Moving to the Sierra Foothills Area

I had a house in Nevada City/Grass Valley for a long time. It's a beautiful place full of friendly people and a great lifestyle but it became impossible to live there and I finally had to sell it

1. Smoke. I would never bring a toddler or baby to live here or anyone with asthma. There are wildfires all summer and fall and legal debris pile burns all winter and spring. The entire valley smells strongly of smoke almost all year round

2. Electricity outages. This used to happen just during big wind storms in the winter. It now happens all summer and fall as well since PG&E shuts the power off due to fire danger. All the food in the fridge and freezer will need to be thrown out at least twice a month all year long unless you have invested in a large generator.

3.Wildfire season. In the five years this has gone from feeling sort of exciting in a pioneer kind of way to terrifying. You need a go-bag in your car at all times and you need to park your car outside of the garage (in case of power outages) facing out for a fast escape. You need an app on your phone to alert you to new fire starts and you need to research and practice escape routes from any part of the foothills you might happen to be in. I'm not exaggerating. We completely stopped going out to the river or hiking in the summer because it can be impossible to get back to your car depending on where a fire breaks out.

4. Insurance. Impossible to get. If you get lucky and find it the cost will be astronomical.

You may be in for a culture shock if you’re moving from Berkeley to some of these places. There is very little diversity and lots of conservative thinkers. I have a friend who moved to Placerville and she loves it there, but she is a far more more conservative person than I am. When I went to visit the first thing I noticed was the Confederate  flags some of her neighbors were flying. My cousins (both medical professionals), live a little further down in El Dorado Hills and LOVE it there! You might want to check that out. Lots of young families and new build homes. It would be a little more costly than Placerville, but nothing like the cost of living in the Bay Area.

Placer County Board of Supervisors is very conservative, as are the local boards of education there. We have friends in unincorporated Roseville who are embarrassed by their representatives as well as scared for their trans child. I would suggest researching the local elected officials to make sure you are comfortable with the local politics.

Hi Mj, I grew up in Petaluma in Sonoma county - it was a magical childhood. We lived in a non-fussy neighborhood of homes with tons of young families with small kids. Schools were good quality, people were open minded and kind. Diversity isn't quite what you get here in Berkeley but still pretty good, and the downtown Petaluma area is really cute and fun. There are a string of towns up 101 that are absolutely lovely with cute downtowns and slightly more rural areas that would be more affordable. That said, these days the home prices between Berkeley and Petaluma don't look all that different - I'm not sure you'd really be getting the cost of living reduction you're looking for. But you might look in Santa Rosa, Sebastopol or surrounding areas and find something that would work for you. Besides the big fire they had up there a few years ago, it historically wasn't common to get fires up that way, and the weather is not as hot as places east and in the foothills. 

Happy to talk more if helpful. Best of luck to your family - we're in Berkeley now too and really feeling the financial squeeze.

I think that the cost of living will be less but remember salaries are lower than the Bay Area as well. Nevada city has gotten more expensive over the last several years. It’s an adorable town but I believe pretty conservative. I know lots of folks who have moved to parts of Sacramento or Davis and love it. More ethnically diverse and mixed as far as politics.  And yes the smoke is a real issue when there are fires- more so in auburn etc but can go as far as Sacramento. 

I left Berkeley a few years ago and don’t miss it at all😀

I live in Nevada City now after living in the Bay Area for 30 years (SF, Marin, Oakland). I have a 12 year old. It's not easy. We've been here 2 years now. The easy part is the financial: I've noted most everything is 50% cheaper. I enjoy the 50% cheaper hairstylists, but they're not as good. That's typical of things: cheaper, but not as good. Our house is fantastic, but fire insurance is money. In the two winters we've been here, we've lost electricity for two weeks both years and that's tough for WFH people. Even with a generator, wifi stays down that long. It really wears you down. The snow is beautiful and magical though. We can sled in our backyard. We live two miles up a hill from downtown. 

The education doesn't compare to the Bay Area. Our child has struggled to make friends and we feel her education has gone downhill. The teachers at Seven Hills (grade 4-8) are lazy and no one seems to teach English here (her teacher didn't speak proper English and let kids wear their masks below their noses (2021) until he got COVID. Hm). Then we realized the only high school that will be suitable for us — SAEL: Sierra Academy of Expeditionary Learning (cool!) — pulls students from the three charters before Seven Hills. The three charters are 1. Grass Valley Charter 2. Yuba River Charter (Waldorf) and 3. Nevada City School of the Arts. The first two have an endless waitlist, so now we're at #3. So far, we're impressed with the Director's focus on full acceptance of all children (more liberal), but we're disappointed in the teaching. Again, no English and no help if your child is struggling. Lots of talk about it, but no action. Very disappointing as our daughter struggles with math and reading since the pandemic year. We're hoping so hard she can get into the good high school (we're less into sports, so not interested in the very large Nevada Union High and she's not an academic — Ghidotti High). 

We also don't like the lack of food choices here. Don't expect more than a few delivery options. 

Getting good medical is difficult. We drive to UC Davis in Sac over an hour away for quality care.

What we love: the outdoor life. The Yuba River is wonderful with many swimming holes. Camping is amazing as we are so close to BLM and national forests. My daughter and her dad ski almost every weekend in winter. Lake Tahoe is 90 mins away and is also a fantastic place to swim and enjoy stunning beauty. The bike trails are beautiful! We luxuriate in the beauty of this county and never stop noticing it.

