California's Best And Worst Mid-Sized City Downtowns

[JoshuaSantos]

Go hang out in downtown Fresno for a couple hours, then go to downtown Santa Rosa and do the same. Believe me, the difference is night and day.

Don't judge solely based off the photos! Don't just take it from me, if there is anyone that has been to both downtowns in the past couple of years, speak your mind.

[festiboi]

I'm torn here about the Fresno debate; I lived there for a few years after moving from Melbourne (don't ask) and my parents still live there; so I'm there occasionally.

Downtown Fresno IMO is very depressing. It seems like the Detroit of California. The city centre is full of abandoned warehouses and shops, homeless, and is crime-ridden. Parts of it are scary to go through even in the daytime. Granted, most cities have their rough areas, but as a whole it's a very dodgy area and there aren't many nicer pockets in the downtown area. Like someone said, it's pretty lifeless and none of the locals go there unless they work there and have to deal with the court or city government. Most Fresnans avoid it all costs and will cling to the northern, newer part of the city.

But...I have hope for Fresno. Although discarded and abandoned, downtown has some beautiful architecture and a few newer developments. Nothing earth-shattering as far as scale, but some progress nevertheless. If they are able to clean it up, make it safer and more desirable to visit, it has a lot of potential

[Wizewun]

I've been to both Santa Rosa's downtown areas and to downtown Fresno. Now that being said, I'm somewhat biased toward Santa Rosa so I'll keep my opinions to myself. I'll use this as an opportunity to post some photos of downtown Santa Rosa and let everyone else form their own opinions. If anyone has some inspiring photos of downtown Fresno, lets se 'em.

Santa Rosa (Pop. 161,500)
Fresno (Pop. 500,017) per Wikipedia as of 2/27/2009

These pics were gathered from various internet sites after a Google search of downtown Santa Rosa. Thoughts, comments,???





















































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Santa Rosa Development News

[festiboi]

Santa Rosa looks really nice! For a city its size, it's a decent downtown and there's some nice shopping streets; something Fresno doesn't have in the city centre.

Here are some pics I took of Fresno that make it look decent:






But.....it's a few blocks from this:

[JoshuaSantos]

Nice photos. Again, my impression of downtown Santa Rosa is that is was very walkable, safe, contains consistent retail, has some interesting architecture, and there was good amount of street activity.

Downtown Fresno has a lot of potential, especially with a city that large. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can truly flourish (:cough: downtown San Jose in the 80s and early 90s).

[qymekkam]

"pictures that make downtown fresno look great" if you were trying to make it look great you would have not taken any of the pictures of the closed and abandoned shops. places like warners theator or fulton mall wuld have been better. i dont see any thing bad about santa rosa from your pics. but of course your biased. even the hotel virginia you made look bad. its being renovated everybody dont let his pics fool you.


from mr biased

[qymekkam]

also fresno (well actually clovis) had the amgen tour too but thats irrelvent

[qymekkam]

image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr

[festiboi]

Originally Posted by qymekkam

"pictures that make downtown fresno look great" if you were trying to make it look great you would have not taken any of the pictures of the closed and abandoned shops. places like warners theator or fulton mall wuld have been better. i dont see any thing bad about santa rosa from your pics. but of course your biased. even the hotel virginia you made look bad. its being renovated everybody dont let his pics fool you.


from mr biased

I'm not trying to fool anybody. I think I've been very honest and stated that downtown Fresno is not an appealing place. It's ran-down, dilapidated, and not very safe. But I also mentioned it has some nice buildings and that it has potential. There are some gorgeous places down there like Warner's and Fulton Mall and ironically I've taken photos of them as well. As beautiful as those buildings may be, they are in a quiet, almost forgotten part of Fresno that is full of homeless people and no one would want to be after dark. Pretty buildings they may be, but there's just no getting around that downtown Fresno is an undesirable area. I just really hope that it does become appealing in the future and that it can live up to its potential.

Below are pics of the places you mentioned. They are nice, but there's no people and it's still empty, quiet, and dangerous:

[bayviews]

Its kind of ironic, on one hand, Fresno's been one of the fastest-growing cities in California, so its not a dying city like say Detroit. On the other hand, Fresno's downtown seems rather lifeless, with little in the way of any significant additions to the skyline, & little pedestrian activity. Fresno did have one of the first downtown pedestrian malls in the US, but it wasn't successful. Maybe its just that a lot of people ended up in Fresno owing to the housing boom & the lower housing costs, or because it seemed like a nice place to raise a family, rather than for employment or social & cultural life.

[CrazyAboutCities]

Great thread!!!

I been to Fresno before and I am not impressed with Fresno in the general. Fresno do have some classic buildings and it is sad that no one uses it or even bothered to restore it. I have seen the animation video of Fresno and California's High Speed Rail and it showed when new station built and it will add some new high rises around the station. I am not sure if it is part of plan or just vision.

Downtown Bakersfield is very small but do have some nice buildings. Last time I heard that they're planning to build a baseball stadium, entertainment center, and couple of mid rise buildings. I am not sure if it is still going to get built or what. In the past 2 decades, Bakersfield were very focus on developing new suburbs areas like Rosedale, Oildale, west Stockdale, and Gosford area.

Somebody should show the pictures of downtown Santa Barbara and Ventura. I am very impressed with their downtowns for city size.

[CrazyAboutCities]

Originally Posted by centralcali19

That is not in downtown Bakersfield. That is in Stockdale (Bakersfield suburbs).

[qymekkam]

Originally Posted by bayviews

Its kind of ironic, on one hand, Fresno's been one of the fastest-growing cities in California, so its not a dying city like say Detroit. On the other hand, Fresno's downtown seems rather lifeless, with little in the way of any significant additions to the skyline, & little pedestrian activity. Fresno did have one of the first downtown pedestrian malls in the US, but it wasn't successful. Maybe its just that a lot of people ended up in Fresno owing to the housing boom & the lower housing costs, or because it seemed like a nice place to raise a family, rather than for employment or social & cultural life.

ive never thought about that. that is ironic.

[OettingerCroat]

i love downtown Walnut Creek. is that midsized? 72,000 ppl?

[JoshuaSantos]

Downtown Walnut Creek I find pretty similar to downtown Santa Rosa, both pretty nice downtowns.

[Daygojay]

Hmmmm... I think people say San Diego isn't as good as LA or the Bay because of how short our buildings are compared to theirs. But if u imagine San Diego's buildings exceeding the height limit... damnnn. We might be shorter but that many buildings being that same height or close makes SD look dense also. I read on an online article that a NYC architect mentioned san diego has the potential, and even looks like a mini-manhattan LOL!! but we don't seem to see it. I guess if you look at downtown while landing at the airport u can see its beauty. If you search it on youtube "San Diego landing" you can see, their aren't any recent landing vids tho... their all like in 2007 and 2008.

[Daygojay]

Heres a vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WODh3eOEfnE

[JoshuaSantos]

Man, that airport is really close to downtown. Shows that you can still have height even with an airport close by. Hope someone in SJ is listening =).

In terms of fun, you can't even compare downtown San Diego with LA... San Diego wins hands down. It's a better designed downtown filled with vibrancy.

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by JoshuaSantos

Man, that airport is really close to downtown. Shows that you can still have height even with an airport close by. Hope someone in SJ is listening =).

In terms of fun, you can't even compare downtown San Diego with LA... San Diego wins hands down. It's a better designed downtown filled with vibrancy.

Their flight path goes by downtown, not over it.

[JoshuaSantos]

There is plenty of downtown to the side of the flightpath. Anything past Tower 88 should be able to have some height