As someone who doesn’t consider themselves to be as liberal as most urbanists I’m sympathetic to a lot of your viewpoints. Personally, I’ve noticed an increase in bad behavior that has been normalized here in Chicago's downtown and on the CTA. It's definitely frustrating and makes you feel as if you’re being taken advantage of as a taxpayer and resident. For that reason I don’t associate at all with progressives and tend to vote for moderate democrats. I support DAs, mayors and aldermen who want to bolster police forces, be tough on crime, and enforce the law. That being said I think the democratic party is moving in this direction anyway. Defunding the police has lost all the wind in their sails, and drug decriminalization has virtually zero support since Ballot Measure 110 failed so poorly in Oregon. Because of the failing progressive ideas, democrats are largely moving away from that rhetoric. Kamala Harris has touted her record as California’s Attorney General and San Francisco’s District Attorney where she was tough on crime and drug use. This record was something she was criticized for back in the 2020 primaries, but no one is criticizing her for it today. Even Portland, OR might elect the most conservative candidate for mayor this November, something that would’ve been unthinkable in the past. With all that being said though I still don’t get this idea that voting for Trump or republicans is the solution since they’ve been explicitly clear not to care about things like investing in mass transit, creating inter-city rail, and enacting zoning reforms. Trump even recently said that “the radical left wants to destroy the suburbs by introducing apartment complexes and low-income housing”. In no other country in the world would these things be associated as radical or being far-left. Additionally, both Agenda 47 and Project 2025 explicitly want to cut funding for mass transit and intercity rail while stopping any municipality from enacting reforms on single family zoning. Also, the whole Agenda 47 idea of opening federal lands as the solution to the housing crisis is so laughably dumb it’s not even worth arguing about. Again, this isn't a recent phenomenon either. Republicans have a long track record of this. Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan canceled the Baltimore Red Line in favor of spending billions to widen highways. Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker stopped the state's inter-city rail project between Madison and Milwaukee, despite it being fully funded by the federal government, just as a pointless political stunt against the Obama administration. This in hindsight was completely stupid since the state spent more money not building it than if they would have built it. Florida governor Rick Scott derailed the state’s HSR project, and now Desantis doesn’t want to spend any state funds extending Brightline to Tampa, but will spend billions on highway expansions, including in downtown Miami. New Jersey’s Republican governor Chris Christie stopped the ARC project which would have significantly improved NJ Transit and Amtrak in NJ and NY. This project is finally taking shape in the form of the Gateway Project, no thanks to him. In Texas, state republicans have made no investment in transit whatsoever, choosing to spend 12 billion dollars widening a freeway in Houston, and 6 billion widening i-35 in Austin. This leaves Austinites and Houstonians having to beg the federal government for money and having to raise their own taxes to try to develop a transit system despite the fact that TXDOT could easily afford it. In Georgia, Atlanta's Marta continues to be the only major transit agency that doesn't receive any state funds as Georgia Republicans don't want to spend any money on the system despite the fact that Atlanta has some of the worst traffic in the country, and most Georgians live in the Atlanta metro area. They instead want to spend 11 billion dollars on express lanes. In Pennsylvania, state republicans want to defund Septa, despite the fact that it gets very little funding to begin with. In Indiana, State Republicans previously banned Light Rail and tried to ban bus-only lanes this year. This dynamic is present across the country. Even more recently, NY Republicans have tried to stop congestion pricing in NYC. I completely sympathize with being frustrated about the state of our cities in regards to crime and homelessness, but so many of these reasons have to do with the fact that cities have seen little to no investment. How can cities improve if there’s no investment made in them? Investing in things like mass transit, housing, parks, trails, and recreational facilities make cities more desirable places to live and would lead to lower crime and less disinvestment as more people move back to cities. Ultimately republicans don’t care about making that investment, while democrats might. Vote for who you want since you're entitled to your own opinions, but I don’t get your argument that Trump will fix all, let alone any, of these problems.
Japantown survived WWII but was demolished in 1958. There is a very good 26-minute-long documentary about Sacramento's Japantown called "PBS Documentary: REPLACING THE PAST - Sacramento Redevelopment History". The video has interviews of people who grew up in Japantown and does an in-depth history of Japantown and its demolition/redevelopment. Did you know that Tax Increment Financing (The Sacramento Model) started with the redevelopment of Sacramento's Japantown? Another good video to watch is called "More Redevelopment: Old Sacramento and K Street Mall, 1969".
