City of Redding

Traffic, tweakers, and crime. People drive like it’s a war. That pretty much sums it up. Scumbag attorneys who run into you, then sue. Oh, and forced delivery of junk mail under the threat of no delivery at all. Fascism in America is being birthed right here.

I’ve lived in many places. I currently live in Redding and have for 1−½ years now. I love Redding. I have never seen so many public spaces (i.e, parks and trails) in such a small community in my life. The roads are pretty well maintained and, unless you’re around Cypress and Hilltop during rush hour, they are wide, plentiful, and more than sufficient for the population. The public areas are generally pretty clean.
My only complaint would be the crime, which there is more of than I’m comfortable with. We definitely need to care for the homeless, rehabilitate the substance abusers, improve job opportunities, support the police force, and crack down on the drugs.
Summers are hot, but even Hawaii has its uncomfortable weather. I hope to make Redding my last home. I hope you find it a wonderful place to live as well.

The good: There isn’t anything to do in Redding. There are some hiking areas and good biking trails. But I judge a town more on its people and overall atmosphere There are some national park areas that are worth going to — not far away and the scenery can be nice as you can see Mt. Shasta in the distance from most areas of Redding.
If you want to be a right wing type, republican surrounded by people with bumper stickers that say NRA Fight and pretty much pretend that everyone in the town thinks the same way as you do — then go ahead and move to Redding. I am only living in it because it is the only major city near my job.
There are a lot of people here that easily freak out if you want to drive faster than they do. I think there are a lot of people in this town that are trying to hold on to the ‘old ways’ I think they managed to do it to because Redding is an isolated town off of i5 between major cities in California. I have lived here for three months and every weekend except maybe two or three — I’ve taken off to get out of it.
Everyone in this town drives the same speed in general most all native Redding residents. I feel like I am on a road with a bunch of robots. There are a lot of people that like to drive slow and don’t give a rats ass if you are hanging behind them. This happens a lot though. On the freeways — when they want to go faster than you — they are afraid to pass you. Or for some reason they just don’t. I have had to pull over to the side of the road to get them off my ass more than once. The cops will turn on every light on their patrol car for a simple traffic stop. (I haven’t been pulled over) but I see this all the time. And keep in mind — the cops in Redding LOVE to give tickets and they love to hide behind bushes on i5 and watch you like a hawk! Oh yeah! You best behave!
4 our of 5 cars in Redding are some kind of big high rise 4×4. Drivers are strange in general. I have been pulled out in front of in shopping centers more than once — I honk my horn and they pretend to not even notice you. God forbid you yell «idiot’ at them they would probably run away in fear. It is amazing.
Redding never had an actual city plan until 1975. It is split into two areas East and West. To get to west Redding from the east side you MUST drive through the tiny downtown area (packed with cars) to get on the freeway. It is absolutely horrid. You would think that by now they would have built a bypass freeway.
Anyway, it gets VERY hot in summer and very cold in Winter. I think however that this place is best suited for elderly and retired folk.
That’s just my 2 cents. There are a lot of nice people in this town, but some how I get annoyed by people being a bit too nice. I went to Best-​Buy and every single one of sales associates kept asking me if I needed help. They kept doing it over and over again and it made me so annoyed. I just wanted to be left alone.

First visit and I’ll be back in the Spring. The river, the trails, Mt. Shasta, the parks, the nature; it’s truly beautiful. I have a good memory about some things and remember many a weather report on the Sac new stations; extreme heat is the norm in the Summer-​and we’re not talking about 103 degrees valley heat, more like 110 – 120 degrees. I’ll keep our camping agenda geared toward mid to late Fall and early to mid Spring. Looking forward to some quality time with nature; Bob of course, will be fishing.
Must do while in Redding, visit the Sundial Bridge and adjoining park along the river, a real treat… we must put bicycles on the list of things to bring!

