many great plays. B street theater, owned and operated by the Busfield brothers (Timothy and Buck. Many other smaller and worthy theater companies in town as well. Yearly, the travelling Broadway plays come to town as well as summer musicals.

There are a few art galleries and the Crocker Art Museum but I'm not really the best reference for that.

It is a government city so politics is pretty newsworthy. It's close to some of the best of California like Tahoe, Yosemite, Wine Country (both Napa and Sonoma and the Gold Country) and of course the Bay Area. All of this is within an easy drive (by california standards that is!).

I don't know your frame of reference for the expensive part but lots of bay area residents come here to get huge houses after they collect huge profits on the sale of their homes. Many of the transplants move to areas like Placer county, El Dorado County and some to Elk Grove.

Downtotwn Sac does have some homeless issues but don't most big cities?

It is also home to one of the 2002 NBA semi final teams. Go KINGS!

xx

Hot, hot summers

Suzie

Yes, but it's a dry heat. hahaha! I always love that one. Like putting your head in an oven is a good idea too!

The one thing about the heat though is that unlike most other central valley locations Sac gets the delta breeze in the evenings that really cools things off. Last spring we had a whole house fan installed and when the nights cool off we just crank that baby on and bring down the temp in our house really fast. Then about 5:00 am we turn it on and get the house really cool. It stays cool until the evening when we go out to the pool to cool off and by the time the sun sets it's starting to cool down and on with the whole house fan agian. We saved big air conditioning bucks last year! This would not work if you have summer allergies. The pollen in your house would kill ya!

I have to admit that last summer was great. Not too many days over 100 degrees. So yes Anne there is the heat, if that bothers you.

Suzie

Also to see what makes the news you can check out Sacbee.com or radio and tv like kovr13.com (cbs), news10.net (abc) and thekcrachannel.com (nbc)

mike

Anne--

Suzie captured Sacramento pretty well. Sacramento is a great place to live--I lived there for 15 years during and after I finished college. Yes, it is hot during the summer, but I like the heat and isn't that why you have air-conditioning? I beg to differ with Suzie in one respect--it doesn't really cool down at night in the summer--but the warm nights are what I love most about Sacramento. Being able to sit outside at restaurants and bars in shorts and a tank top is a great thing, and separates Sacramento from the Bay Area, where the fog and wind always tends to ruin a nice day about 5 p.m.
Because the property values are still reasonable, a lot of people relocate to Sacramento from the Bay Area, and in my years there I also met a ton of people who moved from Chicago and further east.
I would agree that if you want to live in an older part of town, then Midtown/McKinley Park area is where you want to be. It's close to just about everything.
Where are you coming from?

xxx

Just curious....if you know so little about it, how did you happen to choose it as your relocation destination?

dottie

Hi Anne,

This topic has been discussed a lot on a local forum called www.craigslist.org/sac
You can look into the message boards there as well for some detailed discriptions of neigborhoods. Some good responses here.

Anne

Thank you so much for all of the good info. above. It's a good question why we are thinking of relocating without having much information. I have always wanted to live in California but am trying to find a liveable area where property is within my reach. Some family that already lives in CA. suggested the sacramento, Santa Rosa area as more affordable and as a place that will have more tech jobs available in the future.

Thanks again!

local

Anne, just so you know, Santa Rosa and Sacramento are located in different areas of Northern CA.

Santa Rosa is North of San Francisco and Sacramento is in the Central Valley north east of the Bay area.

Santa Rosa is considered in the wine country while Sac is in a more diverse agricultural area suitable for growing Tomatoes, rice, etc.

There is tech in the central valley with NEC and HP in Placer County and Intel in Folsom.

The Vallejo/Napa area has seen growth in the tech industry.

Anne

Thanks local for the last message. I'm probably not very clear in my messages. I do know that they are different areas but thought Sacramento might be better for jobs though. My family also mentioned that the Napa area is starting to see some growth in the tech industry. I will try and follow up on all the mentioned areas. Thank you for all your advice!

SW

I have live in both Santa Rosa and now live in Placer county (near Sacto) and work in Downtown. The midtown is great and as a previous reader said, the Fabulous Forties (Street numbers) are older yet full of character homes. Santa Rosa was airport purgatory (no connections to anywhere, or drive to Oakland or SF to get anywhere) and Sacto airport is well connected with major service. There are a vast number of smaller cities adjacent to Sacto, so it makes Sac look like a smaller town with the population, but the metropolitan area is huge and traffic was never well planned. Good Luck

Suzie

SW is right about the traffic. It's bad enough during the week but come Friday it turns awful. In the winter it's the mad dash from the bay area to the Sierras for skiing. In the summer it's off to the mountains/Tahoe for the weekend. In a very short time the traffic has gone from difficult to nearly unbearable. I'm so glad our company relocted from downtown. I would have gone mad by now!

Stephani

I live in Sacramento and enjoy it! Mostly because it is centrally located to so many other areas. Not very far to San Francisco or to Tahoe. And we have an airport close by. Perhaps you would like the Davis area? They have a university with lots of arts, only 15 minutes from Sacramento and 45 minutes to Napa.
Yes, traffic can be an issue if you move to the outlying areas like Roseville or Folsom and you need to commute into town, but if you live close to downtown (McKinley Park or Land Park) I have never had a problem.
I have found Santa Rosa to be expensive, a lot of traffic and foggy summers.
Go Kings!

Monica

Mike, right with you on the warm summer nights. I grew up in Sacramento and moved to the bay area about 15 years ago. I really miss those warm nights--here forget about wearing a sundress unless you have a sweater, 'cause you'll freeze in the morning and at night.