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I recently got the following image from the Capitol Region Core Committee of the Sacramento Metro Chamber.
The map represents their take on where to draw the “urban core” boundary for Sacramento, and, as a decidedly “urban core” developer, it drew my immediate interest.
Cross City Boundaries
I was personally pleased that they took an inclusive perspective that accounts for West Sacramento’s proximity to downtown, thus the name–Capitol Region Core–doesn’t reflect either city but the common ground both cities share in being connected to the State Capitol. We’ve been articulating for some time that the Washington Area in West Sacramento is as valid a part of the “urban core” as, say, Midtown but I haven’t ever really known how to describe it outside the context of Sacramento’s downtown– reference the State Capitol seems so common sense now, I don’t know why I wasn’t using it before. Admittedly, driving through the Washington neighborhood today, you wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as having an “urban core” feel (the same could be said of the Railyards at present); but its location combined with and the development plans for the area are certainly grounds for inclusion. Its good to see that others share our perspective.
The 20 Year View and the 100 Year View
Looking at a map like this, you can see significant swaths of urban core development opportunities. Not to mention all of the rehabilitation and infill sites in downtown itself. Twenty years from now, I think this map will look significantly different. My hope is that the timing of an eco-urban tipping point will coincide with a lot of this development, so that the upcoming urban transformation truly makes life better for everyone for many generations.
Jason
10 responses so far ↓
1 uneasy rhetoric // Jun 18, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Eco-urban tipping point = peak oil?
2 jason // Jun 18, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Good question. Peak oil could certainly be considered a penultimate tipping point but I don’t know if we can point at any one single variable as the condition that trips the eco-urban wire. Sure, peak oil is when everyone begins to be impacted in their pocketbook enough to where they start changing destructive habits (consumers, homebuyers, developers, etc) out of necessity, but peak oil speaks only one language–the language of economics. I think tipping points are somewhat multi-lingual in nature…multiple variables align and WHAMO, its clear something has changed, a line was crossed and we’re in new territory.
It may be because I’m in the thick of it, but I’m seeing a lot of eco-urban dialog happening…at least the stirrings of it. It hasn’t hit Sacramento yet…but its coming.
I guess your question makes me wonder if we have to wait for peak oil in order for eco-urban to hit the tipping point. The optimist in me hopes not because a whole lot of potential good will have been delayed unnecessarily.
3 uneasy rhetoric // Jun 19, 2007 at 12:54 am
No, I don’t think we’ll have to wait; or, at least I hope you’re right that the tipping point will happen before we really feel the effects of peak oil. There are more of us all the time who yearn for the kind of closer-knit community that the whole idea behind “eco-urbanism”, as I see it, seeks to create. Peak oil will mainstream it so that the label becomes less important. It will just be the way more and more people live.
My fear, though, is that economics has become the 800 pound gorilla that informs all discourse nowadays and, until something make sense from a purely economic perspective, it won’t get anywhere.
The fact that y’all are here in Sacramento and talking about this stuff is important. Given that, I’d say eco-urban has reached Sacramento!
4 Steve // Jun 19, 2007 at 10:42 am
ditto!
5 wburg // Jun 19, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I’m kind of wondering why there seems to be a missing slice at roughly 4:30 to 7:00 on that clockface…Land Park appears to not want to have anything to do with this “urban core” business, I take it? It’s interesting in that midtown, which is for the most part the same sort of housing form (older single family homes, small apartment structures, and neighborhood-oriented retail corridors) but midtown is “urban core” while Land Park is not.
Maybe the difference is attitude, not (building) altitude.
6 jms // Jun 19, 2007 at 1:15 pm
So did the Metro Chamber take into account the neighborhood residents in the design of this sphere of influence? I’m curious, as I agree with the comment about the “missing” Land Park - perhaps the residents there do feel like part of the urban core or would want to be considered as part of that boundary.
Frankly, I’m always a bit wary of pronouncements like this that come from the Metro Chamber, as that organization does seem to focus more on business interests (e.g. money - see previous post for the evils thereof) rather than on community and livability interests.
7 Jason // Jun 19, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Interesting points raised. If you simply view an urban core from an economic development basis, you run the risk of the same kind of “oversimplification” Levi wrote about in the last post.
I guess the question ultimately being asked is “what criteria are used to determine a boundary?” Since the map wasn’t given with any such criteria explained, I can’t answer that for this version. However, it strikes me that the presentation of an urban-core in “either-or” terms (i.e. two shades; either “in” or “out”) is perhaps an oversimplification itself. Perhaps shades of “urban-core” would work better, or over-lapping circles, either of which might reflect better some of the “livability” elements inherently designed into the “first neighborhoods” surrounding Downtown.
I just realized that I referred to “first neighborhoods” without really knowing which ones are considered in this light and which aren’t. Anyone know?
Is Land Park the only questionable omission? I’m certainly interested in hearing other takes on where to draw the “urban-core” boundary or (using my suggestion) shades/circles…where do East Sac, Oak Park, Curtis Park fit in?
8 Levi // Jun 20, 2007 at 2:10 am
One way to look at the definition of the urban core is that it is the area that is constantly redefining itself. The residential areas are more prone to build and maintain where the urban core is building and evolving at a much quicker pace. There are other factors I am just thinking about what makes a core a core and why draw a map….
9 dave // Jun 20, 2007 at 12:54 pm
I find it interesting and a little disconcerting that there is an obvious “hernia” at the former Centrage site. It is very unlike the rest of the urban landscape included.
I’d love to know the thought process that transpired there but I guess it’s the same old, same old: Just follow the money…
Doesn’t Angelo T. own that? I’m surprised he didn’t get his Cannery site included on this map.
10 wburg // Jun 20, 2007 at 3:26 pm
dave: good eye about the Centrage. It is indeed interesting that they consider land that is currently open fields to be part of the “urban core.” I’m not sure how they are planning on addressing flood control in that project: the original plan was to punch through the levee at several points. The area is currently a water basin, to the point where the center typically stays green well into July.
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