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. I try not to bash other California cities but I'm having a hard time liking Sacramento. I guess the biggest thing for me is that for a metro of it's size and popularity, it has very little to no cosmopolitan flare. If you are comparing, all those metros you mentioned above are cosmopolitan places. Sac would be more comparable to places like San Antonio, Tucson, or Fresno
I am certainly not the biggest Sacramento fan, but to compare it to Fresno?? Come on now, it's nowhere near that bad. In fact, over the past ten years Sacramento (midtown primarily) has really begun to blossom. It's just the surrounding areas of the city that continue to suck.
I am certainly not the biggest Sacramento fan, but to compare it to Fresno?? Come on now, it's nowhere near that bad. In fact, over the past ten years Sacramento (midtown primarily) has really begun to blossom. It's just the surrounding areas of the city that continue to suck.
OK: what exactly 'sucks' about Sacto?
As for the SF Bay Area: factoring in the exhorbitant cost of living; there is no place there worth it to me. I am referring to SF itself, Marin County, etc.
I am certainly not the biggest Sacramento fan, but to compare it to Fresno?? Come on now, it's nowhere near that bad. In fact, over the past ten years Sacramento (midtown primarily) has really begun to blossom. It's just the surrounding areas of the city that continue to suck.
Ok, maybe I went a little far with the Fresno comparison.
As for the SF Bay Area: factoring in the exhorbitant cost of living; there is no place there worth it to me. I am referring to SF itself, Marin County, etc.
But you mentioned Sac in the same breath with the Bay Area, SoCal and D.C. places that are real cosmopolitan and worldly. If you desire those amnemities, Sac is not for you.
But you mentioned Sac in the same breath with the Bay Area, SoCal and D.C. places that are real cosmopolitan and worldly. If you desire those amnemities, Sac is not for you.
If you are referring to things like the SF Zoo............we are only discussing a ca. 2 hour drive from Sacramento.
Note I am a Wash DC native and; aside from the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, etc. DC was a rather provincial city---------nothing more than a government town. The closest city with a proper port, industry, etc. was Baltimore, Md.
Some of us have lived in both Fresno and Sacramento. In many respects I think the two areas are pretty comparable. In Sacramento you tend to get a delta breeze that tends to cool things off, so I think Sacramento is less hot.
But both areas are mostly car orientated, with an older core area. In many respects the Tower District in Fresno reminds me of Curtis Park or East Sac. Water has been metered in Fresno, so there isn't quite as many trees. You have large hmong communities in both areas, sizeable Mexican and Vietnamese populations. Clovis sort of functions like Roseville. Its a wealthier, whiter area that is still in the general region of the greater Fresno region.
Both areas aspire to be more urbane. In Sacramento people are really into the Kings and in Fresno its more the Bulldogs. You have minor league baseball teams that compete against each other. People in both area tend to brag about what they are near more than what to do in either community. People in Sacramento will always talk about proximity to Tahoe, Napa, and SF, people in Fresno talk about proximity to Yosemite, Kings Canyon and the central coast.
Mostly people move to the areas for the same reason, either they have family in the area or they were looking for someplace they could afford to buy a home and raise a family.
Lastly people who don't live in your town tend to put it down as being unsophisticated with not a lot to do and the truth is that there is some truth to that criticism, but only some truth. In both places, if you try you can find things to do and meet interesting people.
In Sacramento people tend to put down Fresno and in Fresno people tend to put down Bakersfield again mostly to boost there pride in living in the cities that they are living.
What most people don't realize is the change both Fresno and Sacramento have gone through. Sacramento started down a road to a more urban feeling about 20 years ago, Fresno is just now going down that path.
Fresno is the size that Sacramento was in the 1980s so it is now just going through a new phase. But by going through it now it may also avoid the problems other areas had by growing in the 1960s through 1990s.
There are pros and cons to both Sacramento and Fresno.
Yes in some ways Fresno is better. For example, the crime rate in the Fresno city limits is lower than in the Sacramento city limits. Traffic is not as bad in Fresno.
And in spite of opinion Fresno is very diverse politically. It actually is close to center, with a near even party split, although that means it is more conservative than many of the coastal areas. That also means you are not going to find everyone thinks the same way.
A couple of the more liberal things about Fresno include having one of the oldest GLBT film festivals in the country and being one of the few places in California where Berkeley's KPFA is rebroadcast. Sacramento actually started its GLBT film festival after hearing about Fresno's.
Not all of us moved to Fresno for lower housing. I came on a job transfer many years ago and found myself putting down roots by meeting people and getting involved in the community. I stayed even after I left the initial company that brought me here. My wife came from the coast to attend Fresno State and chose to stay in the area for a job.
You create your home and your life by what you choose to do and who you choose to meet. Everything else is secondary, including where you live.
"Note I am a Wash DC native and; aside from the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, etc. DC was a rather provincial city---------nothing more than a government town."
That's pretty much what Sacramento is. It does, as others have mentioned, have a nice proximity to a number of places around it, within 2 or so hours (Napa, San Fran, Oakland, Fresno, Tahoe, etc...) but Sacramento itself doesn't have a ton of big city amenities, despite the fact that it could be considered a big city (considering its population size). It depends on what you want. Sac does have a cool Midtown/Downtown with nice restaurants, a number of different types of bars/clubs, some interesting historical museums (which are cool to see about once) but there certainly is nothing like a San Antonio River Walk.
