How would you develop Sacramento?
 

Thought I would throw out a new thread, shamelessly cribbed from the LA section, to use as a discussion starting point.

In light of the slumping economy, I doubt we will be getting any high profile projects breaking ground this year, but on the other hand I feel that the following economic bull cycle will be something that Sacramento can harness pretty effectively. We are a city that is on the upswing, not in decline. The future should be bright for us.

There has been a ton of discussion (arguments) on what direction we should take the city in, with proponents of slow, measured growth and those that want a full steam ahead approach.

Because everything's in consolidation mode right now, I think it's the perfect time to talk about what we want done to position ourselves as a city that people desire to live in (not that it isn't already) and take advantage of the coming years of growth.

I've lived in the area for almost all my life, and although I've only recently begun to truly fall in love with Sac I see posters on here that have incredible knowledge and experience that I want to hear from.

So tell me, what would you do to Sacramento. Realistic or unrealistic, throw out your thoughts :)

Change stuff around in The Railyards, lightrail extension to airport/south to CRC, how would you approach K Street, DTP, R Street Corridor, libraries, parks, schools, etc...I know we have specific threads for this stuff but sometimes people's overall image gets lost in the noise, and I want that to come out here.

I'll take a shot. I've been thinking lately that it might have been a mistake to have one developer for the Railyards project. It exposes the project to potential money shortage issues. If Thomas is exposed to some bad deals, a huge part of the city's future is set back years. If we could do it all over again, I would open it up to some of the great local developers. Perhaps the city and state should have done the cleanup, roads, parks, infrastructure, and the like and then lease or sell parcels cheaply to local developers like Loftworks, D & S, LJ Urban, Talyor, even Saca or Mo if they are interested. Set standards on what they can develop. Retail on the first two floors. Housing in every building. A mix of apartments and condos. A min. height of 5 floors/max of 20 perhaps. Give them the parcel for less if they build LEED. Do a tax abatement for condo buyers and stores that move in. I know people here get tired of hearing about Portland, but the Pearl is THE playbook for redeveloping an industrial site and some of these methods were used. I'm worried that the Thomas development will be generic and stale with all the buildings looking the same. Kinda like a soundstage city or something. The great thing about the Pearl is the different architecture. The buildings are different heights, different materials. It feels fresh and organic. I think that is what we all want from the Railyards.

I want the Thomas development to be successful. We all do. But if it falls through and the city ends up with the land again, it is something to think about.

My post above would also work for R Street or K Street. If Zeiden doesn't want to do his development, just give the land or buildings to rehab to local developers who have shown creativity and imagination (LJ Urban, Loftworks, D&S, basically see above post) Give them guidelines (see above) Mixed housing and office if it is a new building. Must have first floor retail. Tax abatements and the like for condo buyers. And then let them fly. A mini MARRS on K with a Peets (or a local place), Lugi's, and Newsbeat? I think it would work. Some eco-townhouses with live-work for artists from LJ Urban? K and R could become patchworks of the best Sac has to offer.

It's a bit pie-in-the-sky and the current market makes it tough. But giving them the land would help and we can dream, can't we?

Build I-5 on the West Sac side of the river.

The city of Sacramento hasn't owned the Railyards property since the 1860s, when it was a swamp. Union Pacific acquired it when they bought Southern Pacific, and sold it to Thomas Enterprises. If Thomas decides to back out, the property would not revert to the city, although considering that they borrowed $55 million from the city to pay for the purchase, it seems only fair that they give the property to the city in place of the cash--at the very least.

I agree with the approach of having more than one developer. The current Railyards plan includes requires multiple architects. Most of the features you mentioned, including ground floor retail/residential above and expected minimum height, are already part of the Railyards specific plan: the shortest buildings will be around 75 feet nearest the Shops buildings and along the "Boxcar Parks," 150 feet a little farther out from both, and in some portions no height limits at all. Because these were part of the plans the city developed, they would most likely apply to a future developer should Thomas back out. Although, as we saw in North Natomas, the price of developing a good community plan is eternal vigilance...

