My town - 1/24/2010

great place, open spaces

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Great City without the Great City cost - 12/4/2009

Riverside, CA is an amazing city. With over 280,000 residents, the city manages a true vibrance. Nice parks, festivals & community activities in addition to the constant revitalization projects this is a nice city with responsible leaders.

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Riverside: Not For Everybody - 11/1/2009

I have lived here since I was 3, but for the last few years, I've started liking Riverside less and less. It's scorching hot here over the summer time. We also have so many illegal immigrants taking over the city. You'll find tons of them hanging around Home Depot on Indiana ave. The schools are overcrowded due to the budget cuts in RUSD and Riverside is ranked as having one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. A long time ago, Riverside had a good reputation for growing oranges and other citrus fruit. Now many of them are being cut down for land development, which is causing overpopulation, more traffic, and more foreclosed homes. Why do people move here? Because it's cheap. Homes that you can find in L.A. or Orange County for $1 million can be worth $700K in Riverside. It's also a longer commute to the larger areas where most of the residents work. In my honest opinion, Riverside is becoming a more undesirable place to live in. Once I graduate from high school, I'm out of here!

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weather - 9/28/2009

Weather here seems to get dryer and dryer. Although this summer was probably the coolest in years, it continues to rain less. If i were to continue living here, i would only live in a house with a pool.

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Climate - 9/15/2009

Our climate in Riverside California is pretty sporadic depending on the time of year. The temperature can be as low as 29 degrees in the winter months and as high as 106 degrees in the summer months. Our temperature is pretty good most of the time. We have very low humidity compared to the east coast and during the summer we usually get dry heat. We do get high winds a couple times a year. Overall though, Riverside California is good weather!

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Riverside The Worst of Everything in One City - 9/7/2009

Riverside has just ranked 12 in terms of stressful living, and 2nd in unemployment according to Forbes. We have the 3rd worst air pollution in America. The schools and medical system are perfect for the illegal immigrants its proudly and generously serves. Riverside used to have an interesting racial mix, but now the city is deluged with illegals who are sucking off the system and creating crime. Not that we don't have enough home grown crime. We had a long tradition of violent drug gangs for close to a century. The Zodiac killer got his start in Riverside along with several other not so famous outside of Calif mass killers. Along with several Los Angeles gangs like the Crips and the Bloods moving in, and a few bike gangs, Riverside is a lovely place to stay barricaded in one's home with Gun in hand. The weather is hot and nasty in the summer. It routinely is over a 100 degrees in the summer and in the winter it is biting cold for a southern california city. The air is so polluted it blocks out the sky with a lethal brown haze.It hurts to breathe here. Seriously. Things to do. NOTHING. Unless you like going to church, eating at a chain resturaunt, or staying home and getting drunk.You can however obtain crystal meth at reasonable prices. Our politicians are an unsavory mix of incompetence married to corruption. As for civic codes the City won't enforce them. You can let your 15 dogs, 12 goats and 60 roosters make as much noise as they like, make life a living hell for everyone within a mile and the City will do nothing. You can let your horse manure pile up 3 feet high and the city will not do anything. I promise you that.Yes Riverside is a sophisticated city where you can drink beer on your 30 year old beer stained couch on the front porch of your home. Employment has never been good in Riverside. Most people who desire a living wage have a 2 hour drive to Orange or Los Angeles and back to look forward everyday. Socially speaking Riverside seems to have more unwed mothers than any place I have ever lived in. Every day masses of teen aged girls / bay mommas stroll their new borns straight to welfare office. People here are are generally angry, combative, low IQ, uneducated, either addicted or morbidly obese. They seem unified in a general sense of a very real, unfriendly, mean spiritedness that seems to pervade this place that is best avoided. One reason to stop in Riverside! On your way to someplace else, in fact anywhere else, stop in Riverside and buy some gas. Then leave immediately. I'm serious, this is not a comdey piece.

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Not a family-friendly city - 10/25/2008

Riverside has several great universities, but I wouldn't call it your usual university town as the cultural side of this fairly large city is poor. And it is definately a city in which you need a car. Though Riverside is by far the largest city in what is affectionately termed The Inland Empire, many of the major stores are anchoring themselves outside of Riverside as there is the mentality that residents will drive to shop. This is problematic as the traffic is always bad and with gas prices high, fewer people are chosing to make these drives. Then there is the problem with the schools. In the middle school, for example, there are 250 kids on the playing field with only 5 adults to supervise them. Schools are horribly under-funded and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight to change this long-running problem. The schools are over crowded (over 32 kids is many 4th grade classrooms with only one teacher and no aide) and there are nearly 3,000 kids attending MLK high school with only 1 school counselor. Then there is the issue of few jobs that pay a living wage. There are very few professional jobs in the City of Riverside and its outskirts and when you read that there is high job growth in the area, notice that they are really talking about service / retail jobs. Most professionals have to commute over an hour to a major city to find a job that pays what a professional should be paid for their educaton and experience. I cannot recommend this city to anyone outside of California, though inside California it is quite a steal for home prices - particularly because of the number of foreclosures on every block.

