West Sacramento: Proposal/Projects and Developments

[jsf8278]

is the white stuff on the first few stories fire proofing?

[Ryan@CU]

WOW, I mean, realy WOW. I know Westsac has potential for some great views of the skyline, but I didn't expect them to be that good. Great stuff.

[northbay]

Originally Posted by jsf8278

is the white stuff on the first few stories fire proofing?

yup

[innov8]

Originally Posted by BrianSac

Shweet!

Nice close-up. and the sunrise is perfect. can't wait to see the rest of them.

Thanks Brain… when I took the photo, I did not realize it would look like it did

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...40#post3089740

Originally Posted by Quest

Great shots. How did they let you go up there?

I share the same hobby as the steel foreman who doe's the trouble shooting for
the company... he's featured in the full set of pics. I meet him when they
were starting to raise steel a 621CM and I let him know that I would love to
go up into CalSTRS too if he could make it happen.

I know how lucky I am… I’m very grateful.

Thanks everyone

[BrianSac]

Originally Posted by wburg

What you're saying depends largely on exactly what parts of SF, NYC, Chicago or Montreal you're talking about. I've never been to NYC or Montreal so I don't really have a basis for comparison, but I know San Francisco and Chicago pretty well. The vast majority of those cities' area are NOT skyscrapers, or even 5-8 story buildings.

Wburg,
Now I am belaboring the point of density and vibrancy.

All I am saying, instead of comparing downtown and midtown to american suburbs, lets thinks in the 3-8 story range. Almost all of Paris is in this range. Check out these pics, care of a skyscraperpage forumer, JP. I came across his/her pics and they illustrate my point about what density and vibrancy are all about without "skyscrapers".

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=495566

Perphaps the Sacramento Riverfront could be more on this scale one day.

[wburg]

BrianSac: I'm not comparing midtown to American suburbs, but to comparable neighborhoods in American cities.

Densities in Paris have a lot to do with the fact that they had that extra millenium or so during which it was pretty much mandatory that communities be "walkable." European cities are also historically dense because they aren't surrounded by slurbs: I recommend Eric Monkkonen's America Becomes Urban: The Development of U.S. Cities and Towns for further discussion.

[BrianSac]

Originally Posted by wburg

BrianSac: I'm not comparing midtown to American suburbs, but to comparable neighborhoods in American cities.

Densities in Paris have a lot to do with the fact that they had that extra millenium or so during which it was pretty much mandatory that communities be "walkable." European cities are also historically dense because they aren't surrounded by slurbs: I recommend Eric Monkkonen's America Becomes Urban: The Development of U.S. Cities and Towns for further discussion.

Thanks for the book recommendation.

Paris is surrounded by "suburbs" by the way.

Did you even look at the pics?

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=495566

As you can see it is quite "urban" at the 3-8 story range....thats why it sort of makes me laugh when we call midtown "urban and dense". Its a friggin small town (there is nothing wrong with that either).

I suggest our city leaders take a look at these pics, better yet, spend some time in Paris (on their own money of course).

Regarding West Sac: Build the areana and the governors mansion on the Riverfront in West Sac.

[jsf8278]

Originally Posted by BrianSac

Thanks for the book recommendation.

Regarding West Sac: Build the areana and the governors mansion on the Riverfront in West Sac.

I agree. The arena would look great on the riverfront.

[BrianSac]

Originally Posted by BrianSac

Thanks for the book recommendation.

Paris is surrounded by "suburbs" by the way.

Did you even look at the pics?

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=495566

As you can see it is quite "urban" at the 3-8 story range....thats why it sort of makes me laugh when we call midtown "urban and dense". Its a friggin small town (there is nothing wrong with that either).

I suggest our city leaders take a look at these pics, better yet, spend some time in Paris (on their own money of course).

Regarding West Sac: Build the areana and the governors mansion on the Riverfront in West Sac.

Forgot to give credit to, JP, for his pics in that last post:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=495566

[TowerDistrict]

For a brief but entertaining read about the world most famous and infamous
cities and how they came to be what they are today - read Kunstler's
The City in Mind. There's a good bit about the way Paris' uniform density
came to be. I've been to Paris and I didn't realize when I was there, that
much of what you see is not very old at all. In fact, there are probably a
few Sacramento structures from the same era.

Also read about Hausmann who was essentially the man behind the plan. It's
amazing what he was able to do (get away with). The man wouldn't been hung
in America for sure. The only American that I'm aware of that could hold a
candle to Hausmann's tenacity would've been Pierre L'Enfant, who ended up
dying poor and in obscurity... only to be posthumously treated as a great
American genious.