I moved to Sacramento from San Bernardino. Assuming you're a Californian you know that the inland empire is just one giant suburb of LA. It's where everyone who can't afford LA lives. But I think Sacramento could truly be an amazing city. I live near the school and I also CHOOSE to ride a bike and I think that's what this is all about. I have the freedom to make a choice when I wake up. Do I drive? Do I walk? Do I ride my bike? Or I could even take the shuttle that takes me from my student housing to the school! This is what it's all about. Glad you enjoyed the city. Now while I do not know you're political affiliation (I am assuming somewhere to the right). I think it's cool to find a conservative or right winger that is a YIMBY. I think if you are a conservative and your whole thing is to conserve a way of life that we lost, then urbanism should be something all right-wingers strive for. Unfortunately, I don’t see the right making strong strides in advocating for the kind of cities we want. Historically, many conservative policies have contributed to urban planning and housing regulations that separate communities of color and limit housing options. Zoning laws, for example, often reinforce segregation by restricting multi-family housing in certain neighborhoods, which disproportionately impacts lower-income families and communities of color. I enjoyed your video and I am glad you liked Sacramento or at least what you saw of it. I personally love California and I criticize this state every damn day and it's all out of love for this state. But I don't think voting Republican will make this state any better.
I appreciate the perspective, but, the idea that if california flipped republican that things wouldn’t better than they are now, I just find that hard to believe, especially when California is on the downward trajectory now, on many metrics, and has been for as long it’s been lead by liberal democrats. Also, wasn’t the democratic party the party more closely tied to segregation? You can’t simply just equate zoning laws with conservatives and tie that back to segregation, when segregation was tied heavily to southern democrats. In fact, the Nixon administration accomplished more in 1970 to desegregate Southern school systems than had been done in the 16 previous years. And, as much as liberals would like to virtue signal, I think a lot of this DEI stuff that liberals have ushered into the culture is just segregationist, pain and simple. Didn’t biden eulogize that former KKK representative back in 2010? With Obama and Hilary in attendance? For some reason, media narratives have ingrained it into the liberal psyche that blanket statement of conservative = racist and it’s all just part of the false narrative at this point. But, at the end of the day, when you’re talking about which party is doing more for the safety of our cities, a return to traditional city planning, and bringing back a social and moral order in this country, I think it’s far and away the “new” conservative movement. The people tired of the lies, tired of the virtue signaling, and yes, for a lot of us, tired of the car centric culture that keeps us in our homes avoiding traffic, instead of getting outside and living meaningful, honest, lives. Conservatives want small business, they want free-market solutions, and they want government to only do what they’re supposed to which is use our tax dollars on AMERICANS. And lower them substantially, too. There’s way too much red tape, way too many committees and councils, and way too much bureaucracy and waste of taxpayer dollars on everything from paying $100 Billion to house illegal immigrants in a single year, to the Biden-Harris agenda of giving billions of dollars to every group and initiative that doesn’t involve a straight white male. Democrats have lead this country for 12 of the last 16 years. Is anyone happy about the state of the economy, culture, our big cities right now? I think voting for the right republicans all the way to the bottom of the ballot would change a lot for the better in a lot of places, but that’s just my opinion. I’m entitled to it, as you are yours.
You criticize the Democrats for these things, but choose to ignore the extremely visible and clear plans for the GOP to do far worse in the modern day, including plans to defund public transport, which we're already seeing or will soon be seeing the effects of in major cities across the country? It's not adding up. Opinions are opinions of course, but it just seems very contradictory. I wish transit and urbanism was something that had bi-partisan support, but unfortunately it clearly does not. I'll believe that they care about urbanism and high-quality public transit when I see it. You might want to vote for the 'right republicans', but you'll be bringing the wrong ones with them, and they won't bring the changes you hope for.
Yolobus and SacRT have joined together to provide bus service to the airport. The buses arrive every 15 minutes. Depending on traffic, it can take 10 minutes to get downtown at a cost of $2.50. The costly light rail Green line has been in the works for decades. With 12 planned stations along the green line, it would take about an hour to make the journey from downtown to the airport.
It’s much more pronounced here compared to any other state. It is 4th in the nation in homelessness per capita behind NY, VT & HI. Just numbers wise it’s #1 in the nation.
@@fourth_place @SOUTHERN LIFE claims that the homeless population is bigger in Florida but the state, county and muni governments have chased them into the woods.
