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Maybe it's a little hard to tell where I was because the strip malls pretty much look the same from Rosemont to Folsom, but I definitely saw plenty of tents on my recent drives along Folsom Boulevard
Again, no favelas in Rancho, but there are multiple favelas downtown.
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Originally Posted by wburg
The value proposition that downtown offers is close proximity to a great multitude of uses--restaurants and bars, nightclubs and concerts, workplaces and government, libraries and grocery stores and other convenient things, within short walking distance. Nobody takes a stroll from their gated McMansion to the restaurants at the Roseville Galleria. If you've visited other American downtowns, not just boutique & wealthy towns but major cities, they do tend to be a little funky, and in a way that funkiness is also part of the urban experience. Those who prefer sterility and never seeing poor people may prefer to dine with a view of the parking lot at El Dorado Hills Towne Centre or the Fountains in Roseville, but they aren't the urban customer who wants to live downtown and would prefer to not get into a car unless it's absolutely necessary, even if they own one. The fact that downtowns aren't like the suburbs is entirely the point.
Who wants to take a stroll on a street when you are walking through a favela where you are smelling urine and trying to avoid feces on the street? Who wants to be spare changed and who wants to deal with any of this when you are trying to eat? This is not about funkiness. This is an issue of livability. Starbucks was closed on Broadway because it was a 'problematic location'.
That is the vulnerability to the neighborhood.
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Originally Posted by wburg
Our central city grid covers about 4 square miles and has about 36,000 residents as of the 2020 census (it's probably a bit higher now.) That's about half of San Francisco's overall population density of about 18,000 people per square mile overall, but then you also have to look at neighborhood-specific density: the central city isn't just one neighborhood, but rather about a dozen different neighborhoods. Midtown, despite being more low-rise architecturally, has about 3 times the population density of Downtown, which was mostly cleared out during the redevelopment era for office use--meaning that the population density of Midtown is closer to the population density of a typical San Francisco neighborhood (if not the densest San Francisco neighborhoods like the Tenderloin or Chinatown.) So, effectively, the densest parts of the central city are, effectively, the only parts of the Sacramento region that approximate the kind of walkability and population density of San Francisco--so, while Sacramento is not San Francisco, a tech transplant to the Sacramento region who wants something that reminds them a little of the urban experience they got in San Francisco is more likely to find it in the grid than in El Dorado Hills.
There are 875K people in San Francisco not 36K people. Midtown is 1/24 the size of San Francisco. That just isn't the population size/density to merit running a specialized bus service. If Intel was going to run a bus anywhere, it would do it covering Folsom and maybe El Dorado Hills, because that is where the majority of its employees currently are. If it doesn't make sense to offer service there, where its much closer and they have a lot more employees, they definitely aren't going to start a service to midtown. The same logic applies to Solidigm.
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Originally Posted by wburg
I'm not trying to convince people who like suburbs to live downtown, and nobody has to do that. There is an urban customer who wants to live downtown already, you don't have to convince people to do it or clean it up to attract suburbanites, all you have to do is build the housing and ensure that at least a reasonable proportion of it is affordable enough for a service employee (that last part is kind of the rub, of course.) If you don't see the appeal of downtown, that's fine. It's not for you, and it's not obligated to be for you. It is, however, for plenty of people--and the premium people pay for for central city residential properties, for sale are rent, make that clear.
That isn't even the argument. You were arguing that there was going to be some sort of specialized bus service and that was just completely unrealisitic. It is not going to happen.
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Originally Posted by wburg
I don't think Solidigm made their decision based on a desire for a lot of its workers to live downtown, and that's not what I'm saying--I think they prioritized proximity to Intel and the part of the region they already know, plus a place that already had a quarter million available square feet of office with a big parking lot. But I do think that at least some of their workers are likely to live downtown. And if they take light rail to get to work, that's great too! However, your point about telework functions in both directions: why should a coder drive (or take transit) from their house in Boulevard Park to a cubicle in Rancho Cordova or Folsom when they can telework from home just as effectively, without having to commute?