In great cities like DC and Paris, it seems to be the case that they had a
great plan and stuck to it. In most of the more infamous cities (Detroit,
Atlanta, etc.) cities were abandoned and left to rot. Hopefully in the case of
the Railyards, the plan is carried through to the end. Then you'll see a slice
of those great cities right here in Sacramento. I think in the next 20 years,
we'll be able to see a striking contrast between two wholey separate ideals
in the way cities are built, in Natomas and the Railyards.

Development in the triangle area of WEST SACRAMENTO also has great
potential. Though I hope the development begins to get a bit more cohesive
in the riverfront area around the Ziggurat and CalSTRS. It's a bit piecemeal
over there.

[wburg]

"great cities like DC"? Everything I've heard about Washington DC until very, very recently is that it is most certainly one of those places whose streets roll up at 5:00 PM. Cities designed to look spectacular from the air typically look like crap at ground level...and vice versa.

BrianSac: Yes, I looked at the pictures. Midtown is urban in a western-city mode. We used to be *more* urban, especially the parts nearest the river, but we knocked down almost all of those buildings in a citywide effort to become less urban. If you go down 12th Street you can see a few of the sort of buildings that used to be more commonplace downtown on the West End: 2-4 story mixed-use. Our "great plan" involved destroying those buildings in favor of the dead zone that is Capitol Mall, shoving nonwhites into other central city neighborhoods, and encouraging suburban development.

My main point is that the housing found in midtown is *NOT* the same sort of housing as found in the suburbs: people here (not necessarily you) tend to consider them equivalent. They're different sorts of urban forms than one finds in cities built around the medieval model of city-building, or in high-rise development, but quarter-acre tract homes they ain't.

[TowerDistrict]

Originally Posted by wburg

"great cities like DC"? Everything I've heard about Washington DC until very,
very recently is that it is most certainly one of those places whose streets roll
up at 5:00 PM. Cities designed to look spectacular from the air typically look
like crap at ground level...and vice versa.

there was a couple decades where things got bad, due to the great white
flight and... well.... crack... but DC was originally laid out better than any
American city, and it remains largely intact just that way. You'd love it...
very well preserved, the transit is second to none and the neighborhoods
are the the epitome of walkable. And it is by far the cleanest American city.
It's kinda like if you mixed San Francisco and Sacramento together in
equal parts actually.

[TowerDistrict]

and L'Enfant's plans for DC were always to build residential neighborhoods
adjacent to government buildings and commercial corridors. The city was
planned and built long before cars ruled the streets and it was by no means
some off the cuff aerial piece of artwork. DC is text book, 150 year old
"new urbanism". I also found it especially inspirational because, like
Sacramento, the politicos inhabit the city during the day, then flee to the
burbs at night. But DC retains a strong urban neighborhood population that
keeps the city alive well into the night.

[ltsmotorsport]

Originally Posted by TowerDistrict

there was a couple decades where things got bad, due to the great white
flight and... well.... crack... but DC was originally laid out better than any
American city, and it remains largely intact just that way. You'd love it...
very well preserved, the transit is second to none and the neighborhoods
are the the epitome of walkable. And it is by far the cleanest American city.
It's kinda like if you mixed San Francisco and Sacramento together in
equal parts actually.

Agreed wholeheartedly. DC is one of the easiest cities to get around, and the amount of culture and diversity is amazing. Well worth going, even if you aren't into the whole monument/museum touring thing.

[BrianSac]

Originally Posted by TowerDistrict

For a brief but entertaining read about the world most famous and infamous
cities and how they came to be what they are today - read Kunstler's
The City in Mind. There's a good bit about the way Paris' uniform density
came to be. I've been to Paris and I didn't realize when I was there, that
much of what you see is not very old at all. In fact, there are probably a
few Sacramento structures from the same era.

Also read about Hausmann who was essentially the man behind the plan. It's
amazing what he was able to do (get away with). The man wouldn't been hung
in America for sure. The only American that I'm aware of that could hold a
candle to Hausmann's tenacity would've been Pierre L'Enfant, who ended up
dying poor and in obscurity... only to be posthumously treated as a great
American genious.

