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And as far as new cities sprouting up in Sacramento County to fix the "uncity" problem, I think that's a bad idea. Rancho Cordova so far has been very successful as its own city, mostly due to having plenty of open land available to expand into and having a solid business backbone to generate tax revenue. However, Citrus Heights and especially Elk Grove have seemingly gone backwards since incorporating. EG has grown a ton but with that growth has come a lot of new problems caused by an increase in population, a lack of business and employment opportunities to serve that new population and a lack of quality leadership to lead the city in the right direction (I think the 1st 2 mayors they had were ex-Sherrifs, and I believe 1 of them is currently in prison for mortgage fraud). Citrus Heights has been slowly shrinking in population over the last decade+ and also suffers from a lack of tax base from the business side, mostly due to the decay of Sunrise Mall (another failing mall that's causing its city problems-what a shock).
With all due respect, Citrus Heights is many many levels better than it was when I first came there before it incorporated in 1997. Garbage service is vastly improved, street improvements and even landscaping is well underway, the Sunrise Marketplace is positively thriving now, vs. a now defunct Birdcage Walk that was then deserted, and if you think the Sunrise Mall is on harder times *now*, where were you in 1997?
The police presence is also much better. It does make a difference when the City Hall and CHPD is right down Greenback and is very much accountable to the local residents.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CeJeH
I don't think the answer is for every single suburb and semi-suburb to incorporate into its own city. I don't want Sacramento County to turn into LA county by having Arden-Arcade, North highlands, Fair Oaks, Carmichael etc all becoming separate cities. I think a lot of their problems can be solved by joining the city that they all sprouted around in the 1st place which is Sacramento.
The problem with this is that the City of Sacramento doesn't seem to understand local governance. For three decades now, it has been notorious for staging symbolic debates about national and even international issues, while seemingly utterly unable to make local decisions that hold together.
It was the pattern of development that did it. Most cities expanded outward from a central downtown area, and those areas had one or several defined business sectors or companies that the city grew outward from a central point. Proximity also is important. The distance between Folsom and Sacramento is considerable. Especially considered so in the past. Some of the articles I've read about in regards to major historical events in Folsom (building Folsom Dam, the hydro-electric plant, bringing electricity from Folsom to Sacramento) that were written from a Sacramento-centric perspective would have made you think Folsom was out there somewhere near Area 51. Citrus Heights, although closer to Sacramento, is still a fair distance away. These places were far enough away that people who lived out there also worked out there and likely only went into Sacramento for items they couldn't find in those communities. After WWII and the growth of retail chains, they had less reason to go to Sacramento because they could now buy appliances in Carmichael. It was also at this time when real suburban development occurred, but Sacramento and the outlying communities still had open spaces between them. Compare that to Fresno and you will see a very different story. Fresno and Clovis and you have two populated places 6 miles apart. That is about the distance from Downtown Sacramento to Watt Avenue.
Arden-Arcade wasn't annexed because it is one of those areas where the people don't want to be annexed. Every city has those, and over time they usually end up as county "islands." They usually aren't as extensive as Arden, and that may have been an effective geographic barrier for annexation to the east of Arden.
But that begs the question of why Arden was even allowed to sprout up in the 1950's without being annexed by the City of Sacramento to begin with. True, Folsom was its own incorporated town long before 1950 (from the Gold Rush days even?). But other areas decidedly were not. And little hamlets and communties of 1950 like Carmichael, Fair Oaks, McLellan, Mather, Citrus Heights, Rancho Cordova, Rio Linda, and Elk Grove could have been annexed if the political will had been there.
Again, I think of San Jose, which threw out its city limits 20 miles or more to annex historic little hamlet communities from Alviso to Almaden and from Westmont to Eastridge/Evergreen and from Cambrian Park to Coyote, and even tried to annex already incorporated small cities like Milpitas, Campbell, and Cupertino, although this was resisted. City Manager A.P. "Dutch" Hammann and various mayors were vilified for paving over the pretty orchards. However, as we see in Sacramento, the growth of Western cities after Pearl Harbor was inevitable, and Mr. Hammann wisely saw that if there was growth to be had, his city would claim as much of it as it could.
One wonders why the Sacramento City gentry of 1950 didn't see the same plain reality.
