Moving to Fresno

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I finally got a job, ending a grueling 9-month search. I’ll be moving to Fresno, along with my wife and 2 year-old son, to start a new career in bankruptcy law (hooray?).

Just wondering if anyone lives or has lived near Fresno and has any advice on where to live/what to do/etc. We’re thinking of renting a house in Clovis for a while, and perhaps buy a place in the future once we’re settled.

Is the air quality as bad as I’ve heard? What’s the commute into the city from Clovis like? Are there good parks for taking a toddler to? We’ve been to the zoo, and that was a lot of fun. What are the good places to shop for groceries/computer games/yarn (my wife is a knitter)…any and all advice is welcome!

2

Bankruptcy law, huh? You should get plenty of business around here. Welcome to the ass crack of the country.

Getting a place in Clovis is smart. The worst places in Clovis are on par with average places in Fresno. I live in one of the not-so-decent places in Fresno. I’ve had a police chase go across my lawn (that guy wound up shot about a quarter-mile away), there’s helicopters circling an average of two nights out of the week. I was sitting with by back sliding door open once, and there was a helicopter circling. Nothing unusual. Then I heard the loudspeaker from the helicopter say, “Come out of the house. We just want to talk.” After checking to make sure they weren’t talking to me, I slid the door shut and went back to watching TV. Not to say it’s the worst place in the world – there’s quite a few great neighborhoods here. But there’s also plenty of places I wouldn’t want to live.

The air quality is as bad as you’ve heard. There are days when the schools won’t let the kids go outside to play because the air quality is so bad. When you come down out of the mountains, there’s a distinct line between the blue sky and the brown sludge in the Valley.

If you’re heading into downtown from Clovis, the commute is crap. And there’s no avoiding it. 168 is the only freeway in from Clovis, and it’s jam-packed during rush hour. This place is a textbook example of urban sprawl gone wrong. I’d still prefer this to L.A. rush hour, though.

Plenty of good parks. Woodward is a lot of fun to wander around, plus we have Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon each a little over an hour’s drive away.

We still have a zoo?

Groceries/games/yarn would probably be the box stores. Not a whole lot of independent stuff still around, although Rasputin is killer for music and movies. My mom loves to crochet. I can ask her.

Uh… that’s about it. The Grizzlies (Giants AAA affiliate) are great fun come baseball season. We used to have a minor-league hockey team, but they folded in the middle of this season and totally screwed the entire league over. When it comes to football, it’s a lot of fun to watch Pat Hill build up his team only to be mediocre every year.

My take on the city may be a little jaded, but I’ve lived here since third grade. Feel free to drop me a line.

3

in the summer Fresno is located about 3 feet from the exhaust vent from Hell. I used to live in Turlock. When I would head to LA it got hotter as I approached Fresno and cooled off after I had passed Fresno.
In the winter you get toolie fog. Ever driven by braille?
Actually there are some very nice neighborhoods in the Fresno area. Homes that would cost 4X as much if they were in LA.
It is very warm in the summer though.

4

On the plus side, at least it isn’t Bakersfield.

5

Yes. As bad as things are in Fresno, we can always look down our noses at those jerks.

And yes, forgot about the heat. I hope you don’t have a black car with leather seats. I think we had about 30 straight days (or something ridiculous like that) of triple-digit weather this past summer.

6

By July you will say this at least once:

“The weather has cooled down this week. It’s only 98 today.”

My aunt, Cyn used to live there, hopefully she’ll run across this thread. Where are you moving from?

7

Beautiful Millerton Lakeis just up the road.

And you’ve got the AAA Fresno Grizzlies.

8

My sister-in-law lives in Hanford (south of Fresno) and the air quality out there is cows. Lots of dairies there. But I did want to say there is a really nice yarn store in Visalia (also s. of Fresno) called Knitter’s Haven. It’s small but they have some lovely yarns and some nice knitters. There are also a couple of yarn stores in Fresno but I have not been to them.

9

Moving from Santa Barbara, but even if I could find a job here, we can’t reasonably afford to stay here.
The poor weather and high crime are discouraging, but not really a surprise I guess. I gotta start somewhere. :slight_smile:
Maybe we’ll spend our free time in Yosemite…

Oh, and my mother and sister live in Visalia, so I am somewhat familiar with the area, and it’ll be nice to have family nearby.