When you are company making location decisions, you really do care where your potential employees do want to live - that is a factor, but you are also balancing where you will also find current employees in the market that you might want to poach too.Industries cluster for a reason, there are going to be some employees who jump from Intel to HP or to Oracle and hopefully to Solidigm if you are in charge of location decisions for Solidigm. So where your potential future employees currently live is also a big factor too. There is a higher density of Intel employees close to Folsom because people want to minimize their commutes, but in some couples one spouse works downtown and another may work for Intel in Folsom. Those couple have more free reign as to where to live. In my old neighborhood in Del Dayo, there was a couple where she worked for the state as lawyer and he worked for Intel, doing chip design work.
So I am not saying no one will ever work for intel and live downtown, there are going to be a small number of people who commute greater distances, but there isn't going to be some sort of specialized bus service to midtown either, the housing market is just way too small and the number of employees living there is going to be way to small to justify starting that specialized service. Midtown is at best 4 square miles and that is being highly generous. That is about the same scale as the historic parts of Pasadena. In a region with 2 million people, 36K really isn't that consequential. Especially when a lot of the people living downtown currently are low skilled employees - bartenders and waitresses and such.
Curious, where would you move to...which state or city attracts you and why?
As I hobnob around Santa Barbara for the next week I'm reminded how much I love California. The Humpback Whales were in abundance in the SB Channel today. Hundreds of Dophins too. It's been absolutely gorgeous here, Santa Barbara still has that laid-back chill that has disappeared from much of SoCal.
But the coolest part was the Humpback Whales were following the boat as if they were Dolphins, the two marine naturalists on board said its very rare for whales to hang out with boats, but, apparently, Humpbacks are the friendliest so if any whale were to hang out with boats like Dolphins do, it would be Humpbacks.
Amazing 4 hour tour! Got to love Santa Barbara! Spectacular Day to be on the ocean in the Santa Barbara Channel.
We saw five different Humpback Whales today and for the last 45 minutes they followed the boat, breaching, spinning, blowing and just a few feet from the boat! The Dolphins were so fun too, hundreds, at one point a "herd" of Seals swam with the Dolphins. The California Sea Lions were "lazy" as usual but in abundance.
Shelato, Midtown/downtown is approx. 3.0 x 3.5 miles. (Old Sac to McKinley Park & Railyards to Land Park)
I was curious..Santa Barbara's grid is about 3.0 miles x 4.5 miles (Stern's Wharf to Mission Santa Barbara & Leadbetter Beach to Butterfly Beach) technically Butterfly Beach is in Montecito.
Yep the immediate SoCal Coast as long as it is not Venice is stunning in Sept/Oct. Santa Barbara is so awesome, when I lived in LA I rarely came to SB because of the distance and traffic. I was really missing out.
As long as you are down in Santa Barbara, another place you might want to explore is Ventura/Oxnard/Ojai. I was born in Ventura and my grandmother lived in Ojai so we used to go back to Ventura/Ojai to visit my grandmother.
Ojai is rather quaint. Its a fun place to walk around and there are still plenty of Orange Groves there, so it takes you back to a different era of Southern California. There is a bike path between Ojai and Ventura and if you have the chance it is really worth doing. The owners of Libby Glass spent a fortune at the turn of the century to try to turn Ojai into a resort and they really succeeded in downtown Ojai. There is a lot of really amazing Mission Style archetecture in Ojai. Ventura is a much more affordible version of Santa Barbara. Downtown Ventura has been fixed up and its a good place to get a bite to eat. The Pier in Ventura is highly underated and the view from Serra Cross above town is a sight to behold. The weather is excellent, but it never gets the attention of Santa Barbara. Oxnard is more downscale, but the drive between Oxnard and Malibu is something everyone should do at least once and when you get out into the Strawberry fields of Oxnard, you realize the area has a certain charm.
I don't know if you ever heard of Krishnamurti. He moved to Ojai and as a result there are all these new age book stores meditation centers. If you have the inclination that might be something else to investigate further.
