Bring your money & reside where the cows roam
-
1/13/2017
Redding has always been a unique city in that it's the last "large" city south of the CA/OR border. While there are several hotels & motels, none are 4 or 5 star. The Holiday Inn & Best Western are the nicest in town & while Redding has recently built a new hotel at Turtle Bay, it backs up to an extremely rough patch of town where homeless people & crime abound.
The homeless population has increased dramatically & the police department has their hands tied as to what people can be arrested for. Crimes committed in which property damage is deemed to be at or under $950, is a simple infraction which results in a fine. No arrests are allowed by law to be made in those types of cases. Theft is rampant in both residential & business & again, law enforcement does little to nothing per the laws in both CA & in the City of Redding, which is a very greedy city.
The City of Redding is run by a few individuals largely from southern California. They brought their artistic ideas to town & while they were welcomed, the cost was not. they made back-door deals with cities in southern California, received money & agreed to use the money to build another homeless shelter for the homeless who would be relocated to the area. Crime has risen just as the City Council's paychecks have. There are NO checks and balances for law enforcement (no internal investigation. They investigate their own) just as there is no checks and balances for city employees either. The city is greedy. Taxes are raised without taking a vote from the tax payers & when people complain, there is no one to respond.
Schools are not well funded & have been receiving less & less funding over the last few years. The city can afford to build a milt-million dollar sun dial shaped bridge yet affords its youth nothing in the way of a proper education. Simple upgrades such as desks & chairs are long over due. Teachers are very underpaid. Their union is always squabbling & recently, the teacher's union has taken away even more benefits to local teachers. This does not give them incentive to do anything. In addition to grade & high schools, Shasta College is sorely in need of basic upgrades as well. The professors seem to have lost their spark & the few who still have a spark, are few & far between.
Housing is overpriced & based on not only this report (here on Sperlings) but on other sites as well. The unemployment rate is higher than the national average just as housing prices are above the national average. Jobs are sparse & likely minimum wage. Benefits are few & far between. In my nearly 20 years as a Redding, CA (Shasta Co) resident, I have watched the town grow in population, but not in industry.
The outdoor aspect (hunting, fishing, kayaking, trails, etc) are largely what seem to draw people to the area. One thing to note is the city council has hired people from both central & southern California to govern the way things are run here in somewhat rural northern CA. The problem with that is, this are doesn't need all the laws that the lower part of the state does because the population is considerably less & the land size is considerably more. As mentioned earlier, the city council doesn't always allow Redding/Shasta county citizens to vote on what new laws will impact they & their way of life. Since the public lands are closing down to the public (take a drive to beautiful Whiskeytown for signage proof), people are forced to share areas which means we have trail runners, walkers, & bikers all in the same, dwindling in size space. This creates animosity among the various groups. Hunting spaces are shrinking as laws grow. Fees are being enacted in order to utilize public spaces & spaces which already charge fees, are being raised.
Redding really used to be a great place to raise your kids, get a solid education & find gainful employment. Those are days long gone & the future is looking more & more bleak. We are currently scouting a new home in another state so if you're looking for a fabulous rental in a spectacular location, look up Mygrant. They offer finer, tight-knit bedroom communities just up the hill from where the cows roam. We are close to town yet far enough away not to worry about things the average townsman worries about.
Amber | Redding, CA