The problem with giving developers land is that it may not be the city's to give. The city has essentially acquired the land on the 700/800 blocks of K, but many of the properties on R Street are not land the city owns. Some were purchased during the last run-up and are sitting vacant (or demolished) until the market gets better.

Going full steam ahead is pretty much impossible right now, seeing as there is very little steam. The city of Sacramento can't just take people's property and give it away, and it does not have unlimited funds to hand out to subsidize development (in fact, it doesn't have much funds at all these days.) So in the short term it seems most prudent to go after the low-hanging fruit: inexpensive but effective projects that make use of existing resources.

Obviously I'm a big fan of adaptive reuse, as that type of project tends to be less expensive than new construction, is more economically beneficial at the local level (restoration requires more labor) and more environmentally friendly (restoration requires less materials, energy and stuff going to the landfill.) Adaptive reuse can be the greenest projects of all.

The projects that have succeeded lately are the ones that are providing something unique: while many of the central city faux-urban-loft projects aren't selling worth a darn, projects like LJ Urban's Good and D&S Development's iLofts are selling like hotcakes, because their product is the genuine article. Instead of faux-styled townhomes billed as "lofts," D&S sells real ones. Instead of token greenwashing billed as "sustainable development," LJ Urban pioneered LEED-ND in the region and showcases their building's ground-breaking green features.

It's all about building a better mousetrap.

wburg, I appreciate your thoughts. I know the Railyards wont revert back to the city, I was following your logic that the land might be exchanged for a forgiveness of the debt. I also know that the city wont just take land for private development (Even though the Kelo case actually allows this). I was just dreaming of a situation that would get the highest profile land (Railyards, R St, K St, and now J St) in the hands of the city's brightest developers. Reuse is great if there are buildings there to be reused. Like I said, if Loftworks or D&S could do the rehab on the K St buildings that the city now owns, I think it would be very successful. We just need something more than more Class-A office space and hotels.

Yeah, I'd love to see D&S or Heller Pacific do some projects in the Railyards. I'd like the R St. area to be more Pearl like but the Railyards should be something different. I really hope that if we ever get it off the ground the boxcar parks idea stays, it's a pretty cool touch.

WBurg, I definitely agree that we need more real lofts, the ilofts blew my expectations away after years of seeing fake crap.

Also, is it true that there are areas with no height restrictions in the Railyards plan? That's awesome.

One thing I've always felt we needed to do here is integrate the river more, and not just in scattered developments like Township 9, Railyards, etc. Even in areas where the river is 100 yards away it doesn't have the presence that I think it should.

Manhattan/Tokyo

Yeah, I'd definitely love to see Cap Mall become a canyon...

My wish list:

Cover the boat section of I-5. We can never take away the damage I-5 has done to our city, but lets try to fix as much as we can.

Mixed use on the R street corridor. This seems to be the place for young urbans are drawn to. Allow for plenty of bars/restaurants/retail at ground level. Lofts above.

Nice tall apartment buildings south of Capitol Mall.

More tall office buildings on Capitol Mall. I don’t think housing will work here.

Office towers along L Street. But please no more ugly parking structures stinking up the joint. (I’m talking to you, US Bank Building)

K Street seems to be morphing into an entertainment district. Let’s make that happen.

The Community Center Theather needs a facelift. Make it a glass fronted jewel box along Capitol Park.

Hotels along J Street. Let’s start with a Mandarin Oriental at 3rd and J where the Denny’s is. Is anyone else embarrassed that the first thing people see when the exit the free way is a parking lot for Denny’s?

Get moving on the DNA line. I'd like to see one go down Arden Way out to Sunrise Mall too.

Let D&S development have a crack at the old brick buildings in the Rivers District. I’d love to see what they could do with the area between 12th and 16th Street.

We need a real late night dance area. How about some of the old buildings in the Rivers District?