Shelato, awesome thanks for the tips, but I'll save Ojai for another trip....I've never been there. I know nothing of it other than the Bionic Woman lived there, LOL!
I don't have a car, just using a bike, keeping it local. With that non-stop direct flight to SB I'll be back to do Ventura/Ojai with a rented car.
I used to have a friend in Ventura with a boat. That was awesome. I burned that bridge so no more free party boat rides out of Ventura, lol.
Again, no favelas in Rancho, but there are multiple favelas downtown.
Who wants to take a stroll on a street when you are walking through a favela where you are smelling urine and trying to avoid feces on the street? Who wants to be spare changed and who wants to deal with any of this when you are trying to eat? This is not about funkiness. This is an issue of livability. Starbucks was closed on Broadway because it was a 'problematic location'.
That is the vulnerability to the neighborhood.
Judging by the quite gargantuan number of people strolling and dining in the central city on a regular basis, it doesn't seem to be much of an obstacle for many. You won't be forced to come downtown if it's too scary for you, though. Nobody will miss you, either. Losing one Starbucks on Broadway doesn't strike me as some kind of death blow, there are like a dozen other Starbucks within walking distance. Maybe Land Park is vulnerable--they seem to be the ones freaking out about the Starbucks closing. Central city residents don't seem to be too bent out of shape about it, since there are probably at least a hundred places to get coffee just in the central city that are not Starbuck's (plus the aforementioned dozen or so Starbucks.) The suburbs are vulnerable--without cheap gas and subsidized freeways and unlimited room to expand horizontally, they tend to go south pretty quickly.
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There are 875K people in San Francisco not 36K people. Midtown is 1/24 the size of San Francisco. That just isn't the population size/density to merit running a specialized bus service. If Intel was going to run a bus anywhere, it would do it covering Folsom and maybe El Dorado Hills, because that is where the majority of its employees currently are. If it doesn't make sense to offer service there, where its much closer and they have a lot more employees, they definitely aren't going to start a service to midtown. The same logic applies to Solidigm.
875K divided by 49 square miles is about 18,000 people per square mile, we were talking about population density, not total population--although the city of Sacramento overall is over half a million people.
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That isn't even the argument. You were arguing that there was going to be some sort of specialized bus service and that was just completely unrealisitic. It is not going to happen.
I made an offhand remark about how there might be a potential interest in shuttle buses for tech workers similar to the ones that existed in the Bay Area--it wasn't a formal development proposal or some kind of serious prediction. It sounds like you're taking my posts waaaaay more seriously than you should. TBH reverse telework (people living in Midtown & teleworking to tech jobs in the 'Cho) is a more likely scenario.
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When you are company making location decisions, you really do care where your potential employees do want to live - that is a factor, but you are also balancing where you will also find current employees in the market that you might want to poach too.Industries cluster for a reason, there are going to be some employees who jump from Intel to HP or to Oracle and hopefully to Solidigm if you are in charge of location decisions for Solidigm. So where your potential future employees currently live is also a big factor too. There is a higher density of Intel employees close to Folsom because people want to minimize their commutes, but in some couples one spouse works downtown and another may work for Intel in Folsom. Those couple have more free reign as to where to live. In my old neighborhood in Del Dayo, there was a couple where she worked for the state as lawyer and he worked for Intel, doing chip design work.
So I am not saying no one will ever work for intel and live downtown, there are going to be a small number of people who commute greater distances, but there isn't going to be some sort of specialized bus service to midtown either, the housing market is just way too small and the number of employees living there is going to be way to small to justify starting that specialized service. Midtown is at best 4 square miles and that is being highly generous. That is about the same scale as the historic parts of Pasadena. In a region with 2 million people, 36K really isn't that consequential. Especially when a lot of the people living downtown currently are low skilled employees - bartenders and waitresses and such.
Seriously, you're taking an offhand comment about tech buses way too seriously. So they'll take existing transit or telework instead. Why is it so threatening to you that people want to live downtown? It seems to seriously set you off. Did a downtown...hurt you?