Nevada City vs. Grass Valley. NC has cute shops and cafes and only that. No box stores or common chains (vs. GV). The streets close down for fun festivals all year. There are so few streets downtown, that means the whole downtown, very nice. Pride flags fly in NC, but the parade has been canceled due to death threats. People have ripped down Pride flags. Our child was bullied for befriending a bisexual girl. There are Trump followers in monster trucks with massive US flags and also sometimes profane flags trailing behind. That's a Grass Valley thing.

No encampments in either town!! That has lifted our spirits on a daily basis vs. BA. 

We are starting to question our move here for our daughter, but we're staying.

I lived in Auburn and Loomis for 3 years (placer county) and also in Nevada city for two years. Culturally grass valley/Nevada city is similar to Berkeley, liberal, left wing, natural food-hippy culture. There is a lot of arts and culture that would please someone from The Bay. The prices up there are getting pretty expensive, especially as many people from the bay area moved there or bought second homes during the pandemic. There is the risk of fire, but this will be the case in any of the foothill communities, and Sonoma County. There isn’t really anywhere in California that you won’t be affected by wildfire or smoke. Especially in a more suburban or rural area. Another thing to keep in mind that the culture in Nevada county leans towards the fringe left. A lot of anti-vax types and conspiracists on both the right and left. There is also a pretty strong weed growing culture, though that has diminished in recent years. Placer County is quite conservative. I am a cis, straight white person, and observed a lot of open racism, far-right conspiracy theories, anti-semitism and Islamophobia. There are definitely liberal people as well, but you are not going to be in the same type of liberal bubble that you might find yourself in in the bay. There is a large Latino community in both of those counties but not a lot of diversity otherwise. There are a lot of really wonderful people in both places, there is east access to high-quality locally produced food, and amazing farmers markets. there is incredible natural beauty and outdoor recreation. In both places, I felt a strong sense of community, but keep in mind that even if you live centrally say in the center of Auburn or grass Valley many people live much more of a suburban or rural lifestyle, and I think it’s impossible to avoid a lot of driving. 

We moved from Piedmont Ave, Oakland to Sonoma County in 2008. 

We left in 2021, had enough of the wildfires and inept response from local authorities post-fire. Evacuations and power outages were ongoing for years after the big fire in 2017.

Public schools are meh, we did private up to grade 6. Healthcare is subpar to SF, Oakland, Berkeley area.

The things we liked about it, the natural beauty, were not enjoyable anymore due to drought seasons and contaminated waterways. 

It was way too stressful to live 9 months of the year in refugee mode...we practiced packing our car!

Petaluma seems to not get as many wildfires or evacuations,  do that could be a possibility. 

All housing is expensive, insurance hard to come by too.

After 30 years in the East Bay, we moved to Santa Rosa with our then middle & high school age kids a couple of yrs ago. We looked at Grass Valley/Nevada City due our love of the outdoors and proximity to skiing, but the conservative environment and lack of opportunities for the kids was a no-go. That county is the whitest in California and it shows. Our realtor & friends there tried to convince me that things have changed because there weren't as many confederate flags as when they moved there 15 or so years ago. That stuff doesn't just disappear, and instead they were replaced with Trump flags. I talked to a teacher from the public high school our kids would've gone to (very poorly rated btw) and he said that his students of Mexican descent complain of being called racial slurs on a daily basis.  I knew, especially as a BIPOC, that it was far beyond what I could tolerate to have a more affordable lifestyle. Also, the constant fire risk was a huge factor. Insurance is increasingly harder to get and/or astronomically expensive, and a fire would wipe you out, leaving us with nothing for old age or our kids' futures. Driving around looking at homes I couldn't fathom what it would be like to evacuate in the event of another fire like Paradise.

Santa Rosa has been a great for us. We're less than an hour to the beach, and it's just a little bit longer than before to get to Tahoe. The East Bay & SF is only an hour away, so we go down frequently to see friends, go to museums and shows (2 people for carpool in North Bay instead of 3 helps!). We also get to regularly enjoy other great towns like Petaluma and Sonoma. The pace of life is calmer, and it is a food and culturally rich city. The bike path system is excellent, as are the many hiking trails, and the kids get around for free on the local bus system. There are museums, lots going on downtown, and great summer programs through the school and parks & rec department for the kids. This includes free camps, and work experience programs for teens. Politically it's still relatively progressive and blue voting. Sure, I've run into more conservatives than I did in the East Bay, and I have one neighbor with a blue lives matter flag, but there's a live and let vibe here. 

The cost of living is considerably less as well, from everything from vet and dental services to getting your car fixed, not to mention housing.  There are some bad parts of Santa Rosa but otherwise it is so much safer here. It is a stark contrast to read NextDoor up here versus down there, for ex. there are significantly fewer break-ins and catalytic converter thefts (I've not seen one post about either in our neighborhood in the last 3 years). We've left power tools in the backseat of our car parked on the curb on a busy street w/out issue. 

Drawbacks are that I do have to do more driving than before to shop and go out, and it's not feasible for my kids to get to school on their own. Also, their friends are more spread out since kids at school come from all over, but now that they're older they can take public transportation safely. I also miss the rich diversity of the East Bay pretty much everywhere you go, which isn't always the case here. There is also the risk of fires depending on your neighborhood, but there are some neighborhoods (for ex around the hospital) that almost never lose power or have to evacuate.