Faces and Badlands are fine, but we need a real sleazy gay club in this town. How about some of the old buildings in the Rivers District?

Better bike connector to Del Paso Blvd. from Downtown. I know it’s been tried before with only limited success, but this are should and can be an arts incubator. Maybe News and Review moving there will help.

Help transform the 65th Street/Elvis area into a more college friendly area. More pubs/ bookstores/headshops/clothing stores/live music venues/bike repair shops. The one bike tunnel on Elvis is great, but make it more porous between Elvis and Sac State with more tunnels.

The city is trying to make Power Inn Road the incubator area for green businesses. Work with Sac State to make it really happen. And forget about the idea of housing natural gas underground there. It’s unsafe.

Build a bridge at Broadway. Build another one at Sutterville Road. We need to be more connected with West Sac.

Stick to the community plan for Oak Park. NO parking lots fronting Broadway at all.

Get moving on the International Marketplace for the Stockton Blvd. corridor. This seems to be the only area in town immune from the economic slowdown. A street car down Stockton Blvd. would be outstanding. I’d really like to see a huge South East Asian Festival happen every spring. It would be a big regional draw.

Politically, the city should move towards a strong mayor system; making city council members full time and should incorporate parts of South Sac, Rosemont and Arden arcade into the city boundaries.

What's funny is that there used to be a streetcar/interurban line to Oak Park that went down Broadway to 2nd Avenue, then down Stockton Blvd. and ending a stretch down 21st Avenue (if you go down 21st now the big grass area in the middle is where the streetcars, and freight trains, ran.)

I think I saw pictures of this at Sac State? Black and white on the wall of the building facing the rear parking lot, not on the freeway side the other side. Am I mistaken Wburg? It has been sometime...

I am not familiar with the picture you are referring to, but there are a lot of Sacramento streetcar photos floating about. The most common are of the PG&E cars, which actually took two separate lines from downtown to Oak Park; one via 28th Street down Broadway, another via 21st that turned on 2nd Avenue and meandered through Highland Park (now Curtis Park) past Oak Park/Joyland/McClatchy Park (depending on when) and ended at the old fairgrounds at Stockton & Broadway.

The line down Stockton belonged to Central California Traction, an interurban that ran from Sacramento to Stockton. In order to get the OK to carry freight and interurban passengers on tracks in Sacramento streets, they had to provide a local streetcar service, in addition to paying a city fee and maintaining the right-of-way.

A few more random thoughts:

Make the park across from Crocker Museum more inviting. There’s not even a sidewalk around most of it.

Get rid of the gas storage facilities on both sides of the Sacramento River. Move them to the Port of Sacramento in West Sac.

Anchor the entrance to the Docks Area with some sort of large sculpture garden like they have in Seattle. Work to get Sacramento some large iconic art pieces—but please no giant golden spikes.

Develop the waterfront from Miller Park marina to Richards Blvd with museums dotting the area. The plans for the science museum look promising. Connect that area to West Sac’s Indian Museum with a footbridge.

Turn the stretch of Broadway near Land Park into a restaurant row.

Arden Way from Ethan to Watt is showing its age, but there is plenty of room to build dense apartment housing on some of the lots. Extend the high limits for apartments to 6-8 stories. Reduce the roadway from 6 to 4 lanes. Widen the sidewalks and plant shade trees. Limit the parking requirement and extend light rail or a streetcar line out that way.

Do not allow Ed Kado to work in this town again.

Have Heather Fargo, Ray Thretheway, Angelo Tsakopoulos, and Phil Angelides meet in the parking lot of the Natomas Marketplace. Have them fill sandbags for the next year and make them distribute to all the houses in North Natomas.

Nightlife & Transportation
 

My thoughts (which are pretty unrealistic, but in my mind would be awesome) are as follows:

NIGHTLIFE:

It seems like Sacramento's nightlife is growing in spite of the economic conditions. I think that could be enhanced.