In great cities like DC and Paris, it seems to be the case that they had a
great plan and stuck to it. In most of the more infamous cities (Detroit,
Atlanta, etc.) cities were abandoned and left to rot. Hopefully in the case of
the Railyards, the plan is carried through to the end. Then you'll see a slice
of those great cities right here in Sacramento. I think in the next 20 years,
we'll be able to see a striking contrast between two wholey separate ideals
in the way cities are built, in Natomas and the Railyards.

Development in the triangle area of WEST SACRAMENTO also has great
potential. Though I hope the development begins to get a bit more cohesive
in the riverfront area around the Ziggurat and CalSTRS. It's a bit piecemeal
over there.

C'est vrai. Much of what you see in Paris is in fact not that old at all. Let that be a lesson to us, wburg.

J'aime la ville de lumiere. Nous tout fait, d'accord?
L'enfant etait magnifique.

I will look for that book, thanks, td.

[wburg]

Not that old at all, compared to the age of Paris...meaning buildings from the 1860s and 1870s. In Sacramento terms, there are only a handful of buildings in the city older than the 1860s/70s (basically the Fort, the Stanford Mansion and a smattering of other buildings.) I suppose I can't fault the Parisians for not keeping too much around dating from the time of Charlemagne, but from the photos in that thread most of the buildings in view would be considered "old buildings" in that they are older than a lot of the buildings most people would refer to as "old buildings" here in Sacramento.

And if they aren't old buildings, the architects certainly went to great lengths to ensure that they fit in well with the old buildings.

I'll put the Kunstler on my reading list after the semester is over (my current courseload includes 28 books, not counting supplemental material.) I will get to re-read Kenneth Jackson's Crabrgrass Frontier, though, and Jackson is certainly no lover of suburbs.

[Minato Ku]

Originally Posted by BrianSac

Thanks for the book recommendation.

Paris is surrounded by "suburbs" by the way.

Did you even look at the pics?

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=495566
.

Don't be so fooled by these buildings, many of them was built in the 1990's 2000's. This methode is called facadism it concist to build a new office building inside an old facade. Some other are post modern building.
Outside the 10 central arrondissements most modern building have a modern architecture and facadism and post modernism architecture are very infrequent.

Don't forget that 1,702,900 of the 2,150,000 inhabitants of inner Paris don't live in the 10 central arrondissements.
68% of the dense core* inhabitants don't live in inner Paris.
80% of Paris urban area inhabitants don't live in inner Paris.
82.5% of Paris metro area inhabitants don't live in inner Paris.

*The dense core = Inner Paris and inner suburbs. the inner suburbs are denser more urban than most american and european inner cities

[BrianSac]

Originally Posted by Minato Ku

Don't be so fooled by these buildings, many of them was built in the 1990's 2000's. This methode is called facadism it concist to build a new office building inside an old facade. Some other are post modern building.
Outside the 10 central arrondissements most modern building have a modern architecture and facadism and post modernism architecture are very infrequent.

Don't forget that 1,702,900 of the 2,150,000 inhabitants of inner Paris don't live in the 10 central arrondissements.
68% of the dense core* inhabitants don't live in inner Paris.
80% of Paris urban area inhabitants don't live in inner Paris.
82.5% of Paris metro area inhabitants don't live in inner Paris.

*The dense core = Inner Paris and inner suburbs. the inner suburbs are denser more urban than most american and european inner cities

Merci pour la poste, Minato Ku

This just adds to my point about how we call our most dense part of Sacramento "urban", yet it's really not all that dense.

Regarding facadism, just adds to my point how Paris is really not that "old" despite what people think. Nous pouvons faire un vieux edifice moderne et nouveau batiment vieux.

I say the West Sac mayor should run for mayor in Sacramento.

[travis bickle]

Originally Posted by TowerDistrict

there was a couple decades where things got bad, due to the great white
flight and... well.... crack... but DC was originally laid out better than any
American city, and it remains largely intact just that way. You'd love it...
very well preserved, the transit is second to none and the neighborhoods
are the the epitome of walkable. And it is by far the cleanest American city.
It's kinda like if you mixed San Francisco and Sacramento together in
equal parts actually.

I'm going to be in DC from October 9-12. I've never strayed too far from the usual places. Is there a neighborhood that, while not particularly well-known, embraces much of what we love here?

Thanks everyone.

[BrianSac]

Originally Posted by travis bickle

I'm going to be in DC from October 9-12. I've never strayed too far from the usual places. Is there a neighborhood that, while not particularly well-known, embraces much of what we love here?

Thanks everyone.

Its been awhile but we participated in a Pride march on DC (political rally). We hung out in the Du Pont Circle neighborhood. Check that out.