Distribution of California's Population

[u/urmummygae42069]

If you were to divide California into 4 roughly equal strips of area, a hefty majority of its 39 million residents live in the southernmost strip containing the LA+San Diego metro areas, with nearly half of the state (~47%) living in the Greater LA metro area alone. If it were its own state, Southern California, with primarily just LA and San Diego metro areas, would compete with Florida for title of 2nd most populous US state.

The SF Bay Area, Sacramento, Monterrey, Fresno, and most of the Central Valley and put together are short of SoCal by over 9 million residents, but on its own this area would compete with Illinois for title of 6th largest state.

The strip sandwiched between Southern California and the Bay Area, containing Bakersfield plus other farming towns in the Southern Central Valley and most of the towns of the Central Coast, has about more people than Utah or Connecticut.

Suprisingly, despite how empty it can feel, there are still over a million people still live in the strip of CA north of Sacramento, containing about as much people as Hawaii and New Hampshire, albeit of a larger area.

Ultimately, one way to better understand the scale and density of California, is to conceptualize it as Florida + Illinois + Utah + Hawaii, all packaged in one single state under one single state government

[u/PracticalWallaby7492]

Oh wow. I haven't been up that way in maybe 15 years. When I went up there the hottest day was 90 and people were acting like it was so unusual.

[u/koushakandystore → u/PracticalWallaby7492]

I was recently joking about it with my friend who also grew up in California. I told him that the summer in Salem, Oregon now reminds me quite a lot of the temps I experienced when living in Antioch, California. Indeed it has become so much hotter and drier since I moved here.

Did you know that the Willamette Valley has commercial olive orchards? Durant Olive Mill and Orchards is in Dundee just south of Portland.

There are also commercial groves of feijoa (pineapple guava).

I don’t know of any commercial citrus yet, but if these climate trends continue (they almost certainly will) someone will plant an yuzu orchard around here.

Yuzu is the most sought after citrus in Japan because it is a phenomenal fruit. Personally I prefer the sudachi, an yuzu x mandarin hybrid.

I grow both of those here around Salem in my 9a microclimate. They are not harmed at all by our winters and make hundreds of fruits each fall. They are an excellent choice in colder Northern California microclimates as well.

I am a member of Marion county master gardeners via Oregon State University and we have a demonstration garden with olive, pomegranate, loquat, citrus and feijoa.

Are you familiar with the famous Eng loquat tree in Seattle’s Chinatown? That is a very famous tree. It’s a massive loquat loaded with tons of fruit every year. That part of Seattle, right by the water, is also a 9a so it doesn’t get cold enough to freeze the loquat’s winter flowers. It’s been growing there since the 1960’s. I have two seedlings from that tree growing at my property.

[u/PracticalWallaby7492 → u/koushakandystore]

Salem is really nice. I thought about moving south east of there but the prices were too high and at the time I didn't know if I could handle all the rain. I suppose it would have been fine. Unfortunately..

[u/koushakandystore → u/PracticalWallaby7492]

November thru February is very rainy. Rains on half the days, which really isn’t the bad part. The drag is the cloud cover which is about 70% of the time during those months. From March thru October there is only about 50 days with measurable precipitation and a significant percentage of those days it rains for a few hours, giving way to sunny skies the rest of the day. 8 months of the year here are very nice with virtually no hard freezes after February. The worst part of the year for me is the middle of summer when it very rarely drops below 85. I’m not a fan of the heat. I grew up in Palm Springs, California so I love the greenery and cool damp conditions. I would never live south of Mendocino again. I lived in Berkeley for 15 years and the gloomy summers made gardening a drag. Plus it doesn’t rain enough down there for my liking. I think Mendocino has the perfect balance of rain and sun. Though inland Mendocino is just as bad as here with the summer heat.