I think we should lobby for a 4am last call in Sacramento City only. Maybe only on Friday and Saturday nights. This would make Sacto a destination location for night time partyers. Imagine how many people would come to Sacramento for a weekend party. Especially if we were the only city that is able to do this.

Old Town is very cut off from the rest of Sacramento and gets ghetto at night. The major pedestrian passage takes you through a creepy tunnel. I propose that we put a couple of night clubs under the freeway. 5 to be exact. They would be the 5 Under 5. The idea would be to lighten up that area and create a welcoming flow to the passage beneath the freeway. Live music venues would be awesome!

Capitol Towers needs a bar/nightclub at its base. Apparently it used to, but that is now the common area. BS. They need to open a bar or some kind of restaraunt on the first floor that is open at normal human hours instead of being closed by the time everybody gets off work.

TRANSPORTATION:

I agree with having 5 on the West side of the river, or even submerging it through the downtown corridor, but that is too unrealistic for my unrealistic rant, so I'll leave that one alone.

There really are too many transportation needs in the area, so I'll limit my comments to the ones that I think about on a daily basis.

How about we build a GD bridge across the river from Bradshaw to link up to where Manzanita/Fair Oaks Blvd should extend to. F the people that live there and are screwing up everybody's commute. It's only going to get worse.

And how about we have Light Rail make just 1 loop outside of downtown? I don't know, maybe down Sunrise or Watt. Let's also have it run all the way out to Sac State. How about Light Rail to Arden Fair? That would be awesome.

Lastly, let's just submerge Light Rail downtown. Just get it out of site and make it run at speeds faster than most people can run. If it was more like BART, that would be amazing.

Yes, definitely! That is prime riverfront land, it needs to be put to better use.

Also, something needs to be done about that area north of Grant Park, between 16th and Bus 80. I know there was a crappy little proposal a while back, but I want that entire area to be a classy riverfront neighborhood with townhomes, a nice park, and maybe a condo project or two overlooking the water. Something other that bare land. And actual density, not squashed together faux urban development either.


Tom, you also mentioned making that whole Folsom/65th/Elvas area more college friendly. That should be ground zero for college type retail. I know it's possible through the tunnel but it feels almost like there's no real non car connection between that area and the school, and they're right next to each other. Get a small little park put in there, some pedestrian only streets, build everything up at least a few floors, and put some more connections under the railway. Free CSUS from the need to have a car.

-Something else needs to go up in West Sac as well, to complement Calstrs and the Zig (ugh). Preferrably residential, but anything that looks good, we lucked out that Calstrs looks as good as it does, if an ugly building went up it would be a major eyesore with the lack of density there. They need an area to become the focal point of their development. It would be nice if the proposals for the areas all get completed, but at least get a small, defineable area near Raley Field and use that as a catalyst to expand.

This is a fun thread to read. Thanks Korey. :tup:

The name of the bar in Capitol Towers was "Gilhooly's," a funky old peanut-shells-on-the-floor kind of place. Many state workers called it "Conference Room G" from its flock of state-employee regulars, or maybe as a covert way of saying "let's go get a couple of drinks on our lunch hour!"

The plans set for Capitol Towers is to replace the clusters of two-story apartments with several residential towers, 15-25 stories tall, with parking and retail at the bases. The open, parklike areas in between will remain.

Downtown Development
 

Hello, folks!! I'm new to this, so I thought I'd post my first comments. Have been on here many times!! How would I develop Sacramento? Hmmm....I'd start downtown. For some reason, I've always envisioned J Street with having boutiques like in San Francisco's Hayes Valley and the Marina District. Not to mention a couple more high-rises and another boutique hotel along J Street (think W Hotel). As for K Street, I hope Joe Zeiden will go forward with his proposal and develop the 700 block of K Street (or is it the 800 block?) with his shops. Although, it would be interesting to see cars back on K Street. What would happen to the light rail? On L Street? Hurry up and move that Greyhound station!!! I can't stand driving by it sometimes!! Is that 701 L Street tower still proposed for that corner where Greyhound is now? And the railyards? Hmmm.....I hope they get the ball rolling on that pretty soon!! That would be great to see in a few years!! I hope the city can get the ball rolling on some new downtown projects soon.

