I live in a little town about 75 miles north, so this is not a direct assessment, but I've spent enough time there to at least form a misguided opinion.
The good: nice weather, close to the Sierras for skiing/hiking/camping/fishing/etc, Thunderhill is an hour away (plus Laguna Seca and Sears Point are a couple hours in either direction), kind of a cool downtown, nice people.
The bad: I've always considered it to be the "suburb without a city." It doesn't have the charm of a smaller town, yet it doesn't have the vibrant city feel of SF, Portland or Seattle. To each his own, I guess. Plus, the sprawl is getting to be like the Bay Area or LA, with the obvious effects on housing prices, traffic, and the like.
I'm expecting that in the next ten years the drive between Chico and Sacramento will become much like the drive between Irvine and LA, or the drive between San Jose and San Francisco. If you've done either of those, you'll know what I mean.
I've considered looking at job opportunities in Sac myself, so maybe one of the "locals" will chime in.
Good Luck,
Jim
