Thoughts on our new city
So it's been 9 months since we moved to Sacto, enough time that some of my thoughts on living here have had time to gestate. Here are some of my impressions of the City, good and bad, in no particular order.
Sacramentans are very into being Sacramentans -- at least the ones I've talked to which to be fair is a biased sample, since I live in a pretty affluent neighborhood. But, I also lived in an affluent neighborhood in San Jose (Willow Glen is equivalent to East Sac in many ways) and the people there did not have anywhere near the civic pride as people here. I think it's comparable to the way Santa Cruz used to be ("keep santa cruz weird" etc.) and maybe to what San Francisco was like 15 years ago. I get the impression that the Sacramentan identity is changing as more and more people move here from the Bay Area. I've talked to some old timers who say that when they were kids it was very different. And its hard to put your finger on the pulse when the pulse is a moving target. But at the moment it's sort of Bay Area meets Midwest.
In spite of being diverse, the area is very segregated. Especially East Sac, which when it was first developed was specifically built as a whites only neighborhood. This bugs me sometimes. Even Willow Glen had more ethnic diversity. There is not much to be done about it in the short term. People don't seem to move out of this neighborhood unless they die, so it's taking a long time for the original homeowners to leave.
Being "not as hot as Fresno or Chico" can still mean ridiculously hot. The Delta Breeze works most of the time to make a summer day only have absurdly hot weather for about 4 hours per day. But sometimes the Delta Breeze just doesn't show up. And you have to run your A/C until midnight. And it's too hot to play in the wading pool even if the pool is in the shade. But from what I have experienced so far, and from what some of my friends have told me, most of the time it's not like that. Highs in the mid 90's seem to be the norm for a summer day, and a heatwave that pushes it over 105 is maybe once or twice per year.
I have been surprised at how quickly my body has acclimated and I have to admit I find the warm mornings and evenings enjoyable, even though it can be uncomfortable outside between about 2-6 pm. As long as the Delta Breeze comes on time, usually starts around 6 to 6:30, then by 7:00 it is wonderful. We eat outside all the time. 80 degrees isn't the same everywhere. In San Francisco, an 80 degree day means the air isn't moving, and everything just feels stuffy and gross. Here when it's 80 at 7:00 pm it's because of cool fresh air blowing through, and that makes all the difference.
The mountains are close, but not *that* close. On even a moderately clear day you can see the Sierras. On a very clear day they look like they're just next door. But this has more to do with the flatness of the valley and the height of those snow capped peaks. To get into the foothills it's about a half-hour drive. To get into the lower-montane ecosystem (same plants as are at the lair) it's about 1 to 1.5 hours of driving. To get to the peaks you can see from Sacto, it's 2 to 2.5 hours of driving. The nearest peaks are 75 miles away as the crow flies. On a clear day you can see peaks that are about the same distance from Sacto that San Jose is.
There are a lot of living things. A lot of bugs. A lot of spiders. A lot of birds. A lot of plants. I suspect there is a lot more than usual because of all the rain, so I'll have to revisit this idea once I've experienced a drought year. But damn...! When there is enough water, the sun beats down and the plants go crazy, and the exotherms thrive in the heat. Fortunately, the mosquito season was short lived. For a couple of months there were a lot of those too, and they were out all day long. I think maybe it's too hot for them now? But I have never seen so many spiders. So many bugs in their webs. We have some trees that put on at least 3 feet of new growth in the last 3 months. This certainly is no rain forest... but it's certainly no desert either.
There's something strange about being in a major city in the middle of a vast flat valley. It's sort of the opposite of being in the middle of nowhere. The middle of everywhere, perhaps. 4 major highways intersect here. Somehow, improbably, there is a port for oceanic vessels. It is also a major intersection for train lines and is only ten miles from the largest freight-switching yard west of the Mississippi. And on top of that there's all the government stuff. And yet if you head out of town heading north, south, or west, you will find yourself surrounded by nothing but fields and trees.
This is a great town to be in if you love beer. Anything edible, really. But especially beer. There are about 20 locally owned breweries and they know they have to make a good product because another thing about Sacramentans is they take beer very seriously. (Compare this to about 10 breweries in the San Jose area, which has about three times the population.)