Any new word on that proposal to replace the old apartments with the towers?

Rick's Skyline: The proposal for 701 L Street is many years old. The Greyhound station won't be closed until there is another Greyhound station to replace it, and public transit to that point: currently, the city's proposed lot for a replacement depot at Richards and Sierra Pacific is just bare dirt, and while extending Light Rail to Richards Blvd. is coming up, it will probably take a couple of years. Personally I think it will be relocated to the vicinity of the Amtrak station once the track relocation is done: the new track alignment will leave plenty of room for an Amtrak/Greyhound/RT bus terminal that meets both Light Rail, regional Capitol Corridor/San Joaquin trains, and long-distance Amtrak trains.

As for the bus station itself, personally I hope they use the existing Streamline Moderne station as the entrance for a tower on that corner, along the same lines as what was done with a similar Greyhound station in Washington DC--or, more locally, the sort of facade retention done with the Public Market building or the Esquire Theatre.

As to Capitol Towers, there was a presentation on them last year. Like pretty much everything else, the national crisis we are facing has put a damper on much new development. Still, I am pretty certain that we will see the population of the central city triple within the next 20 years. Unlike some here, I am also pretty certain it can be done without much demolition of existing buildings.

I don't share the enthusiasm some have for putting Light Rail underground: personally, I enjoy being able to see the city as I ride the train (it's a lot more fun than watching the taillights of the car in front of you when stuck in traffic!) Why bother? Light rail goes plenty fast on its private right-of-way out into the suburbs, in the central city it goes as fast as auto traffic.

I keep hearing about the city putting Greyhound on Richards Blvd for a while until they come up with a permanent location. Won't Greyhound's new location, at some point, go in the Railyards next to the train station? Isn't that part of the master plan? Using the Streamline Moderne station as an entrance to an office tower? Hmmmm.....could be interesting!! I haven't heard much about the Capitol Towers since last year, either. I still hope they follow through with it once the economic situation improves, whenever that will be.

You're exactly right about this. The problem is that the site on Richards Boulevard is currently just a bare patch of dirt, and there is almost no public transit from that point: just two bus lines that don't run very often during the day, and not at all at night. So the station can't relocate until a new building is built, and public transit is there to take people getting off of Greyhound to wherever they're going in town.

At the rate things are going, the track relocation will be done and the depot ready for modification before a replacement building and Light Rail extension to Richards can be built: the track relocation is supposed to start later this year. So it might save money and time to just put the Greyhound station next to the depot in the first place.

I would use Pittsburgh as a model instead of Portland.

Hi, econgrad.

Pittsburgh instead of Portland as a model of what?

He wants Sacramento to model itself after Pittsburg instead of Portland.

I want Sacramento to not model itself after anything other than the visions of it's citizens. We have the intelligence and the drive as a city, let's not be imitators. See what other cities are doing well, yes, and adapt those principles, but not much further than that.

Remember articles like this:

I was simply responding to the hundreds of articles like this I have read, and countless people saying and wishing we would be like Portland some day. I think Pittsburgh is a better model for our DT, but I agree with Korey 100%! We should be unique. If we were using a model then Pittsburgh, I am for being our own style and identity first and foremost.

Econgrad, I think folks are asking what is it about Pittsburgh that you think we should emulate?

I've never been to Pittsburgh. I don't hear Pittsburgh mentioned much and I just wondered what about Pittsburgh Sacramento (or any other city) would want to emulate.

But pretty much every city is on the ropes now, struggling to fill what's already been built. I don't think any cities are striving to remake themselves or emulate any other cities now.

Envisioned Future
 

First, thank you Korey for starting this thread.