My «A-​OK» rating is a testament to the power of childhood memories and emotional attachments developed when young. I’ve lived in a variety of different cities throughout adulthood (Berkeley — 3 years, Davis — 10 years, Sacramento — 1 year, Santa Barbara — 1 year, and Reno — 1 year) and, from a more objective standpoint, I can certainly understand why someone would choose to live in some of those cities over Redding. There are certain points in life, however, when it seems that the various types of stimulation another city offers fail to really hook you in anymore. When life sours, you think of home. When faced with your advancing age, you think of home. When you decide to take a risk with some adventure you think, if this fails, I can always just return home. If Redding didn’t feel like «home» to me, I probably wouldn’t see anything special about it at all. Lately, all I’ve been able to think about is how much I want to look up into the Redding night sky and see all the stars I had seen when I was younger.

Oh Redding. What to say? Unlike others I’ll start out with the bad, & then switch to the blindingly obvious good things that have kept this town from simply disappearing off the map.
The Bad:
* Isolation. Any other populace is an hour away — There’s Mt Shasta an hour to the north, Chico an hour to the south — half of the trip being down a dangerous road with everyone speeding & trying to pass even when they shouldn’t, & Sacramento 2 hours to the south. Nothing to east or west. And the drive to Sacramento is desolate. All this give Redding a very isolated feel, & not in a good way!
* Governance. This city could probably be run better by a group of domesticated monkeys. From corruption with the municipal utility, to horrifically bad city planning that’s spanned longer than I’ve been here (13 years, sadly), to corruption with the Police force (just do some googling/​youtubing), to special interests played out like crazy. My recommendation is to simply not read the news if you live here — ignore it completely! If you do, Redding will appear to be an OK place with a nice touristy attraction, beautiful — if out of place — palm trees along the main strip, etc. If you read the news it’ll just ruin all of that ;)
* Job Market. Redding is very well known locally as having a very limited job market. I believe this stems from a few things: Isolation (as noted above), education, & city planning (as noted above.) A disproportionate number of Redding-​ites are not educated. Generally people leave here as soon as they can to go to college — those who do generally don’t come back, & if they do they end up working at starbucks. But seriously — Redding has an extremely higher than average (for the state of California!) unemployment rate, & that’s not even touching on the problem. The real problem is that those who are employed are often employed in retail, food service, or construction & are getting 4 – 8 hours a week per job with no benefits. Even with a good skillset & education there simply aren’t many places to go to work here, as others have noted Redding tends to be strip-​mall after strip-​mall — you either work at one of those strip malls doing some menial job, you’re living on retirement funds, or you happen to be the lucky few who have a real job (most of which are in government, education, or legal.)
* People. There are sooo many idiots in this town it’s unbelievable. Most of them are either a) male, driving huge trucks & wearing flat billed hats or b) female, not driving due to suspended license, but hard at work popping out kids they can’t take care of.
* Bethel. If you live here, you know what I mean. Bethel is a local mega-​church that operates a school of ministry as well. This school is great, because it attracts people from all over the world. Any time you talk with someone & they have an accent you can rest assured that they’re here because of Bethel. The problem with this is that Bethel takes a very aggressive, charismatic approach with their church & school, and so you can’t go anywhere in public that’s not a bar or seedy club without hearing people talking loudly and excitedly about God (as if they purposefully believe that if you just hear them speaking such good things it will convert you & save your soul.) Now, I am christian, and this annoys the heck out of me — so I can’t even imagine what it’s like for anyone adverse to organized religion or of a faith that doesn’t coincide with Bethel’s. Basically, if you go to starbucks, jamba juice, the park, or really anywhere nice and not at all seedy (cause God forbid they go where the sinners are!) you will encounter these people, they will want to lay hands on you & heal you of your depression, your runny nose, your low-​paying job, etc. If you ever break a bone and are wearing a cast — do not leave your house or they will get you ;)
* Weather. Redding is HOT during summer. We’ve tied with the Sahara Desert before for the hottest place on earth. And it’s more humid than when I lived down in the desert in SoCal. Winters are generally cold but not by any means extremely harsh. It usually snows once or twice, but just enough to make the roads mush & bring out the worst drivers known to man (which Redding is also full of!), not enough to actually be pretty.
The Good:
* Outdoor activities. Quite simply: If you aren’t going to be camping, snowboarding, kayaking, rafting, hiking, snowshoeing, horseback riding, going to the lake, mountain biking, paintballing, or some other outdoor activity — then there is no reason to live here. These are the main things going for Redding, and it does admittedly have a LOT that you can take advantage of, & lots of groups to do them with. All of these activities are under an hour away, many of them can be done within city limits. The ocean is close enough to make a day trip of it.
* Gangs. There are none. Not for real. Not like SoCal or the Bay. People think there are, but if you’re not from here you’ll just chuckle inside.

