Today I drove my mother to Oakdale to visit Fr. T. That's the closest I've gotten to Yosemite.
We passed by Tracy, Manteca, Escalon. While we were driving on 120, my mother said the towns looked like "a village," and she surmised that the people living there are more simple. Father conferred; he commented later that the people live a more human life, and they take things more slowly. The habitants of Oakdale are mostly whites and Hispanics. The church in Oakland has a decent exterior; the interior has been "updated" but the wreckovation wasn't taken too far.
Would I move there? It is supposed to be California farmland, but it looks rather dry and I am guessing that the temperature goes up during the summer. I don't know if I could handle that, though it may be no worse than summer in Silicon Valley. What of the rest of Stanislaus County? I should check out Stockton and Modesto. There is no real city center to Oakdale, though there is a small downtown. Father said most people do not congregate anywhere on the weekends; they gather with their families, which isn't a bad thing. Having a village center/square or village green would help members of a community celebrate together, though. Why is the development of towns and cities in the United States so lacking, in comparison with European towns and cities? (Is this inadequate development of civic life equally found in all regions?)
The boonies are not worse off in this regard than the megapolises, like San Francisco and New York City.
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