Sacramento is a family oriented city. We should capitalize on that strength. Anything built should not only attract tourists, but locals should enjoy them as well. How about a zoo that rivals San Diego's?

I know this might not be environmentally or structurally feasible, but creating a large lake year round in the Yolo bypass (at least in non-drought years) would really enhance the western gateway to the city. Hey, the valley used to be an inland sea.

Go vertical. I mean enough with the short squatty footprints already. I understand the higher you build, the higher the costs. That said, we have to have a presence. There are no really awe-inspiring buildings downtown.

Get serious about building the Railyards, the waterfront and Cal Expo. How about attracting Six Flags?

Whatever it is we build, green technologies should be a big part of it. To be able to showcase what we can hopefully create here as a manufacturing base would enhance our image as a green sector economy. Partner with the universities. We need to attract the best and brightest talent. We are a part of the Pacific Rim. Why not create the kind of economy that commands the world's attention? Having that foundation will help us develop the reputation as a destination city to be reckoned with, and not just a gas stop between SF and Tahoe.

http://aaabackyardoffice.blogspot.com/

You had me until this trendy political correct crap... :yuck:

Call it Political Crap
 

Hey Econ,

We don't have to see it as trendy, but there is money to be made in this 21 Century business model. Our manufacturing base is has been declining for the past 30 years. If we can build it and sell it to the rest of the world, why not. China is already investing heavily in alternative energies. They know the score. McClellan Business Park has already landed 2 large companies who came here because of the tax credits. If this creates jobs in the numbers people are predicting, we should be able to attract related businesses to Sac.

I would need more information than this to respond:

What are the names of the two companies?
What do they sell?
Are these companies profitable or are they more "green" phony companies surviving off of taxpayer money?

And as far as your China reference:

China invests heavily in Sudan's oil industry
by Peter S. Goodman

LEAL, Sudan, Dec 23, 2004 -- On this flat and dusty African plain, China's largest energy company is pumping crude oil, sending it 1,000 miles upcountry through a Chinese-made pipeline to the Red Sea, where tankers wait to ferry it to China's industrial cities. Chinese laborers based in a camp of prefabricated sheds work the wells and lay highways across the flats to make way for heavy machinery.


http://digg.com/environment/China_In...Nuclear_Fusion

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/3753

http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/B...in-africa.aspx


If the two companies you are referring to are profitable, then great! I do not believe any green companies are or ever will be profitable. If anyone can find one for me, that would be great. They do not exist yet.

Yes, China has been investing heavily in traditional energy sources around the globe.Like us, they are heavily dependent on fossil fuels. The competition for what was then a cheap energy source helped speculators drive the oil bubble, in what was Exxon's most profitable year. Of course that came crashing down as the world entered the recession. Cheap energy including coal-fired plants is what allowed them to manufacture and ship their products overseas to our consuming nation and others like us. But their is a price to pay. One look at the Olympics last summer told them that they were literally choking in their own poisonous world and that they would have to do something differently. When a population is unhealthy, production plummets and health care costs rise, not a particularly good prescription for sustaining their economy. Nuclear power is one option of which there are many. The plunge in oil demand and lowering prices has not assisted the alternative energy campaign. They're hurting too as a result.

Now there is a smart way to capitalize on the green initiatives. Become the innovator to the world. With oil past its peek, who should the world look to? Many companies are leveraging their future on it: From Baron's "To be sure, more public and private spending will benefit alternative-energy giants like General Electric (GE), the biggest U.S. supplier of wind turbines, and United Technologies (UTX), a leader in making buildings more energy-efficient. Johnson Controls (JCI), Honeywell (HON), AES (AES) and others that make sensors and systems needed to optimize HVAC (heating, ventilating and air-conditioning) also belong on any list of likely green winners. So do a handful of midsized players in the fast-growing wind-energy-generation supply chain, such as Kaydon (KDN), a maker of ball bearings critical to wind-turbine efficiency; Woodward Governor (WGOV) a specialist in energy-generation and transmission components; MasTec (MTZ), a builder of generation and transmission facilities, and Valmont (VMI), which makes transition towers and other utility structures. "All are profitable, old-line industrials projecting double-digit growth in 2009 and trying to reinvent themselves," says Ed Mitby, an analyst at Van Eck Associates.