Sacramento offers a few things that have made it appealing. One is the whole proximity thing which makes it nice for people who can't afford to live in one of those others places - at least they're somewhat close. Also, it will be relatively cheaper midland than in the mountains or on the coast, or father south. Crime is average, and if you can afford to live in the right area you'll probably never suffer a serious crime. The population is pretty diverse and the town is more liberal leaning. In the right area, if you're not looking for a spectacular downtown, it can be a great place to raise a family.
It really probably just depends on what you're looking for. I felt that most high school seniors in the area (whether or not they actually did) talked/dreamed of going to college outside of the city because Sac doesn't offer a whole lot for the party goer type. But if you're looking for a place to raise a family that experiences fairly moderate weather, is relatively inexpensive, is sort of close to the things around it, and has average enough crime it's a great city.
The proximity thing really is kind of important. There wasn't a historic need for Sacramento to have its own university, because the University of California was just a couple hours away at Berkeley. This was true even before the automotive era: we've had commuter service to the Bay Area since the 1870s.
The same goes for things like opera and symphony houses. The wealthy, who are typically the ones who put up the cash for things like universities and other opulent public buildings, moved to San Francisco for the better weather and closer access to their financial resources. Without a philanthropic upper class to build those institutions, Sacramento got government-funded substitutes for those institutions instead: and such institutions are always going to be a little dowdy and kind of limited in scope.
The result was that Sacramento became an industrial town (primarily railroads and agricultural processing) and, in the mid-20th century, a government and military town. Because those military bases were so spread out, the city had to be spread out to meet those needs.
Our local educational resources, UC Davis and Sac State, were far from the central city: UC Davis because of its origins as an agronomy college, intended deliberately to be placed in the middle of farm country (it's a bit hard to teach farming from downtown Sacramento where there aren't any farms.) Sac State was built during an era when low-density development and car-centric construction was considered the great ideal that all cities should strive towards.
So, really, that old saw about Sacramento's draw being due to things within a couple hours' travel from it it is very much tied up in the region's development.
To echo what wburg is saying that process is still going on. There is still a pretty good chance that Sacramento is going to lose the Kings. Although there is the population base to support a professional team and while there are smaller regions of the country that are supporting multiple professional teams like Cleveland, Cincinnati and Kansas City, if Sacramento loses it team, it will be because a lack of corporate support.
While the Sacramento region has a substantial population base and is one of the top 25 media markets in the country, the region doesn't have many large Fortune 500 companies. These are the companies that buy box seats, that endow university chairs, that donate to pay for college athletic stadiums, that support symphonies and musuems.
Groups like Sacto have been very successful in recruiting large branch plants, getting firms like HP, Intel, JVC and Apple to set up plants in the region. But the Fortune 500 companies that we have or have had are mostly local companies that got big. McClatchy Newpapers, Foundation Health, Tower and to a lesser extent Raley's and Bel-Air. Even those that are remaining are on pretty shaky grounds. McClatchy isn't doing well. It remains to be seen how Raley's will be able to compete against Walmart moving into the grocery sector with its Super Stores. So even the large companies we have just aren't in a position to be major benefactors to the region.
What has prevented groups like Sacto from recruiting corporate headquarters are poor flight connections. On the pennisula, you can catch international flights at SFO to most of the Pacific Rim and to most of Europe as well as some flights to South America. So if you are a multinational with operations world wide, the pennisula is a much better choice than Sacramento. In both SF and San Jose, you also have lots of direct flights to the rest of the country. If you need to go to NYC, Boston, Philly or Miami, you can find multiple flights each day from either of those locations. When you are locating a heaquarters flight connections really matter because you are looking for places with direct flights to branch locations. So even for companies that are mostly domestic in scope, Sacramento still isn't a good choice as a headquarters.
There is also network effects. The more headquarters you have in an area, the more highly profitable corporate travel there is for the airlines, the more flights they offer.
Although Sacramento is now technically an international airport, in practice, the local demand for international travel mostly gets sucked up by the bay area. So even though the region is big enough where you would expect to see a lot more large headquarters in the area, the proximity to the bay area has pretty much suppressed that.
If the region was to subsidise anything, I really think it should probably be a large tourist attraction that would bring flights into the region. Once Orlando got Disneyworld, it got a lot of flight connections even though the region itself wasn't that big at the time. In Las Vegas, gambling has served thse same purpose. Even when Vegas was substantially smaller than Sacramento, it had much better flight connections to the rest of the country.
Personally, I always thought something like a large wild animal park might work. Most zoos are getting rid of elephant and other large animal exhibits because their enclosures were too small. The Sacramento region has the space and the climate to offer such an amenity. You don't have to worry about the idea being replicated in the bay area, land costs are too high to do it there. San Diego was pretty effective in expanding its zoo as well as setting up a wild animal park, I see no reason why Sacramento couldn't do that here. There is a vet school here so there are some potential synergies.
Tourists boost hotel tax revenues and that is one of the easiest taxes to raise in any community because you are voting to raise taxes on people who don't vote in your community.
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