Kansas St, Fairfield

Kansas Street in Fairfield is one of the several residential streets in this section of Fairfield where the streets are all named after states. The homes here are mostly fairly beaten up looking Ranch Style homes dating from the mid-1950’s.

Kansas runs parallel and just to the south of the Linear Park Pathway and is also just a bit to the south of the Solano Town Center Mall--one of those traditional Fast Times at Ridgemont High style malls. But it is far enough away so that it doesn’t really get any collateral traffic.

I came here to take a look at a 3-bedroom that was listed at just over $1000, about as cheap as it gets in the Bay Area. The average home here sells for around $100K, which is also about as low as it gets.

Other than its distance from the Bay Area, another drawback to this part of Fairfield is the poor schools that serve it. Both Fairview Elementary and Sullivan Middle schools have below average APIs of 3, while Amijo High gets a slightly better average score of 5.

As to crime, the other worry one might have in a neighborhood with such a low cost of living, it is basically about even with the national average. Some years it is a bit higher, others it is below. You do get about a half dozen murders every year, which is not terrible given the 100,000 residents who live here, but nowhere near as bad as Vallejo’s murder rate which is about 3 times higher and has a crime rate twice as high as the national average.

Overall, this might be an okay alternative for someone who either has a job out here (perhaps working at Travis Air Force Base) or who doesn’t mind trading long commutes for lower rents--something which I am definitely considering.