But we consider ABB, Waste Management, FPL, Jacobs and Eaton a sort of green dream team, for all the reasons, and then some, explained below. They probably aren't the first names that come to mind when you think "green," but they have the products, technologies and, not least, the financial strength to deliver for investors. Even better, their stocks are bargains."

More on the solar industry:

http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sa...04/story1.html

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/...ap6115509.html

http:
//online.barrons.com/article/SB123578882581298993.html?mod=googlenews_barrons&page=2

I think we need some kind of cover over I-5 at K St. We had a similar "interstate slash" in downtown Columbus, Ohio, and they solved it very well with something called "The High St Cap":

http://www.enhancements.org/download...ns/Vol8no2.pdf

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content...K.html?sid=101

http://columbusoh.about.com/library/blpic011.htm


Also, as an extension of this idea I'd like to see a very robust redevelopment of Downtown Plaza.

The idea of decking I-5 has come up before: K Street would not be the place to do it, as I-5 currently runs at about street level once it hits K, with a pedestrian underpass underneath (at the original Sacramento street level, pre-raise.) The plan was to deck over the "boat section" from about O to L Street.

Are there any images of how the "cap" works in Columbus? None of the links show really clearly how much was covered up, or how it works now, just a few shots from the top.

Thanks for the articles! We will agree to disagree for the moment, I see this going on and on into another huge debate on here. Which I am not in the mood for currently. I do appreciate your response. :cheers:

NEWTOCA: Great links! It makes a clear picture when you read the article. Yes, we should do something similar here. yes it has been proposed before. I just hope something big happens and not some sorry excuse for a foot bridge.

Pictures of cap, including from the air:

http://citycomfortsblog.typepad.com/.../i670_cap.html

Brief project summary:

http://casestudies.uli.org/Profile.aspx?j=7696&p=1&c=7

In addition, one of the most effective ways to see the project in terms of size and scale is to go to Google Map, and take a look at the section of High St (the major north and south st in the city) starting at Goodale St on the south side and then scroll north on High.

Econgrad and wburg, a cap with substance makes all of the difference in the world. The High St Cap was a catalyst in integrating the downtown area with the Short North area, which is High St from I-670 and then north for about a mile to the south side of the Ohio State University campus.

This integration really kicked off the massive Arena District development in downtown Columbus, because it created a positive link between the residential area and business areas. Here is some information concerning the Arena District, which is located just to the south side of the High St Cap, between High St and Neil Ave (about 1/4 mile to the west of High St):

http://www.pbase.com/ralf/cbus_arena

^ Its awesome! Thanks for the pictures! So am I being greedy for wanting something bigger in Sacramento?

Sacramento has a greater population than Pittsburgh, yet Pittsburgh has 151 highrise buildings. Here is a Wikipedia quote:

"The skyline features 151 high-rise buildings,[9] 446 bridges,[10] two inclined railways, and a pre-revolutionary fortification. Pittsburgh is known colloquially as "The City of Bridges" and "The Steel City" for its many bridges and former steel manufacturing base."

"In 2007, Forbes magazine named Pittsburgh the 10th cleanest city,[12] and in 2008 Forbes listed Pittsburgh as the 13th best city for young professionals to live.[13] The city is consistently ranked high in livability surveys. In 2007, Pittsburgh was named "America's Most Livable City" by Places Rated Almanac.[14]"

There is also a nice University near the heart of the city. The city is nicely compact in its downtown. Very nice buildings as well. I have been there twice, it is very nice. I have been to Portland hundreds of times, and it is not as well developed. I will post some pictures I took soon.