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Vintage Living - 5/24/2008

I love the life I have in Riverside. We live in a converted vintage home in the Prospect place historic district of Riverside. This area of downtown Riverside has hundreds of classic victorian and craftsman homes. This city is great, plus there's 4 great bars we can reach just walking a couple of blocks.

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Transportation - 10/30/2007

We need more buses and trains to transport people!!!

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Recreation in Riverside Ca - 9/19/2007

Recreation options in Riverside California are one of the most underrated aspect of living in the Inland Empire as we call it. We live at the foot of the great San Bernardino Mountains that include many great resorts, lakes, and mountain streams. We also are just outside the desert areas that provide large areas for camping, off road vehicle use, and quiet historical places to visit. Riverside is 1 hour away from the fantastic Southern California beaches with warm water and many activities related to the coast. We love this secret knowledge we have regarding our recreation areas and how they improve our lives.

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Well Rounded - 7/17/2007

Perhaps if some of these people writing were to have half a brain and weren't racist, they might realize how well rounded Riverside is, with numerous school programs, city events, community events, and plenty jobs. A down side would be the smog which is the only reason I'm looking around for other places to live.

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Riverside/Inland Empire, CA Cost of Living - 6/27/2007

One of the last areas in the Southern California region where finding affordable housing is still possible!

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What can I add? - 6/9/2007

I have read the comments about Riverside. Unfortunately, they are all true. Lived here since 1977 and can't wait to get out of the traffic, congestion, smog, "desert," rude people, crime, and illegals. We call it "Signal City" because there are so many traffic signals. I don't know why everyone wants to live here - but they can have it!!

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response to teacher comments - 6/2/2007

Riverside does have a well known School for the Deaf. My daughter had been in special education since 3yrs in Orange County where the regional program is fantastic so was sent to school pathologists and good school programs specific for her needs. When we moved to Riverside, the learning disabilities system is pathetic, unacceptable. Jefferson school she was put in is one of the worst. Overcrowding, kids with severe disabilities are not separated from minimal disability kids so the learning is the same and poor. The teacher she had was aweful and we had to have her transferred to a Montessory school instead in Riverside.

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You don't want to live here - 5/20/2007

Riverside is great if you like expensive homes 400,000+, congested traffic, unsafe schools, and no community spirit. People are indifferent or downright unfriendly. I would not recommend Riverside for raising a family in. There is not much to do other than eat and go the the movies. Condos are popping up all over and the once beautiful hills and expansive land is being overridden by overcrowding.

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P - A - T - H - E - T - I - C ! ! - 10/24/2006

If you're into torn old beer/blood stained couches resting on the unmowed/dead lawns of paint-repellant shanties (I'm sorry, houses), this place is for you!!! Even if you're one of the outsiders who by an unfortunate twist of events end up touring a new model home (built on a former city dump that they will NEVER disclose about but you can look up in the city records) DO NOT BE CONNED! This place is a mecca for those who require to live every day like it was their literal last. Seriously imagine yourself late night, trying to relax with a little t.v. when you suddenly realize the t.v. is on to 50 (volume) because of your developing accustom/tolerance to the driveby shootings, left-over bar fights, domestic disputes, drug deals gone BAD, public intoxication, and plethora of MENTALLY ILL persons that linger near your front door. So lets review this: - Couches on lawns - Driveby shootings - Leftover bar fights that continue to your front yard - domestic disputes - drug deals - public intoxication - mentally ill persons Are you game?

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Teachers....What about the schools??? - 8/16/2006

With the comments of over-crowding of illegals in the public schools in Riverside, how does that effect the teachers and their time spent with the english learners vs. non-spanish speaking students? What about learning disabilities not including english learners is there available resources and time for them? Or should I look somewhere else? Dee, Victorville, CA

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Are you kidding me? - 8/3/2006

The town is a dump. Lots of illegals and air you can see (that ain't good). time to get out of Dodge boys and girls.

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Worst of both worlds - 8/2/2006

Until the recent housing boom Riverside used to be a pretty good place to live. There was little congestion, housing and general cost of living was pretty affordable, and though there wasn't much to do other than eat and shop it wasn't a terrible commute to reach the cultural and entertainment venues in L.A. and Orange County. When the housing boom hit a massive migration began from neighboring Orange County looking for large, comparatively cheap housing around the Riverside area. The result is that home prices have skyrocketed ($350,000 for a "starter home"?), traffic is nearly always congested (think 40 minutes to cross the city), hostility on the roads has become frightening, and there is still little to do locally except eat and shop. Basically, now the costs, traffic, and dirty air are much more like what you would expect in a major urban area; however, the entertainment and night life are still much more like a small suburb.

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Riverside is lame.. - 7/12/2006

I've lived here all of my life. When I was younger, I recall Riverside being very chill. Not too many people..but not boring. Well, now that at least 10 years have passed, Riverside is growing to be a congested, expensive smog-town. The schools are becoming WAY too over-crowded...and the traffic has become exponentially worse. The summers are very dry, but then again..we arent too far from the desert. Or you might as well say this is the desert. I dont care anymore. Riverside has lost my interest. And the city calls itself trying to catch up in popularity with the addition of some more shopping centers and crap like that. Oh yea, and slapping on more cheap houses to take away the land that we used to have. Bottom line, this isnt too much of a good place to live. I'm really excited to move away from here. Yay!

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