Is Sacramento A Miserable Place To Live?

Nationwide, Forbes Magazine ranks Sacramento third on its miserability index.

Sacramento's high society has reacted with indignation, dismay, and soul-searching about precisely how miserable we happen to be here in the Sacramento Valley's biggest Cowtown. And how miserable is that, exactly?

Not very.

You can be miserable, or very happy, almost anywhere, depending on circumstances.

But you haven't been truly miserable until, like me, you've lived as a young person in New Mexico, living too far from the city to get reliable transportation, with broke parents, no jobs in sight, no money and few prospects, and trying to stay upbeat and entertained when the Consumer Society beckons just out-of-reach.

I'm sure I'm not alone, though. I'm sure there are plenty of young people in the local area right now who know that kind of misery, or related miseries. Young, but idle.

It’s good to take all these business magazine rankings with a grain of salt. In 2006, Forbes Magazine ranked Albuquerque, New Mexico as the nation’s top metro area for business and careers. I was dumbfounded. Sure, New Mexico's regulatory structure is close to non-existent, and businesses like that, but there are few customers. It's hard to run a business with few customers! And the crime rate is fairly-high too! But Forbes doesn't really look at that very closely. They see what they want to see, which is low taxes and few regulations.

People whine all the time about the California regulatory structure, but at least there are customers here in California! Businesses hum with activity in California. And the crime rate here is under better control! In New Mexico, running a business can be as exciting as watching paint dry, at least until the afternoon, when you can roust yourself to put up more razor wire along the chain link fence around the back lot, in order to keep the thieves and idle teenagers out.

I remember once spending a weekend in small-town San Ysidro, New Mexico, and trying to stay entertained.

Not. Much. Happening. That. Weekend.

At night, we cruised back roads, enticing rabbits to display themselves in our headlights so we could shoot at them. During the day, we huddled in San Ysidro's lone marsh, and eventually succeeded in shooting a few ducks with a shotgun. Young ducks that proved too scrawny to be bothered eating.

In Sacramento, there is so much more to do! But if times are hard, money is scarce, and there is really, really nothing else to do: yes, there are places around here where you can shoot at scrawny ducks. Because the Sacramento area is a full-service area, and there are many, many ways around the misery here.