Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I like Capitol Mall. Its part of the grandeur that I think we should expect from civic spaces like State Capitols. Even more than a university, I think the State Capitol needs powerful civic space.
If there was no Capitol Mall, there would also not be any of the buildings on Capitol Mall. It is the State Capitol and civic function it represents that creates Sacramento's claim as the leading city in the region. When people were proposing the regions first building over 50 stories, the logical site for such a structure was Capitol Mall. Nothing else has the prestige in the region to try to justify the rents to make such a project work.
If this region is to recruit a fortune 500 to the area it will probably end up either in an office campus in Placer County or if its in Sacramento on Capitol Mall. The prestigious law firms, the important lobbiests, even the Sutter Club are all along Capitol Mall. Certain addresses represent power: Wall Street, Madison Avenue, Rodeo Drive. In our region the closest thing is Capitol Mall.
I like most of what you say. What I'm primarily complaining about is the missed opportunity for a grander plan. The 4-way axis would have defined the capitol. It should have been visible from 50, Business 80 and the American River...but they probably underestimated what California would become. And you know what, just behind these axes, you can have the same real estate stock you do now, it just might be laid out a little differently. In DC, you have the same apts, rowhouses, and corner stores a block off a main diagonal or axis. A Canadian city like that is Montreal. You'll have a sweeping boulevard or main thoroughfare and have walk-up apts and condos, and shops/restaurants, in which all kinds of regular folk live, all 2- to 3-story in height and very pedestrian friendly.
Sacramento keeps missing opportunities, as it did with a north-south freeway approximately where Sunrise is. The confluence of the rivers is a miss because no one would want to set foot in Discovery Park. The "West Bank" in West Sac was another miss, but might be remedied. The light rail is another miss. The latter needed to go to: 1) the Roseville business center(s), 2) definitely up to Natomas and to the airport, as it is intended to, 3) down into Elk Grove and not just Cosumnes College, and 4) a tie-in between a Roseville extension and the Folsom line in a north-south direction is needed. It would then be a complete system and a short bus hop could tie into all of it.
If you have this pancake flat city and a predominance of Arden/Fulton type of blah (no icon for "puke"), then it ain't a pretty picture. Every effort should have been made to make a statement for the downtown core, as it is the capital of a state in which 1 in 9 Americans live. Instead, the whole feel is tired Central Valley railroad town.
Last edited by robertpolyglot; 11-02-2008 at 10:41 PM..
robertpolyglot: I'd recommend taking a look at some of the proposed plans that were being tossed around in the 1950s and 1960s. Destroying the entire central city, replacing the existing blocks with "superblocks" and broad boulevards, was exactly the plan they wanted--essentially, the Capitol Towers area multiplied throughout midtown. That was the plan, at least, when the Tower Bridge and Capitol Avenue were Highway 40, the main route from the Bay Area to the Sierras. Highway 50 short-circuited much of that plan by bypassing the central city altogether, making Capitol Mall redundant.
A connector freeway down Sunrise has some appeal--but you do realize that no part of Sunrise Boulevard is in the city of Sacramento, right?
You also realize that West Sacramento is not in the city of Sacramento, or even in Sacramento County, right?
And you also realize that the reason Light Rail doesn't run to Roseville is because Roseville (and Placer County) refuse to put in a penny to help the project--meaning Sacramento would have to carry the whole financial load for a project that would benefit people who don't pay into Sacramento property tax? That's also why a line from Folsom to Roseville won't get built. Folsom realized the benefits a light rail system could bring, and helped facilitate its construction. Without those partnerships, these projects don't happen.
Ditto Elk Grove--Elk Grove literally opted out of Regional Transit because they do not want light rail, and started their own bus system. Sacramento extended its hand, but without cooperation from the other end of the line, these projects don't happen.
A line to Natomas was sorely needed--they should have built it before they built the neighborhood. Hopefully that mistake will be corrected, although the neighborhood as built is already car-centric and putting a light rail line is unlikely to reverse that too much.
All in all, I suppose I'd appreciate it if you limited your criticism of Sacramento to places and things that the city of Sacramento has some control over, specifically places within the Sacramento city limits.
And you also realize that Discovery Park gets pretty busy during the summer, right? Not so much in winter, considering it still floods (it's on the river side of the levee, after all) and it's all rainy, but your claim that nobody goes to Discovery Park, like much of what you are saying, is patently false. Unless by "no one" you mean "no one but non-white and non-wealthy people."
zen_klown: Brasilia doesn't seem like my kind of place: my dad was an embassy guard in Brazil, and very much preferred the wild street life of Rio to the antiseptic atmosphere of Brasilia. I share his appreciation for the funky and unplanned. Not that Sacramento compares to Rio, but it works fine for me.
Growing up did you spend anytime living in Brazil?
When I lived in San Diego, my then girlfriends parents were living in Santos, which is outside Sao Paulo, so we visited them in Santos, her brother at the time was living in Brasilia and we visited him as well. But we didn't have the time to make to Rio.
I really did like Brasilia. The Catherdral of Brasilia was even more cool from the inside and we also went into the Brazilian National Musuem which I also liked a lot. I loved how the turned the tv antennas into a focal point inside the federal district as though it were public art. Then again I am really big fan of the TV towers in Walnut Grove too.