Judging by the quite gargantuan number of people strolling and dining in the central city on a regular basis, it doesn't seem to be much of an obstacle for many. You won't be forced to come downtown if it's too scary for you, though. Nobody will miss you, either. Losing one Starbucks on Broadway doesn't strike me as some kind of death blow, there are like a dozen other Starbucks within walking distance. Maybe Land Park is vulnerable--they seem to be the ones freaking out about the Starbucks closing. Central city residents don't seem to be too bent out of shape about it, since there are probably at least a hundred places to get coffee just in the central city that are not Starbuck's (plus the aforementioned dozen or so Starbucks.) The suburbs are vulnerable--without cheap gas and subsidized freeways and unlimited room to expand horizontally, they tend to go south pretty quickly.
You asked what the vulnerability did downtown have, I explained it to you.
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Originally Posted by wburg
875K divided by 49 square miles is about 18,000 people per square mile, we were talking about population density, not total population--although the city of Sacramento overall is over half a million people.
We are talking both. You need both a lot of people and they need to live in a fairly small area. Downtown Sacramento really lags on both measures. Currently it isn't especially dense and its tiny.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wburg
I made an offhand remark about how there might be a potential interest in shuttle buses for tech workers similar to the ones that existed in the Bay Area--it wasn't a formal development proposal or some kind of serious prediction. It sounds like you're taking my posts waaaaay more seriously than you should. TBH reverse telework (people living in Midtown & teleworking to tech jobs in the 'Cho) is a more likely scenario.
You kept making it repeatedly and it was just such a silly idea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wburg
Seriously, you're taking an offhand comment about tech buses way too seriously. So they'll take existing transit or telework instead. Why is it so threatening to you that people want to live downtown? It seems to seriously set you off. Did a downtown...hurt you?
You consistently spout of a bunch of uninformed nonsense. Everyone once in a while, I call you to task for that. This was one of them.
Shelato, awesome thanks for the tips, but I'll save Ojai for another trip....I've never been there. I know nothing of it other than the Bionic Woman lived there, LOL!
I don't have a car, just using a bike, keeping it local. With that non-stop direct flight to SB I'll be back to do Ventura/Ojai with a rented car.
I used to have a friend in Ventura with a boat. That was awesome. I burned that bridge so no more free party boat rides out of Ventura, lol.
Wow a bionic woman fan. A little before my time, but I watched it on reruns.
Sorry about the friend, sorry about the boat.
Speaking of boats, if you walk along the beach in Santa Barbara, you likely will find tar in the sand and possibly on your feet, I know I did. You may also be annoyed by that and possibly blame the off shore drilling rigs. I did that too. That tar is naturally occuring, it seeps up from the ocean bottom and the seepage proceeded the offshore drilling platforms (it's not just industrial waste) I don't know if you ever made it out to Carpenteria, probably too far on a bike. But its a scenic little seaside town between Santa Barbara and Ventura. It was initially named Carpenteria because that was location the Native Americans used to collect the tar that would wash up on the beach and they used the tar to seal their boats. Carpenteria is Spanish here for boat factory. Also because there was so much tar naturally washing up on the beach, that is why they started looking for oil offshore there too in the first place.
Downtown Sac will never be desirable, just Doco and anything south towards the Capitol. Or west towards Crocker.
Between the homeless at the River, Loaves and fishes, the county services they use (Housing Authority, Welfare Office, Probation. etc), the County Jail, bail bond agencies, half way houses in Alkali Flats, and subsidized apartment housing, there is simply too much in one concentrated area.
So much so that it's essentially created a critical mass of unsavory poor from the River to K street. DoCo effect seems to have cleaned up about two blocks(Doco block and adjacent 700 block of K street). There's just not going to be a market of middle and upper income earners to live there and clean the place up. That's why all the development is happening in midtown, R street, and such.
Downtown Sac will never be desirable, just Doco and anything south towards the Capitol. Or west towards Crocker.