It's not all sunshine and roses. There are some poor neighborhoods that are really, very poor. There is a sizable homeless population. There is a sizable meth problem. You really do need to keep your bikes locked up. Some of our bugs are cockroaches. As mentioned before, in spite of diversity, the diverse populations tend to stick to themselves. The current trend of gentrification and bay area newcomers is not doing anything to help. The city relies on massive infrastructure pertaining to water management, and while the levees have been refurbished recently, the massive failure at the Oroville Dam spillway was a reminder of just how important it is too keep the entire system well tended to, and there is a huge amount of money and effort involved in doing that. The ironic thing is it's one of the few cities in this country that *wasn't* built on the homes or the graves of Native Americans, but that's only because they knew that the entire valley turned into a huge inland sea every few years and thus they never established any permanent settlements here. When the rain was at its heaviest and Oroville Dam started to crumble, the anxiety here was palpable.
One thing that took me a long time to put my finger on was the lack of ocean smell. I think even in San Jose we must have gotten enough ocean air off the bay that I never noticed a difference in smell between San Jose and Santa Cruz. Going between Sacto and Santa Cruz I definitely notice it. I guess I've never lived this far from the coast! The first Spanish explorers in the area were impressed by the lush landscape and sweet smell of all the wildflowers which was why they named the area Sacramento -- something that rich and heady must be a blessing right? That story is hearsay of course, but there is a faint sweetness in the air sometimes, especially at night. Probably only after such a rainy winter, but like I said, there is a lot of living stuff here. And it smells like that. Except during that heatwave. Then it just smelled like hot asphalt and dry grass.
There's no bedrock. A friend had an old fireplace that was slumping to the side and the only way they were able to shore it up was to drive steel beams into the earth below to some ridiculous depth. They weren't hoping to hit bedrock -- it's just a matter of going deep enough that the alluvial deposits are sufficiently compressed that they will support the weight. Fortunately, there are also no major fault lines nearby (at least none that are known). But its weird to think that we are floating on top of hundreds (or maybe thousands?) of feet of sludge.
Sacramentans are very into being Sacramentans -- at least the ones I've talked to which to be fair is a biased sample, since I live in a pretty affluent neighborhood. But, I also lived in an affluent neighborhood in San Jose (Willow Glen is equivalent to East Sac in many ways) and the people there did not have anywhere near the civic pride as people here. I think it's comparable to the way Santa Cruz used to be ("keep santa cruz weird" etc.) and maybe to what San Francisco was like 15 years ago. I get the impression that the Sacramentan identity is changing as more and more people move here from the Bay Area. I've talked to some old timers who say that when they were kids it was very different. And its hard to put your finger on the pulse when the pulse is a moving target. But at the moment it's sort of Bay Area meets Midwest.
In spite of being diverse, the area is very segregated. Especially East Sac, which when it was first developed was specifically built as a whites only neighborhood. This bugs me sometimes. Even Willow Glen had more ethnic diversity. There is not much to be done about it in the short term. People don't seem to move out of this neighborhood unless they die, so it's taking a long time for the original homeowners to leave.
Being "not as hot as Fresno or Chico" can still mean ridiculously hot. The Delta Breeze works most of the time to make a summer day only have absurdly hot weather for about 4 hours per day. But sometimes the Delta Breeze just doesn't show up. And you have to run your A/C until midnight. And it's too hot to play in the wading pool even if the pool is in the shade. But from what I have experienced so far, and from what some of my friends have told me, most of the time it's not like that. Highs in the mid 90's seem to be the norm for a summer day, and a heatwave that pushes it over 105 is maybe once or twice per year.
I have been surprised at how quickly my body has acclimated and I have to admit I find the warm mornings and evenings enjoyable, even though it can be uncomfortable outside between about 2-6 pm. As long as the Delta Breeze comes on time, usually starts around 6 to 6:30, then by 7:00 it is wonderful. We eat outside all the time. 80 degrees isn't the same everywhere. In San Francisco, an 80 degree day means the air isn't moving, and everything just feels stuffy and gross. Here when it's 80 at 7:00 pm it's because of cool fresh air blowing through, and that makes all the difference.