Sao Paulo reminded me of New York, but Brasilia is like Las Vegas, there really isn't anything like it anywhere else in the world.
Did you feel safe in Rio during that time? Claudia described growing up in Brazil as rather dangerous especially in the big cities saying only recently had it gotten relatively safe. When we to the beach she insisted that we leave our valuables in the hotel safe, but even in the short time we were at the beach several people were robbed. She said the local police were pretty throughly compromised by the local gangs and the gangs were in turn shaking down but then protecting the local thiefs from arrest. Yet she claimed Santos was much safer than Sao Paulo or Rio.
All in all, I suppose I'd appreciate it if you limited your criticism of Sacramento to places and things that the city of Sacramento has some control over, specifically places within the Sacramento city limits.
Yes, I'm aware that some of those items are outside of the Sacto. city limits. Collectively, it is a metro area and it's very easy to live/commute between the city, the unincorporated county and other separate municipalities. I'm just saying that, without Placer county's participation, a rail line that goes "thud" at "The split" is less than optimal. Ditto for the South Area. The whole system doesn't unify the area, and a north-south Sunrise rail could supplant what the freeway didn't do and do so with very little right-of-way. They could do that with concrete stilts. Vancouver very quickly erected SkyTrain for Expo 86 as a fixed rail system, on concrete stilts, and it's kind of cool to watch it wizz by.
Also, why dog the grand boulevard scheme? The area would have never been Manhattanized. There isn't the population density nor the real estate absorption fill a bunch of glitzy high-rises. Also, in much bigger cities, it returns to lower-density scale once behind the facade of the grand boulevard. Other than the Capital Mall, all other downtown streets feel seedy.
The sub-forum says Sacramento but includes the metro area...the same way that the Los Angeles forum doesn't exclude Burbank and the SF does not exclude Walnut Creek. Also, when driving through downtown on the W-X or even taking the Gold rail line over the 23rd trestle, the city's Midtown looks more like a rundown part of Montgomery Alabama than it does California's capital. You're almost waiting to see a shift change at the shirt factory.
I've been to Rio. ...most beautiful city on the planet, but who needs to keep looking over their shoulder while on vacation? If Brazilia's safer and I had to live in Brazil, I'll take it.
I think you and I have a different threshold of seediness. I think the streets outside Capitol Mall feel great, and Capitol Mall just feels antiseptic. I think Sacramento looks great from the freeway (I love seeing the tree cover with the skyline in the background) and the Bee Bridge gives a great view of my favorite neighborhoods in the whole city, like Poverty Ridge and Winn Park.
I realize that this is a regional forum, but if you're addressing a specific city, address that city. People who want to talk about, say, the Sundial Bridge tend to at least mention in passing that it's in Redding. If you're addressing a whole region, make that clear (ex:"the Sacramento metropolitan region" vs. "Sacramento.") Your comments lay the blame for other cities' short-sightedness at Sacramento's feet, while Sacramento was the one trying to make exactly the sort of progress you are suggesting (lines to Roseville and Elk Grove.) It will add to the clarity of communication, and irk fewer grumpy boosters like me.
zen_klown: My dad was in Rio well before I was born. I haven't been there.
I lived in Sao Paulo for awhile and loved it...very much like New York. Plus parts of Sao Paulo are very safe and nice - I was in Pinherios/Jardins...which is a very comfortable part of Sao Paulo.
I've been to Brasilia...and hated it. Incredibly zoned...to walk from one building to another was a burden, You really needed a car to do it. Most politicians in Brazil actually live elsewhere and just commute to Brasilia during the week - it is that uninteresting.
ANyways, I just read everything in this thread...and wanted to see if there was more opinions about the future of Sacramento, as it is a very interesting topic.
Well, considering our current mayor is an ex-NBA player whose main administrative experience is running a nonprofit that he routinely had to bail out with his own money, is currently being investigated by the government for interefering with the last government investigation, and is asking citizens to give him unprecedented power over city government, not too bad, I suppose. We have a great, beautiful district called "Midtown" that is full of beautiful homes, trees, local businesses and creative people, and many in the local development community want to level it and build mid-rise condos because it's cheaper to do it in Midtown than to build them on developable lots downtown. They're also trying to create a market for "urban lofts" by knocking down old industrial buildings and then building new buildings that look vaguely like old industrial buildings.
Past all of the handwringing and sarcastic humor, I see some issues concerning the evolution of the metro area. For example, I have read proposals for the Natomas area, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, Folsom (south of Hwy 50) and the unincorporated area along Jackson Highway. In evaluating all of the proposals, it appears that the overall metro area is anticipating about a 1 million person growth over the next 30 or so years.
I realize that in the past couple of decades the area has had explosive growth, but isn't it possible that the engines generating this growth are somewhat depleted? Isn't it possible that the overall population growth may stagnate, and/or that whatever growth happens will be generally centered on folks in the lower income range, and their offspring?
Isn't it possible that the overall population growth may stagnate, and/or that whatever growth happens will be generally centered on folks in the lower income range, and their offspring?
ABSOLUTELY! Many of us refer to them as "The Homeless!" K Street Mall will become a population center and Loaves and Fishes will control the City Council!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