Redding is surrounded by lakes, rivers and hiking trails. Nice slow paced city. Not much to do here unless if you’re into hiking. It gets hot during the summer months. They do have a lot of restaurants for a small city.

I’m going to start out with the good. Redding has a great location; you are surrounded by nature and a good hike is no more than a half hour away. Spring and Fall make the city/​town shine. Redding still has the small town feel and you will almost always run into someone you know. The sundial bridge and arboretum are enjoyable places to visit, no matter what the yokels say. The Good-Ol’-Boys appear to be dying out, and downtown is becoming a place worth going too.
The bad… I learned to drive in the bay area, and I have to say that the traffic is far less stressful there (obviously I am not counting commuting hours on the 880…). People in Redding cannot drive if their life depended on it, one cannot get up to the speed limit and forget about merging. Like an experience someone had below if you creep over the speed limit you will get a ticket. If you are a teenager with a skateboard you are a criminal (it is actually illegal to skateboard downtown, you will get stopped). If you closed your eyes in redding and opened them in Fresno, San Jose, Lancaster ect. (assuming you couldn’t see Mt. Shasta or Rednecks) you would swear that you are still in Redding, strip mall after strip mall. A citizen of Redding cannot vote for mayor.
I’m good at noticing negatives so I’ll stop ripping on Redding here because with all the bad things about it I still enjoy being here. It’s fun to laugh at the meth heads.
Redding is planning to sprawl again by developing Oasis road adding yet ANOTHER strip mall moving the costco and adding over 1500 suburban homes. Lets hope that this isn’t another shotgun blast to the heart of downtown like Dana drive was.

I absolutely love it here! This town is growing to be sure. but it still has not lost its friendly hometown atmosphere and its local charm. Most of us who live here do so because we love the area and the people. If you are just speeding through you will not get to know the Redding I do.
Its slower paced life still has the convience of larger citys. This town has grown a lot in the last 15 years I have lived here. But I still call Redding home. I just love everything about it.

Redding, like Fresno, is one of those Southern California towns that serves as a point between two points:
The kind of point you happen to drive through at 70mph on your way from your starting point to your ending point.

After spending an eternity driving in my teeny tiny coupe with my puppy yapping in my ear, I had finally made it to California. But this was not the California I had envisioned. Not. At. All.
Dark, rainy and scarce… great. Dark and rainy I can do, being from the Northwest and all, but I prefer to be around other existing forms of life besides myself. Aside from semi-​trucks, nothing. That is until I enter Redding’s city limits, and find blue and red flashing lights in my rearview.
«Welcome to Redding, CA. Here’s a speeding ticket.»
How is it that the one other person awake in this strip mall of a town decides to pop out of nowhere and fine me?! What the shit Redding? And literally five minutes before I reached my hotel, you jerk.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I had to spend my Halloween with you, Redding. Everything shut down except the Applebee’s across the street from my hotel. Very disappointing in more ways than one.
I hope I never have to return.