17 Reasons Not to Move to Rancho Cordova, California (Voted by the locals!)

Are you thinking about moving to Rancho Cordova? I lived in Rancho Cordova for a summer and got to see its many issues. My experience there has convinced me to never move back to the city.

Rancho Cordova has many issues with it. It is not a good place to raise a family in by any means. Read on to learn 17 reasons why you should not move to Rancho Cordova.

17. Not much to do in Rancho Cordova

There is not a lot to do in Rancho Cordova. Rancho Cordova has a few things to do. There is a Children’s museum, but the majority of things to do in the area are within Sacramento.

Therefore, if you want to do anything fun you will have to travel to the big city to get the opportunity to do anything fun.

16. Poor Quality Restaurants

There are mainly only fast-food chains in the Rancho Cordova area. Yet, there are a few family-run restaurants. Do not get your hopes up, they are awful.

I went to several of these places. I and my friends had a tradition that every Wednesday we would try and find a non-chain restaurant. We quickly dropped this tradition after several misadventures.

Our most memorable memory was going to this family-owned restaurant called Tug Boat. Tug Boat was a fish place. We came in, ordered our food, and got way more food than we thought for the price. We were excited about such a great deal.

We were excited about the cheap food until later that day when we were all very very sick from food poisoning. One of my friends even ended up in the hospital from being so sick. There are a lot of restaurants with this level of credentials in the area.

15. Junk Yard Capital of Sacramento

Rancho Cordova does not smell the best. They have several junkyards that gather the trash of people all over Rancho Cordova and Sacramento.

These dumps are huge and they are fairly close to living spaces. You will definitely have to drive by one several times to go to a regular appointment.

14. Commercial Vehicles Regularly on Street Day and Night

I went to live in Rancho Cordova with a group of other young adults to serve as missionaries. I lived in Rancho Cordova for six months with these other young adults.

We would meet up weekly to talk about our progress. We had an opening at every meeting where we would talk about different kinds of Commercial Trucks that we saw on the street.

The reason why this became our ice breaker is that there are always commercial trucks on the street. It causes a lot of traffic in the area. They also make the roads less safe since it is harder to operate a commercial truck and since most of the drivers have been driving for hours on end making them sleep-deprived.

13. Lots of Litter

Rancho Cordova may have a lot of landfills, but somehow people’s waste doesn’t always end up there. Ranch Cordova has a huge litter problem.

There is always trash on the ground. I and my friends would often have service projects where we would just go outside of our apartment complex and pick up trash since no one else was going to pick up the trash.

The trash is not limited to just in front of apartment complexes though. It is everywhere from in front of your grocery stores to in the nice parks and sidewalks that the city provides. Therefore, there is no way if you live in Rancho Cordova to avoid the trash.

12. Extremely Flammable

Rancho Cordova is in California, which is a very dry state. Rancho Cordova is of no difference in this regard.

I lived in Rancho Cordova during the summer and I have lost count of how many fires I saw and tracked. There were several times I was told by my organization leader to stay out of my apartment and stay in headquarters until a fire warning near my place was out. It got to a point where we were told so often to avoid fire that I just kept an extra change of clothing in my car.

With all the random fires there was a significant amount of smog that just stayed in the city. I would always put on a face mask before leaving my home. I would not do this because of the Coronavirus or any other pandemic. Nope, I did it to limit breathing in smog.

11. Neighbors are not Friendly

Rancho Cordova is not the place to move to if you want to have a Little House on the Prairie experience. Rancho Cordova citizens tend to be rude and stand-offish. They do not like talking to one another.

There is a reason for this. Crime is very high in Ranch Cordova. Likewise, it is very hard for the citizens to trust each other. You might be talking to the next person to break into your car.

People in Rancho Cordova tend to just deal with their own business and if you try and get involved or form attachments with them they will tell you to mind your own business.

10. Lots of Homelessness

There are a lot of homeless people in Rancho Cordova. You will pass about ten homeless people on one block.

There are many reasons why there are so many homeless people. One Rancho Cordova stays fairly warm weather all year round, which means they do not have to worry about freezing in the winter.

Another reason that homelessness is high is that housing is extremely expensive in the area. You will not find an apartment below $900 and on that same note that apartment is going to be in a very bad part of town and it will not be in good condition.

Overall, Rancho Cordova is not capable of helping its overabundance of homeless people.

