Being born and raised as a city girl my whole life, Bakersfield was a cultural, regional and climatic shock for me. But I have now been a resident for the last five years and my overall thoughts of the city have been vastly changed due to the ever-changing growth and expansion of this subtle but bustling city.

Bakersfield’s shining attribute is location, location, location. There are few cities in the United States that have its anchorage advantage. The city is located 94 miles north of Los Angeles, entertainment capital of the world, and 252 miles south of the San Francisco Bay Area.

This fact alone could very well be the reason for Bakersfield’s population boom of 78,791 people in the years from 2000 to 2010. The population increase almost has a ripple effect on the evolution of Bakersfield because this voluminous expansion of human mass has made the city of Bakersfield to be ranked number nine of the largest growing cities in the United States.

I have personally come to revel in the unmatched amount of warm, golden sunrays that kiss upon this region of California, being from St. Louis, Missouri where every winter there you are guaranteed one blizzard. This small, but iconic characteristic of Bakersfield just may well be the rationalization I use to keep me from seeing California in my rearview mirror.

I must not be the only non-Californian that sees the beautiful weather as a motive to stick around a while longer, because this city was ranked in spot number nine for having the best weather in the country. That’s not bad for a place that is in a valley, with dirt roads not quite a thing of the past.

Although statistics show Bakersfield as having some of the worst schools in the country due to the poverty level, it actually has the largest high school district in California because of the large baby boomer generation here, as Bakersfield is one of the best places to retire.

Bakersfield and its surrounding areas have also made a considerable contribution to the counrty music culture, as the place that Buck Owens and Merle Haggard called home.

They were the forerunners in the creation of a style of country music known as the Bakersfield sound. These two innovative artists truly helped put Bakersfield on the mainstream’s map of acknowledged cities for country music artists and fame.

I personally had no idea what Bakersfield was, let alone what it ‘sounded’ like, until I was introduced to a well-known rock group also credited with creating their own genre, nu-metal. The band Korn (and yes, I’m a fan) is another milestone accomplishment for the city in the field of music popularity, enabling it to reach an even bigger demographic.

However, Californians themselves come to the city because of its historical content in film. Bakersfield is an unfrequented film location, with movies that I would have never guessed to be filmed or set here. This list includes classics such as “North by Northwest” and “Psycho.” Cornerstones of the sci-fi genre like “Star Trek” and “Jurassic Park,” emphasize the desert and long dirt roads that comprise Bakersfield.

Things like this may seem small to anyone not born and raised in this city, but to residents these very things are the fabric and heart of Bakersfield, California.