The Sacramento gentry of the 1950s were the same people who built the suburbs outside the city limits, and they had little or no interest in having their new subdivisions run by the city of Sacramento. The city government attempted to annex them, but they were rebuffed. There is a rather good Master's thesis by Brian Roberts that tells the story of Sacramento's mid-century annexations (both the successful ones and the failed ones) in great detail, but yes, they certainly did try.
Folsom was incorporated in the 1940s, although it had been a town dating back to the Gold Rush. Like Roseville, it owed its life past the end of the Gold Rush to the presence of a railroad line. The high-voltage power line from Folsom to Sacramento, at 22 miles, was considered a grand feat of engineering at the time--it was one of the longest (if not THE longest) high-tension power transmission systems in North America when it was completed in 1895.
The space in between Sacramento and Folsom (or Sacramento and Roseville) was another matter. Due to the nature of Sacramento Valley agriculture, there were basically no small family farms out that way--these were huge industrial farms, leftover bits of the Rancho del Paso horse ranches and sheep grazing lands. Instead of little farmsteads at regular intervals with small towns, there were only a few roadhouses here and there (on what dirt roads there were), a few railroad whistle stops on the railroad lines, and farms that were worked by migrants who lived in Sacramento's west end except during planting and harvest season. The owners of these farms generally didn't have much of an estate on the farm itself, they lived in Poverty Ridge or Boulevard Park until those neighborhoods became unfashionable.
The Chamber of Commerce saw the writing on the wall, and after the war did everything they could to promote rapid suburban growth around the new military bases, as they wanted to get Sacramento out of the agriculture business and into the government-subsidized military/highway/industrial project business. They consistently outmaneuvered Sacramento city government by playing the County Board of Supervisors against them.
The Sacramento gentry of the 1950s were the same people who built the suburbs outside the city limits, and they had little or no interest in having their new subdivisions run by the city of Sacramento. The city government attempted to annex them, but they were rebuffed. There is a rather good Master's thesis by Brian Roberts that tells the story of Sacramento's mid-century annexations (both the successful ones and the failed ones) in great detail, but yes, they certainly did try.
Folsom was incorporated in the 1940s, although it had been a town dating back to the Gold Rush. Like Roseville, it owed its life past the end of the Gold Rush to the presence of a railroad line. The high-voltage power line from Folsom to Sacramento, at 22 miles, was considered a grand feat of engineering at the time--it was one of the longest (if not THE longest) high-tension power transmission systems in North America when it was completed in 1895.
The space in between Sacramento and Folsom (or Sacramento and Roseville) was another matter. Due to the nature of Sacramento Valley agriculture, there were basically no small family farms out that way--these were huge industrial farms, leftover bits of the Rancho del Paso horse ranches and sheep grazing lands. Instead of little farmsteads at regular intervals with small towns, there were only a few roadhouses here and there (on what dirt roads there were), a few railroad whistle stops on the railroad lines, and farms that were worked by migrants who lived in Sacramento's west end except during planting and harvest season. The owners of these farms generally didn't have much of an estate on the farm itself, they lived in Poverty Ridge or Boulevard Park until those neighborhoods became unfashionable.
The Chamber of Commerce saw the writing on the wall, and after the war did everything they could to promote rapid suburban growth around the new military bases, as they wanted to get Sacramento out of the agriculture business and into the government-subsidized military/highway/industrial project business. They consistently outmaneuvered Sacramento city government by playing the County Board of Supervisors against them.
Sorry, but Dan Walters' explanation makes more sense than does your conspiracy. A city gentry that wanted to keep its own little fiefdom and not grow, and so it didn't throw out the city limits far enough or fast enough.
His gentry built the suburbs too, but his gentry wanted them all within an expanded City of San Jose. His gentry didn't fight the Chamber of Commerce--they *were* the Chamber of Commerce, *and* they were the City Government of San Jose, at least until 1969, by which point the city's growth was a fait accompli.
What other explanation is there for the starkly different growth of both cities?
"Hamann then directed an aggressive growth program for the city. Growing up in Orange County, Hamann felt that the development of that area, consisting of several mid-sized cities without a dominant city in the region, was a failure and worked to ensure that San Jose became the major city of the Santa Clara Valley. Central to this project were "strip annexations"—Hamann and his staff would determine where new tax-generating developments such as shopping centers were likely to be built, and would annex small strips of territory around the property to ensure no other city could claim the property so that San Jose would receive the sales tax revenue produced by property when it was finally developed.
