"Small Town With A Nice Downtown" Redlands by jmmgarza

This small town (pop. 65,000) is about 60 miles from LA (3-5 hour round trip) and 80 miles from San Diego. Don't ask me how long that takes... too long! As towns come in the Inland Empire, this is one of the better ones. The city is filled with historic homes and buildings on one side of Highway 10. On the other there are new residential and retail (malls) developments. What a contrast.

San Bernardino (pop. 200,000), the community next door, has seen much better days. It has suffered terribly from the closing of businesses and military installations. Riverside (pop. 320,000), is about 15 miles away. There you will find a community that is prospering. Riverside has good museums, a large university and several unique nightclubs.

Redlands doesn't really support nightlife. I guess the city fathers and mothers don't want to hire more police to quell potential problems. By the way, there is a great little college here called the University of Redlands. My wife is a professor there. Sure is quiet in Redlands. About 10 miles away is the San Manuel Casino. There you will find gambling, dancing, concerts, drinking and smoking. I don't go there because I don't like smoke too much.

Life is slow in Redlands. Some folks call the place Deadlands. If you have money you have parties, travel, go to one of the three plush restaurants downtown or venture as often as you can to the big cities of LA and San Diego. As for myself, I just stay home and fondly reminisce about life in Austin, Texas and San Francisco, California. Good news, things are looking up for me. I am planning to move to Riverside, a bigger city 15 miles away. It is not the Big City, but it will do in the interim.

• Pros:Great little city with a low crime rate
• Cons:No night life or museums of any significance
• In a nutshell:So far from God, so close to San Bernardino