Midtown - not many people walking around (houses)

[JohnS_15]

Originally Posted by rah62

Holy Toledo... only 16 posts on this forum and you want to level half of Midtown, are already issuing instructions to the Mayor and the Chamber of Commerce on how to market the city, telling the moderators how to organize the forum, and telling locals to write essays about Sacramento.

Dude, back off. Way off. You'll attract more flies with honey than you will with vinegar. I'm a tourist here too (but a former resident of Sacramento so I wear both hats) and find your attitude really condescending. So you didn't have a good time here. Sorry, but it's not the fault of the Mayor, City Council, Chamber of Commerce, city planners, and every person who posts on the Sacramento forum for making your visit less "happening".

Time to put you on "ignore"!

Easy tiger. I thought his comments were fair... bar maybe the leveling half of midtown recommendations. It's a valid point that as a tourist he wasn't getting good info on where to go for what he wanted to experience. I think Sac probably just doesn't have the tourist resources available as we are not really a destination as such. And it seemed pretty objective to me. He is looking at places to put down roots and had some questions and criticisms based on his visit here. Nothing wrong with that.

[HILife09]

Originally Posted by roadtripp1n

BUT, from another another view, without varieties, wouldn't the same stuff get old?

Maybe HiLife09 or someone who is not invested in Sac would give another perspective? Midtown is overrated?

Yes, once you get out of the Sac bubble you really see how deficient downtown/midtown is.

Awesome there's a grid of bars, restaurants and coffee shops. Similar sized cities have that plus 10x more. Sac in general acts like a small city and therefore is underwhelming to visitors. It's a very polarizing city since many sac natives are extremely emotionally attached to the area while other natives like myself have come to realize that sac is very overrated and lacks so much compared to other very fun mid sized cities (Portland, Denver, Austin etc). It's cheap and good for families, that's about it.

[wburg]

Been plenty of places besides Sacramento. Not sure exactly what sort of things, specifically, that we're missing that comparable cities supposedly have, let alone 10 times more of them? One thing that comes to mind is a downtown university, but that's hardly an appeal to visiting tourists. Also, some aspects of a place are positives to some people and negative to others. Some people like a cool climate, others like a hot climate. Some people like big crowds, others like solitude. And, as we have mentioned above, a lot of people live in parts of Sacramento but never really pay much attention to what is going on, so they miss out on a lot of interesting events and places to go--and come to the conclusion that Sacramento lacks those things. Maybe what we lack is the ability to communicate what's so great about Sacramento? Part of that cycles back to a tendency of many Sacramento natives--many are hesitant to say positive things about Sacramento, due to a long-standing attitude that to do so is somehow "putting on airs", a sort of civic modesty that may contribute to our reputation. In some ways I think folks do that because they don't want San Franciscans to feel bad (many tend to be resistant to the idea that anything worth doing or experiencing takes place outside of the Bay Area, except maybe Burning Man.)

[sacite]

Originally Posted by roadtripp1n

My spouse and I had just returned from a 5-days visit to Sacramento, July 1 -5. We stayed in downtown, next to the convention center.

I don't know if I missed the right spots or not, and I heard that lots of people went out of town for the long weekend, but when we drove around the happening spots in midtown, we didn't see many people walking around. Is this normal? We drove up and down J, K, L, 16th streets, and some random streets. What are the intersections of the happening spots? We saw people sitting at restaurants but it's not like random people walking about all over the place.

I mean for downtown, I can understand that it could be a ghost town in the weekend, but on our last day, Tuesday, I looked down the streets from the hotel room (around 8-9am), and didn't see any traffic jam or many people walking around at all in downtown. What am I missing here?

The time we drove around downtown and midtown, it seemed like a ghost town. Not that it's a negative or anything, but just my observation.

But on the highways, 5, 80, biz 80, 50, there were tons of car and we got stuck in a nasty traffic jam on the 80 westbound to SF at the West Sac section. BTW, we got stuck in several sections of the 80 going to SF during supposedly non-traffic hours, noon. Going form Sac to SF seems more like 2.5 hours on any given day and time than the 2 hours as seen from google map and navigation software.

Midtown was in fact pretty much a ghost town 4th of July weekend. No, it is usually not like that at all. In fact, Friday the 8th was packed all over, especially around 20th and K. People everywhere, the usual noise I use to experience when I lived there.

[sacite]

Originally Posted by HILife09

Yes, once you get out of the Sac bubble you really see how deficient downtown/midtown is.

Awesome there's a grid of bars, restaurants and coffee shops. Similar sized cities have that plus 10x more. Sac in general acts like a small city and therefore is underwhelming to visitors. It's a very polarizing city since many sac natives are extremely emotionally attached to the area while other natives like myself have come to realize that sac is very overrated and lacks so much compared to other very fun mid sized cities (Portland, Denver, Austin etc). It's cheap and good for families, that's about it.

No city I have been to has the community vibe Sac does. I am going to SF tonight, but I know it'll be 10× as hard to talk to people. There will be no victorians, $3 drinks, art galleries next to a restaurant next to a coffee house. In fact, there's few artists left there period. LOL and in terms if the all encompassing "things to do" or "nightlife" phrases, there's nothing Portland has that Sac does not. Or Denver for that matter. I took an impromptu trip to Denver about 3 yrs ago on the fly, and its downtown literally has one street with anything resembling a nightlife, on 16th ST. It's version of midtown called "Highlands" I believe with the alternative folks was literally about a mile long, with a couple restaurants and coffee shops. Neither of those places have anything on Sac in terms of the criteria of this thread.

[wburg]

Too bad the OP didn't plan their visit for this weekend. Second Saturdays aren't the giant 20,000 person mob scenes they were in the early 2000s, but things are quite jumping in Midtown tonight. Live bands, art shows, just about every restaurant spilling out onto the sidewalk, and so many folks out and about.

[WizardOfRadical]

Midtown us overrated. It is not very urban and not very exciting . People forget that it is just a little neighborhood. But because it is really the only vibrant hood, people over hype it.

K Street, from the arena to the theater will be Sacs entertainment district. In 10 years, so will the west sac river front.

[xeney]

K Street, from the arena to the theater will be Sacs entertainment district. In 10 years, so will the west sac river front.

As a longtime midtown resident I say thank God for that if it actually happens.

I mean, I'm not sure what people expect. People live in midtown. It's not a tourist district. It's a place where people live -- more vibrant and walkable than the suburbs, sure, but its purpose is not just to entertain visitors.

[WizardOfRadical]

Originally Posted by xeney

As a longtime midtown resident I say thank God for that if it actually happens.

I mean, I'm not sure what people expect. People live in midtown. It's not a tourist district. It's a place where people live -- more vibrant and walkable than the suburbs, sure, but its purpose is not just to entertain visitors.

Midtown did not try to be an entertainment district. It kind of accidentally evolved into it. K street/old sac/west sac river front will be much better suited for this function. Midtown already has too much crime as the neighborhood is over saturated with nightlife.

[sav858]

Originally Posted by sacite

No city I have been to has the community vibe Sac does. I am going to SF tonight, but I know it'll be 10× as hard to talk to people. There will be no victorians, $3 drinks, art galleries next to a restaurant next to a coffee house.

Uh what? As in Victorian houses?