When industries decided to move into or expand in the area, Hamann would ensure they found a willing partner in the city. IBM wanted to move its research staff out of downtown to a dedicated facility to be sited on unincorporated land south of San Jose, but were being blocked by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. Hamann simply had San Jose annex the proposed site and pushed the project's approval through the city council.
In addition to annexing unincorporated territory, Hamann's staff also annexed existing neighborhoods, including Cambrian Park, and one city. When the city of Alviso attempted to annex the new sewage plant to boost tax revenue, Hamann countered by having San Jose annex Alviso. A special city staff, known as Dutch's Panzer Division, executed 1377 annexations during his time in office—previous to Hamann's administration there had been a total of 42."
Last edited by NickB1967; 08-05-2013 at 04:22 PM..
Sorry, but Dan Walters' explanation makes more sense than does your conspiracy. A city gentry that wanted to keep its own little fiefdom and not grow, and so it didn't throw out the city limits far enough or fast enough.
His gentry built the suburbs too, but his gentry wanted them all within an expanded City of San Jose. His gentry didn't fight the Chamber of Commerce--they *were* the Chamber of Commerce, *and* they were the City Government of San Jose, at least until 1969, by which point the city's growth was a fait accompli.
What other explanation is there for the starkly different growth of both cities?
"Hamann then directed an aggressive growth program for the city. Growing up in Orange County, Hamann felt that the development of that area, consisting of several mid-sized cities without a dominant city in the region, was a failure and worked to ensure that San Jose became the major city of the Santa Clara Valley. Central to this project were "strip annexations"—Hamann and his staff would determine where new tax-generating developments such as shopping centers were likely to be built, and would annex small strips of territory around the property to ensure no other city could claim the property so that San Jose would receive the sales tax revenue produced by property when it was finally developed.
When industries decided to move into or expand in the area, Hamann would ensure they found a willing partner in the city. IBM wanted to move its research staff out of downtown to a dedicated facility to be sited on unincorporated land south of San Jose, but were being blocked by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. Hamann simply had San Jose annex the proposed site and pushed the project's approval through the city council.
In addition to annexing unincorporated territory, Hamann's staff also annexed existing neighborhoods, including Cambrian Park, and one city. When the city of Alviso attempted to annex the new sewage plant to boost tax revenue, Hamann countered by having San Jose annex Alviso. A special city staff, known as Dutch's Panzer Division, executed 1377 annexations during his time in office—previous to Hamann's administration there had been a total of 42."
Thanks for posting this. Interesting to see the contrast between a progressive minded city that is now 1 of the most successful large cities in the country with a very low crime rate compared to our backwards thinking, head in the sand approach that has been taken in Sacramento. Looking at this history and comparing it to what we see today, it's no wonder why Sacramento lags so far behind San Jose.
Can you link to the Dan Walters and the Brian Roberts articles that you guys mentioned, nick and Wburg? I'm obviously very interested in that sort of thing.
Thanks for posting this. Interesting to see the contrast between a progressive minded city that is now 1 of the most successful large cities in the country with a very low crime rate compared to our backwards thinking, head in the sand approach that has been taken in Sacramento. Looking at this history and comparing it to what we see today, it's no wonder why Sacramento lags so far behind San Jose.
I agree CeJeH it's good to hear and see a different approach to annexation.
It would interesting to see how and why cities like San Antonio, Jacksonville, Columbus, Phoenix, San Diego, Portland, Orlando, Houston, Nashville all decided to annex huge areas to make their cities bigger and thus their populations.
Sorry, but Dan Walters' explanation makes more sense than does your conspiracy. A city gentry that wanted to keep its own little fiefdom and not grow, and so it didn't throw out the city limits far enough or fast enough.
Thanks for posting NickB19867, I've always wondered about the approach cities took during their expansion into the suburbs. Sacramento was one of the few areas that did not annex much at all compared to other cities that made huge annexations such as the City of Angeles, or as is in multiple incorporations as in Orange County. Even New York City made itself ginormous by creating its boroughs.
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