If you were searching for a place to build an upscale concert hall and restaurant to lure name acts and music lovers, the spot Nick Bauta found is not an obvious choice.
South of Folsom Boulevard and across from Hornet Stadium at Sacramento State, the projected home for The Rose Sacramento sits in a neglected netherworld of train tracks and messy industrial sites—a neighborhood more blight than bright.
The East Sacramento Improvement Association is not just another neighborhood group. Established in 1958 when Sacramento was still a sleepy backwater, it’s believed to be the city’s oldest neighborhood association.
Founded as a way to coalesce local opposition to Mercy Hospital expansion when Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House, the East Sac Improvement group is one of the city’s largest and most effective grassroots advocates. It typically gets early peeks at proposed developments within its boundaries and has re-shaped or helped kill projects it dislikes.
Tucked among other news roiling our lives is a growing drumbeat about environmental justice.
President Joe Biden has promised his administration will keep it “in the center of all we do.” Health and Human Services director, former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, spoke often about environmental justice. Becerra joined residents in San Bernardino to oppose plans to expand the airport for Amazon’s logistics needs.
Desperate for something to feel good about amid the city’s boarded-up storefronts and quiet office buildings? Make your way to the 2700 block of K Street. It should lift your spirits.
The spring afternoon I went there, a crane dangled steel beams high above rooftops, workers delicately handled decorative terra cotta and an energetic Roger Hume bounced around from floor to floor. The frenetic scene belonged to one of the more complex and promising rehabilitation projects in recent Sacramento history.
We humans tend to resist change, especially when we fear it may lower our property values.
For those fortunate enough to own a home in a state rapidly making it too expensive for our children to buy one, change is coming whether we like it or not. California’s economy cannot sustain itself with a residential real estate market off limits to whole generations. We have to think differently about housing.
Even for people who refuse to wear masks or treat the coronavirus as the grave public health threat it is, one thing is certain: life will not be the same anytime soon.
No one can say when COVID-19 will stop flooding our hospitals, but we know cities such as Sacramento are changing even as we struggle through the pandemic.
Disasters like earthquakes, fires and floods tend to cause reconsideration. Some close friends of mine in Sonoma County are moving to Washington state after losing their Santa Rosa home in the 2017 wildfires and being evacuated several times since from their new place a few miles north.
