I was sad to leave nearly all my friends behind when I left the Bay Area, but the good news is that I have relatives coming out of the woodwork here in Citrus Heights, all within a few miles’ radius of my house. They have been leading busy lives here for decades and lifetimes. They are some of the smartest and funniest people I know, too. They probably wouldn’t take too kindly to my grousing about their neck of the woods, but then they’re the ones I stole the best lines from, so they have only themselves to blame! In contrast to people in the Bay Area, who tend to either be very kind or very opinionated, I have found that folks here tend to be both kind and opinionated. They generally wil

I think the thing about Citrus Heights is that it’s so—real. We don’t put on airs with fancy restaurants and wine bars. We just go down to the one great local white-table-cloth restaurant and get the before-6:30-half-price wine special. (Oops! Booyah closed last year.) We don’t get those European-style flatbread pizzas because Ciro’s traditional is seriously so dang good. We don’t—um. I’m done with this line of thinking. What struck me as strange about the area when I first got here was the strip malls. I mean we probably have more strip malls per square mile than anywhere else in the world. Sure, there are lots of neighborhoods, public parks, trees, but they’re all tucked behind the stri

As a recent escapee from Silicon Valley, I knew it would be different here in the Sacramento area. I got a good house for a good price (just before the market fell off another cliff, landing me in the High Hopes Heap) but I couldn’t quite manage the cute Midtown bungalows I liked. So I landed in Citrus Heights, on a lovely quiet street, backed onto a creek with kid-trails. In my research before buying, the negatives I heard were all about skunks and helicopters, but I knew these were pretty good negatives compared to my former San Jose home on a heavily trafficked street (and I mean that in all senses) that included graffiti and abandoned shopping carts and—well, traffic. I like it here—d

My experience is that one would be given an intersection—or a mall—and not assume everyone knows which stores are where, because in the Bay Area, I think people are generally more transient and so also tend to be a little less personal. There are a lot of transplants here, too, but I think there, it's the norm and it's assumed you don't know, versus here where it's sometimes assumed you MUST know THAT!

Thanks for the history and info. Who knew? Guess I'll have to get out of my little iTunes world and check out some music stores!

Bay Area is great. I've learned that Sac has so much more than it gives itself credit for, and a lot that the Bay Area doesn't have. Why compare a pho to a pot roast when you can love both?