Pittsburg's population of 334,000 is down from a high of 676,000 in 1950. Its population in 1910 was bigger than Sacramento's population now: in 1910, Sacramento had a population of 44,000, and in 1950 about 130,000.

The older an American city is, the more likely it is to have a dense urban core. Pittsburgh was founded in 1758, long before steam railroads, and was a well-established city before the invention of the electric streetcar in the 1880s. Most people got around by walking, even after the advent of those modes of transportation. Tall office buildings and factories made a lot of sense for Pittsburgh because there were no cars or hard-surfaced roads (let alone freeways) that would let people live long distances from work and allow architecture to sprawl horizontally across the landscape. So they built office towers and residential buildings that let a lot of people live and work in relatively close proximity. Factories in Pittsburgh were often built very tall in order to provide more efficient heating, necessary in Pennsylvania's cold winters.

Sacramento was the second biggest city in California during the Gold Rush era, but it was rapidly eclipsed in the 1870s and remained a small city well into the 20th century. Our industries, railroading and agricultural processing, used different sorts of buildings than Pittsburgh's massive steel mills. While the Southern Pacific shops were a huge industrial facility that did everything but forge their own steel, railroading tends to take up a lot of horizontal space, and the broad, open plans of the surviving handful of Shops buildings make this clear. Similarly, Sacramento's breweries, canneries and lumber mills typically had expansive floor plans. Our mild winters meant that heating was not as important, but good ventilation in our scorching summers was.
Residentially, Sacramento's old core had comparatively high-density housing, and our early streetcar suburbs were closely built, with a mixture of single-family and multi-family housing. But the property values and housing needs of a city of 50,000 (Sacramento of 1910) is nothing like a city ten times its size (Pittsburgh in 1910.) So we didn't get a central city that looks like Pittsburgh's, and much of the high-density housing in the central city, along with most of our industrial infrastructure, was demolished during the redevelopment era.

Cities that saw most of their growth after the age of the automobile, especially western cities, expanded into horizontal suburbs instead of developing their urban cores. This was the case in Sacramento, and many other California cities. We expanded rapidly after World War II into former hop fields and orchards. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, contracted rapidly after World War II. They didn't need to build new suburbs because nobody was flocking to Pittsburgh. Half of the city's population has left over the past 50 years, while Sacramento's population has almost quadrupled in the same period. Since the vast bulk of housing development over that period was in car-centric residential suburbs, and most of Sacramento is a product of that era, that's pretty much why we look the way we do.

I would heartily agree that we need to get past the car-centric suburbs and return to building cities that are far more compact, based around walkability and public transit, so I think I see where you are coming from.

So, have you been there too? :)

No...but it's not too hard to find this information. Pittsburgh is a much older city, grew up to city size prior to the automobile age, and never needed big postwar suburbs because their population was dramatically shrinking while ours was dramatically expanding. So, they're going to look a lot different.

Even though it is an older city, that does not make it a worse model than Portland.

It's not a question of better or worse model, but one of dramatically different circumstances. Pittsburgh looks the way it does in part because of its age, and in part because half the city's population fled the city over the past few decades--a trend that has yet to reverse (Pittsburgh lost 30,000 people between 1990 and 2000, in the same decade Sacramento gained 40,000.) Normally those kinds of drops in population are signs of serious trouble--the kind we associate with cities like Detroit.

I also note that despite Pittsburgh's high-density housing downtown, its average population density isn't much higher: 5600 people per square mile vs. 4700 here in Sacramento. Considering that Pittsburgh had twice its current population in 1950, I wonder if there are vacant neighborhoods on the outskirts.

econgrad why do you sacride whatever republican is popular at the moment? You've gone from Palin to Reagan to Steele. Whos next, Rush?

I would think he is more intelligent than that.

I have no idea what your talking about.....

Rush
 

http://i573.photobucket.com/albums/s...office3016.jpg

Give Rush a break. He's an entertainer.