The mountains are close, but not *that* close. On even a moderately clear day you can see the Sierras. On a very clear day they look like they're just next door. But this has more to do with the flatness of the valley and the height of those snow capped peaks. To get into the foothills it's about a half-hour drive. To get into the lower-montane ecosystem (same plants as are at the lair) it's about 1 to 1.5 hours of driving. To get to the peaks you can see from Sacto, it's 2 to 2.5 hours of driving. The nearest peaks are 75 miles away as the crow flies. On a clear day you can see peaks that are about the same distance from Sacto that San Jose is.
There are a lot of living things. A lot of bugs. A lot of spiders. A lot of birds. A lot of plants. I suspect there is a lot more than usual because of all the rain, so I'll have to revisit this idea once I've experienced a drought year. But damn...! When there is enough water, the sun beats down and the plants go crazy, and the exotherms thrive in the heat. Fortunately, the mosquito season was short lived. For a couple of months there were a lot of those too, and they were out all day long. I think maybe it's too hot for them now? But I have never seen so many spiders. So many bugs in their webs. We have some trees that put on at least 3 feet of new growth in the last 3 months. This certainly is no rain forest... but it's certainly no desert either.
There's something strange about being in a major city in the middle of a vast flat valley. It's sort of the opposite of being in the middle of nowhere. The middle of everywhere, perhaps. 4 major highways intersect here. Somehow, improbably, there is a port for oceanic vessels. It is also a major intersection for train lines and is only ten miles from the largest freight-switching yard west of the Mississippi. And on top of that there's all the government stuff. And yet if you head out of town heading north, south, or west, you will find yourself surrounded by nothing but fields and trees.
This is a great town to be in if you love beer. Anything edible, really. But especially beer. There are about 20 locally owned breweries and they know they have to make a good product because another thing about Sacramentans is they take beer very seriously. (Compare this to about 10 breweries in the San Jose area, which has about three times the population.)
It's not all sunshine and roses. There are some poor neighborhoods that are really, very poor. There is a sizable homeless population. There is a sizable meth problem. You really do need to keep your bikes locked up. Some of our bugs are cockroaches. As mentioned before, in spite of diversity, the diverse populations tend to stick to themselves. The current trend of gentrification and bay area newcomers is not doing anything to help. The city relies on massive infrastructure pertaining to water management, and while the levees have been refurbished recently, the massive failure at the Oroville Dam spillway was a reminder of just how important it is too keep the entire system well tended to, and there is a huge amount of money and effort involved in doing that. The ironic thing is it's one of the few cities in this country that *wasn't* built on the homes or the graves of Native Americans, but that's only because they knew that the entire valley turned into a huge inland sea every few years and thus they never established any permanent settlements here. When the rain was at its heaviest and Oroville Dam started to crumble, the anxiety here was palpable.
One thing that took me a long time to put my finger on was the lack of ocean smell. I think even in San Jose we must have gotten enough ocean air off the bay that I never noticed a difference in smell between San Jose and Santa Cruz. Going between Sacto and Santa Cruz I definitely notice it. I guess I've never lived this far from the coast! The first Spanish explorers in the area were impressed by the lush landscape and sweet smell of all the wildflowers which was why they named the area Sacramento -- something that rich and heady must be a blessing right? That story is hearsay of course, but there is a faint sweetness in the air sometimes, especially at night. Probably only after such a rainy winter, but like I said, there is a lot of living stuff here. And it smells like that. Except during that heatwave. Then it just smelled like hot asphalt and dry grass.
There's no bedrock. A friend had an old fireplace that was slumping to the side and the only way they were able to shore it up was to drive steel beams into the earth below to some ridiculous depth. They weren't hoping to hit bedrock -- it's just a matter of going deep enough that the alluvial deposits are sufficiently compressed that they will support the weight. Fortunately, there are also no major fault lines nearby (at least none that are known). But its weird to think that we are floating on top of hundreds (or maybe thousands?) of feet of sludge.