I recommend a map and compass! The Capitol is east of the arena/DOCO zone. The Crocker is to the south. But you should also recognize that the Capitol is downtown, the Crocker is downtown, basically anything on the western half of the central city is technically "downtown" including CADA's jurisdiction south of the Capitol, the western half of R Street, Southside Park and about half of Richmond Grove.
Also, note that "desirable" to you does not equal desirable to everyone, as we see by the rapid absorption of downtown apartments that, while some are affordable to service workers and entry-level office workers, are for the most part at price points that require a six-figure salary or close to it. Right now it's just a few hundred, and we'll need thousands to make a real difference, but we're definitely on our way. It would be very nice indeed if shelato's mistaken assumption about central city residents (that it's mostly young service workers) were closer to the truth--for half a century, Midtown has been the destination for young and creative people in the region, due to its walkability and concentration of arts uses, but traditionally until the early 2000s, also its cheap rent. The current generation of young, creative artists (many of whom often work minimum wage service jobs while developing their craft) are having difficulty making that transition from our boring suburbs ("boring" meaning "quiet and peaceful" to their elders) because rents have spiked so badly, with an end result that we are again losing creative young people to other cities, not because we lack artistic amenities but because rents in places like Portland or even parts of the Bay Area are lower than the rents they see for market rate housing in Midtown! Adding more affordable housing will address that, and address the problems you outline below.
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Between the homeless at the River, Loaves and fishes, the county services they use (Housing Authority, Welfare Office, Probation. etc), the County Jail, bail bond agencies, half way houses in Alkali Flats, and subsidized apartment housing, there is simply too much in one concentrated area.
A lot of the things you discuss here are actually in Midtown: Sacramento County DHA (the welfare office) is in Midtown on 28th and R Street, as are a lot of the subsidized apartments. There aren't many halfway houses or board & care homes left--they were very common in the 1980s and 90s, but mostly got priced out by rising home values, and a lot of those uses were moving to other parts of the city, in low-density suburban neighborhoods on the northern and southern edges of the city. But it's kind of funny how people selectively isolate physically distant parts of the central city and call them "Midtown" if they're beautiful and vibrant, or "Downtown" if they're in rough shape and there are visible homeless camps. Which is why Broadway is suddenly "Downtown" but the Crocker Museum is not, why the DHA office on 28th Street is "Downtown" but the Sofia theater is not.
One expects to find a county jail and bail bond offices near a county seat where there's a courthouse. These are features of any major city; I'm sure it's frustrating for those whose vision of an ideal utopia is a segregated upper middle class suburb with a downtown so exclusive and expensive that waitstaff have to drive in from 25 miles away, but that's not really how cities work, and part of why I waste my time posting here is to call out people who criticize a large city for functioning in the way that all large cities function.
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So much so that it's essentially created a critical mass of unsavory poor from the River to K street. DoCo effect seems to have cleaned up about two blocks(Doco block and adjacent 700 block of K street). There's just not going to be a market of middle and upper income earners to live there and clean the place up. That's why all the development is happening in midtown, R street, and such.
Residential development has been happening in midtown, R Street, and such, but note that a lot of what you're describing as Midtown (like the neighborhoods on the western half of the grid, and R Street) are actually downtown. People do seem to like going to the arena zone for events, and have rediscovered Old Sacramento as a recreation zone, but it seems like your sole criterion for urban vitality is hygiene and order, when in fact it's the opposite: healthy, vibrant cities are messy and funky and disorderly and sometimes they smell like pee in spots, but they're also places where people of different socioeconomic backgrounds cross paths and interact--and it's that networking effect that is still so valuable about downtown, even in an age of telework. Running into people and creating connections through social interaction still has real value, and the isolated and economically fragile automobile suburb will always lag behind urban centers--which is why all of those auto suburbs are still utterly dependent on the presence of urban cores, even if it's just a dumping ground for the people they don't want to accept, like poor people, artists, and government offices.
Wow a bionic woman fan. A little before my time, but I watched it on reruns.
Sorry about the friend, sorry about the boat.
No worries, "sh...t: happens, people move on...
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