Manteca

Okay, so Manteca is not really my sort of town. I was there over Thanksgiving weekend meeting my guy’s family and we hung out for a while. DULLLLLLSVILLE!

So, let me put it another way. It is like when I saw Terms of Endearment when I was a kid. Now I know it is supposed to be a great movie and got some Oscars and all that, but at 8 or 9 or whatever age I was when my moms rented it for us to watch, it was a snoozer. Because I was 9. Not the right audience, right?

Well Manteca is pretty much the same way for me now. Although I am to the point in the relationship where I am meeting his family, I am definitely not to the point in the relationship where I am thinking about a nice place to settle down. And even if I was, there is settling down and then there is putting your enjoyment into a box and burying it forever to raise your kids and Manteca feels more like that.

Manteca is by design all about raising the kiddies in as safe and boring an environment as possible. It makes Leave It to Beaver seem like Mean Streets. (Okay maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but still.)

So what do people like about Manteca?

It is pretty simple actually: good schools and cheap houses within reach of San Jose and SF (if hubby is willing to commute for 5 hours every day, anyway).

How cheap are homes here? The average home around here is probably less than $250,000. Maybe less. And there are basically no homes that go for more than $500,000. For people used to unbelievable prices in the Bay Area, this sounds like pocket change.

These prices probably have a lot to do with the Foreclosure Crisis, which probably affected Manteca more than other places since so many of the people here came into (and then out of) their homes in the last decade. (Manteca grew about a third larger during the last decade--raising incomes though not reaching the California average--people here still make a lot less.)

A lot of the homes here are newer homes from housing developments that popped in the last 30 years or so to keep up with Manteca’s explosive growth. You can actually see the homes expanding outward from the little town that once was, with the oldest 1950’s and earlier homes in the middle and newer and newer homes the farther out you head. There are tons of houses trading hands actually.

Okay, and schools?

Schools, I’m told, have a similar pattern to the homes. The farther away from the center of town you get, the better the schools seem to get. So Manteca High in the center of town is pretty awful, but Sierra High is pretty great! (Or at least well above average.)
They have malls and all the usual suburban deals but that is pretty much it. No one heads out to Manteca for a good time.

Crime is about average in Manteca. I forget where I was seeing this stat but I guess they get maybe one murder per year.

Oh yeah, and in terms of nightlife here, I got a taste of it and it didn’t have a great aftertaste. We went to the Rusty Hook one night. I am not kidding, the one pub in town is called the Rusty Hook. Not exactly a name that inspires you to want to taste the peanuts, if you get my drift. But heck, after a couple of drinks, the inappropriate jokes at expense of the bar’s name actually started to seem funny.

City with a bad reputation! Very quiet neighborhoods and old fashioned lifestyles! enjoyable atmosphere with plenty of ma&pa retail, large chains, and locally owned fine dining! I am definitely glad to now call this city my home! The city is surprisingly now a mass transit host to Manteca Transit. When I first moved here I would've never thought we'd have a bus system.There are no middle schools; elementary school continues through the 8th grade, unlike the city's Bay Area counterparts. The City now hosts the largely acclaimed Bass Pro Shops and Big League Dreams sports complex.