9. Lots of Strip Clubs

Rancho Cordova participates greatly in the objectification of women. There are several strip clubs in this city. While you will not find a good restaurant in the city you will be able to find three strip clubs you can ogle young girls in.

It is a shame that this city is supportive of objectifying women in such a manner. These places bring a lot of other illegal activity. Prostitution is not a hard thing to come across in Rancho Cordova.

This lifestyle also promotes drug usage. Rancho Cordova has lots of people who are trying to make ends meet and therefore have to give into acts of moral sacrifice.

8. Shady Characters

Rancho Cordova is full of shady characters. I am a plus-sized woman, so not the average target of catcalling or unwanted sexual advances. This was not the case while living in Rancho Cordova.

There were a lot of men who would call me derogatory names and invite me into their homes to have a “good time.”

This is not the place to live in to feel safe walking the streets at night. You will not be safe as a woman to go anywhere alone.

Therefore, pepper spray is a thing that you will find on every woman’s key chain in Rancho Cordova.

7. Traffic Monitoring Cameras

Do you hate getting tickets? Then Rancho Cordova is not the place to live in. People always say that traffic rules do not exist in California, but they do in Rancho Cordova.

There are so many Traffic Monitoring Cameras parked around Rancho Cordova. If you break a traffic rule in Rancho Cordova these cameras are going to catch it and they will write you a ticket. Rancho Cordova is gaining a lot of money through traffic violations.

Therefore, you will have to be aware of how you are driving at all times and make sure that you are within the speed limit. The California stop does not include Rancho Cordova.

6. Crime (So Much Crime)

There is a lot of crime in Rancho Cordova. When I stayed there I was a wittiness to a lot of crime. It was an abnormal day when I did not witness one form of illegal activity.

Crime is the core and base heart of Rancho Cordova, and therefore you need to be very very careful if you live in Rancho Cordova. It would be safer for you not to carry a gun because that will cause more antagonism against you.

It is important if you live in Rancho Cordova to try and do your out-of-house activities with another person present to help you from being the target of criminal activity.

5. Lots of Police on the Streets

Since there is so much crime in Rancho Cordova there are a lot of cops on the street. You may think this to be a good thing, but it can very easily be a bad thing.

If you are a person of color you are very likely to be targeted by these cops. They will likely typecast you as a violent individual even if you are the most peaceful person in the world.

They also are there to catch you when you commit minor traffic violations. Therefore, they are going to be out to ticket you if you speed or accidentally run a red light.

4. You Can’t Ever Leave Your Car Unlocked

Do you ever leave your car unlocked where you live? If you do then get ready to stop doing that. If you leave your car unlocked anything that is not bolted down will be stolen, or someone might try and sleep and stay in your car.

These are experiences that I and my friends who lived in Rancho Cordova experienced. I am from a small town initially so I have never locked my car.

Therefore, I was very saddened when I left my groceries in the car after a shopping trip and left the car unlocked to find all my groceries gone. I was lucky that it was only food, but others have lost a lot more valuable things in Rancho Cordova.

3. Drugs

Do you like doing drugs? If so then Rancho Cordova is the place to go. There are so many drug dealers. I could tell you about 10 stoops to sit on if you want to be offered some drugs.

These drug dealers are not even afraid. There are so many drug dealers in Rancho Cordova that they are very open about their drug trades. I know I have accidentally been caught in the middle of a few drug deals before.

There was this one dealer in particular I remember. I never talked to them, but they were very active in passing out opioids and I saw him several times in lots of different locations.

2. Gun Crime

On my first night in the city, I was studying with my friend and I heard a drive-by shooting across the street. I wanted to duck under my desk and hide, but my friend, who had been in the area 6 weeks longer than me told me to ignore it. She argued that if I ducked every time there was a drive-by shooting I would spend more time ducking than standing.

She was not wrong. I witnessed five more drive-by shootings by ear and saw three with my own eyes. Gun violence is a very large problem in Rancho Cordova.

1. Gangs

Why is there so much crime in Rancho Cordova? I can explain it in one word – gangs. I got to talk to a lot of the locals while living in Rancho Cordova and I met three people who admitted to being in gang life.

Apparently, several of the largest gangs in the United States are located in Rancho Cordova. There are lots of gang territories broken up in the Rancho Cordova region.

The Eastside Piru is one known gang that is located in the southern Rancho Cordova region. They have territory that stretches into the Mather neighborhood of Rancho Cordova.