10

Fresno is the ass of the USA. My wife and her family lived there all their lives. I’ve been there many times. I lived in the Central Valley (near Visalia) for 6 years.

It’s not overall horrible, but the ridiculous conservatism and religiosity, combined with the crippling, soul-sucking summer heat makes me wonder why anyone ever goes there.

On the plus side, we owned a house on an acre of land, and our mortgage was literally half of what we now pay in rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in SF.

Sorry, just my $.02

Joe

11

I understand that feeling (see my location). I’m actually looking into leaving the state for school because cost of living has gotten so ridiculous.

12

21 year fresno/clovis resident here.

Fresno is a very big place, like any big city, it has its good and bad parts. Generally speaking, further north is better. IMHO its about half as bad as everyone is making it out to be. The commute from most of Clovis to downtown Fresno areas has been greatly improved over the last few years by the extension of highway 168.

Clovis can be nice but check out some options in Fresno. Zip code 93711 has alot of the old ritzy neighborhoods from the 70’s and are still very nice areas for about 20% less than their Clovis counterparts. Clovis’s big selling points well regarded schools and any given 4-5 police cars at one spot = instant SWAT team, nobody screws with the cops in Clovis. It is also far more “keep up with the Joneses” in Clovis.

Fresno has had problems with crime at times but alot of it is focused around a dozen or so areas that are pretty easy to avoid. Its not dodge city or anything. Assuming you aim north of Shaw ave its pretty hard to go wrong and only 1-2 of the not so savory areas are there mostly around CSUF.

Depending on where you might work there are several other neighboring communities like Kerman, Fowler, or Selma that may interest you as well.

Fog can be ugly, but you get used to it, and when its really bad CHP will pace the freeways so no random idiot kills a few dozen people at a whack.

IMHO summer is the hard part, we some times have 10 day runs of 105+ sometimes liberally sprinkled with 110’s. You stay indoors, people do die of heat related issues pretty regularly. Go for cars with fabric seats or plan on singed thighs. Sometimes I wonder why anyone buys a black car here, I think they are looking for some kind of self starting fusion reaction or something.

One of the big pluses here is we have kinda hit a critical mass for “big city stuff” in the last few years, big concerts, fine dining, clubs, specialty retailers, etc are far more common than 5-10 years ago.

Bakersfeild…heh…yeah shit runs downhill…:smiley:

Dosipede Fresno…holy crap…micro dopefest!!!

I too live in one of the seedier neighborhoods, as I am fond of saying, I live on the right side of the tracks but I hear every train go by.

Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions, being in the biz I am I know alot of RE agents, property managers, etc that might be able to help with the housing arrangements. I can also raid a rental ads/classified stand and ship them to you if you would like.

13

Yeah, when I was single it was one thing. With a wife and kid, we’ve gone from two incomes for two people, to one income for three…and it’s just not realistic. The problem with leaving the state entirely is you’d have to pay out-of-state tuition, right?
Anyhow, I’ll miss SB, but not TOO much.

14

It’s heartening that there are some Fresnan (Fresnoan?) Dopers. I’ll PM you later when I have more time.

Thanks for the info so far!

15

Heh, yeah. For sure. I work in Reedley, but any given night you have a decent chance of finding me at either Robertito’s or Foster’s Donuts on the corner of Cedar and Dakota. I tell ya, 24-hour donut shops and walk-up Mexican greasy-spoon dives are what make me tick, and I got one of each in a neat little package half a mile away.

Also, I noticed from the “famous folks from your high school” thread a week or two ago that you and the wife went to the same alma mater. I was a Patriot myself, and I grew up hating the Clovis schools.

16

Carnitas Nachos FTW!!!

17

Heh, so do the students in the Clovis Schools

18

Dude you live in paradise…

I’m at Butler and 2nd, I think “BANG!” is the universal greeting here. :smiley:

19

I will pay out-of-state tuition, but the government will cover that for me (veteran). I have a friend who lives up there and he pays 500 a month for a duplex downtown. I’m paying 1275 for a one bedroom in I.V.

20

Damn, you are in shit, aren’t ya? These little Hmong wannabe thugs I got around here would turn their sphincters inside-out if I dropped them off in your neighborhood, wouldn’t they?

Rand, they’re raising the rent on my two-bedroom apartment in the next few months. It’s going up to $500. I’m so pissed.:slight_smile: