View Single Post
  #62  
Old Posted Sep 28, 2007, 10:15 PM
wburg's Avatar
wburg wburg is offline
Hindrance to Development
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,402
ozone: Why can't she walk to work from midtown if she works on 5th Street? I work downtown and live in midtown, and I have my choice of walking, taking the bus or taking light rail if I don't feel like driving--which is turning out to be quite often.

I live in a house. It's not a big house (about 900 sf), it doesn't have a driveway, and it doesn't have a big backyard (and I'm considering turning the backyard into a driveway.) I can walk to work, coffee, supermarket or entertainment, and if my feet hurt I can bike or take public transit most of the time. I take bus or light rail to school because it's easier and cheaper than driving, and a lot less stressful.

For people who don't share my obsession with hundred year old homes, there are new projects like Tapestri Square and the SoCap Lofts and a dozen or so other ones that are selling like hotcakes. Those homes are just as convenient for walking or busing/biking downtown, space-efficient, modern, and a lot of them are pretty good looking.

I don't think the nimrods here don't get it, it's just that they're unwilling or unable to pay for it. The streetcar plan with West Sacramento aims to help address some of those concerns in a cost-effective way, although additional bus, jitney and future streetcar expansion sounds like a swell idea too. We share the desire for better public transit, but midtown is one of the places where it's actually something like adequate.

Living in Midtown is not like living in the suburbs. The people who live in single-family dwellings in Midtown are not looking for the same things as people who live in single-family dwellings in Rocklin. For starters, they often started out as people who lived in multi-family dwellings in Midtown and decided they wanted to own a stake in the neighborhood they fell in love with. This neighborhood was built with public transit and walkability in mind--it wasn't until the streetcar that midtown was fully built out, for example, and it was predominant for decades--but most people who worked downtown and lived in Southside or Midtown still walked to work.

So, I will repeat: What are the arguments in favor of embracing high-rise living in Sacramento?
Reply With Quote