Cecily Hastings

Recently I read an essay about the “third place.” The idea has been around for years. Our first place is home. Our second place is work. The third place is everything in between, the locations where we gather, linger and connect.

Sacramento has always had strong third places. But we can no longer assume they will sustain themselves.

Think about a Saturday morning at the Midtown Farmers Market or Sunday morning under the freeway. Strangers stand together and sample citrus, buy flowers and debate which bakery line is shorter. Everyone participates and builds familiarity and a sense of trust.

With his years on City Council and the state Assembly, Kevin McCarty brings more than two decades of elected public service to the mayor’s office.

He says being mayor requires a different perspective.

After 15 months in his new job, McCarty invited me to City Hall for what he called a “one-year check-in.” We discussed homelessness, Downtown’s recovery, government efficiency and what surprised him most about being mayor.

We began with homelessness. “There’s no question it’s the issue I deal with every day,” McCarty says.

In February, I wrote “30 Years in Print,” recalling how Inside Sacramento began as a neighborhood experiment and grew into the largest print circulation publication in Northern California, with 80,000 copies of each monthly issue delivered to homes, helping to define our community.

The milestone was celebratory and sobering.

For three decades, Inside Sacramento has been 100% advertising supported. We don’t charge for the magazine. No subscription requirements or paywalls. Our model is simple. Local businesses invest in reaching local readers. We deliver high-quality journalism, storytelling and photography to the neighborhoods we share.

But the media landscape has changed.

Sacramento spends astonishing sums trying to address homelessness—more than $120 million in five years. Yet the crisis continues to dominate our streets, parks, business districts and neighborhoods.

A recent investigation by the Bee lays out where the money went and why the results were so limited. The findings deserve close attention from residents who wonder how so much public investment produces so little improvement.

The Bee’s reporting shows local strategy centered on building and operating shelters—large sites, tiny home villages, motel conversions and sanctioned camping areas. These projects consume enormous financial and administrative resources.

Thirty years ago, when we printed the first issue of Inside, I had no grand plan. I had an idea, a belief and the drive to create something that didn’t exist, a publication that celebrated the city neighborhood by neighborhood, story by story, in a way that felt authentic.

We started small and grew organically. Today we’re the largest circulation print publication in Northern California.

What I didn’t know was how this work would shape my life.

When people ask why I’m still committed to print, I think back to the time someone told me print would soon be obsolete. It was the mid-1990s. The internet was barely a toddler. Smartphones were a decade away. “Everything will be online,” they said. “Print is old news.”

The prediction felt shortsighted. Sacramento is a city of neighborhoods, relationships, families, parks, small businesses, porch conversations and traditions. To me, print was—and is—the ideal medium for capturing the city’s spirit.