Pretty place, but lack of a middle ground
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10/6/2011
Whether or not you would like Grass Valley depends on your lifestyle and priorities. It's a beautiful hilly area, with a lot of greenery compared to lower altitudes. Traffic is easy. There are a fair to good amount of events going on here for a town it's size, such as street fairs, festivals, etc. There are great health food stores if you are into a health-minded lifestyle. There are also a decent amount of opportunities for interesting events and speakers. The economy has hit this place hard as there is a lack of large scale employers. The music and nightlife scene is very limited.
Winters are very wet, cloudy, and sometimes snowy. Not much to do here between October and May except go to the grocery store or KMart (unless you are into winter sports). Summers are very hot and dry, with somewhat poor air quality (high ozone) making it difficult to do outdoor activities during daytime hours. Most of the air pollution from the valley settles in at this altitude. The air quality is good during the non-summer months.
The Grass Valley/Nevada City area tends to have a interesting blend of people. There is a significant population of conservative fundamentalist christians, retirees from larger Cali metro areas, mixed with a large contingent of basic liberal-hating, tea party types who drive oversized monster trucks or loud Harleys, drink a lot of alcohol, and love watching cage fighting and WWF. There is also a significant presence of hippies, younger and older, who mainly live on growing and smoking marijuana. Our experience is that they can be very judgmental and unaccepting towards you if you are not one of them. So, it may be hard to fit in otherwise. There seems to be a relative lack of what many might see as "middle of the road", working progressive, professional types who don't have to use drugs/alcohol to be social and may wait until they are older than the age of 25 to start having a planned family.
Many, if not most, teenagers here are heavy drug users and unambitious, and it is a norm for many of the girls to be pregnant and having babies by age 15 or 16. This, of course, provides a less than optimal environment for parents who aspire that their children go on to get a college degree or become intellectually oriented. However, there are many choices for good schools for children (charter, public, and private).
Many people might aspire to come live here when they visit as they can be lured by the cute downtowns of Grass Valley and Nevada City and the surrounding landscape, but there are other sides to actually living here.
Guy | Grass Valley, CA