Until very recently, court rulings in the Ninth Circuit made it impossible to arrest homeless people. This rule was only enforced in states that made up the Ninth District, including California, Washington, and Oregon. So, homeless people in those states did not fear the cops as much as elsewhere so they were much more in your face, as opposed to hiding in back alleys, making it seem like their numbers had increased significantly when they really hadn't. The Supreme Court recently overturned that rule, so the homeless should go back to hiding soon (again, with no real change in their numbers). In any case, arresting the homeless is fiscally irresponsible. The cost per day to house an inmate is five or ten times the cost for a shelter bed, yet there is a shortage of shelters still.
10:23 that is a failed skyscraper project that went bust in 2008. It just got transferred to the Miwok tribe and there’s no plans yet on what they’re going to do with it.
A remnant of Japantown is located along 10th Street just north of W Street and the U.S. 50 Freeway. There are several Japanese stores and restaurants along several blocks.
Regarding the freeways separating Downtown and Oldtown, the original plan was to demolish the entire riverfront for the freeway, but historical societies were able to build public support to stop it. Politicians got presidential support for building the freeway, and since building it on the other side of the river was more expensive, the compromise was preserving oldtown, but having the freeway where it stands today. While it's still unfortunate, it's a sight better than even the more "best-case" scenarios, like Portland's and San Francisco's waterfronts of today. While I don't know the specifics, I know that the high watertable in the area makes underground construction undesirable in the area, so most projects need to either be at-grade or elevated unfortunately. The Guy West Bridge and the under-crossing are generally treated as public-access infrastructure, when I went to Sac State I would regularly see and even know people who commuted between areas just outside of Campus Commons and the area around University/65th Station on a day to day basis. With the S700s coming on the scene, I think SacRT just stopped cleaning the exteriors of the other units for the last few years. They were well maintained well into the twenty-teens, but at some point that just ended, and a lot of them got blue patches on front, hiding their nicer white-blue-gold chevron'd liveries on the front.
@@fourth_placeI’m a Sacramento native, been here majority of my life. Half of us say it just like you do. It mostly depends on where in Sac you grew up.
@@fourth_place its interesting because you cant really be an urbanist in the US without seeing the fact that it was the greed of a few rich people with greedy racist motivations that destroyed the amazing cities we once had, the parking minimums, the destruction of historic downtowns to put parking lots, the redlining, and the urband freeways that cut off minority communities from downtown or just other neighborhoods. The realization that the horrible envoirments that exist today that are ugly, uncomfortable, unhealthy, inefficient and most importantly deadly are the direct result of capitalism is not one that is conducive to being a conservative, especially when the candidate for the conservatives is one of those same types of rich people that ruined these places.
I like how you discussed the historical context of this great (but could be better) city throughout the video. I.E. Japan Town. But, for some reason, that clearly stopped for the homeless people in your video. It is upsetting to know that there has to be security on the Light rail, but you never even start to think about the interconnectivity of your belief in urbanism and helping homeless populations. Sacramento Police get $250 MILL a year w/ a pop. of 526 K. WHICH IS ABSURD. so- let us agree. How about we take not even ten percent of the police budget into low-income urban housing, and help homeless people to get sober and back on their own two feet. and we will come back in ten years and we'll see the social and economic benefits of this.
Fwiw, current planners see the folly of not undergrounding I-5 and demolishing the West End. On many weekends, Capitol Mall is used to host major festivals. We need more of that. We also plan to redevelop some state buildings into housing on Capitol Mall, which should help improve the street vibes. As always we are a work in progress.
I consider myself as a moderate and I so wish that cities in California go back to being tough on crime. I understand your frustration but I absolutely don’t agree that voting right wing is gonna change anything. Instead I’d recommend supporting Prop 36 and other propositions that are tough on crime Instead of the candidates vote for policies as despite all our problems California is still prospering as an economic juggernaut and injecting sense into Democrats is so much easier than the current right wingers up for election. Even disregarding Project 2025, right wingers are running on preserving single zoning, cutting down public transit in support of Caltrans supporting highway widening, gutting high speed rail when even through all its troubles and mismanagement is finally on track to do something great. From an urbanism perspective and making walkable and sustainable cities voting right isn’t gonna make the affordability situation any better. It will make downtown Los Angeles like Downtown Atlanta or Houston. Safer but it will still be a shell. We desperately need more downtown density and fast. We need metro projects to speed up not slow down. You’re entitled to your opinion but as someone who’s seen the amazing change that other west coast cities have gone through outside California I still think we can change left wing policies especially seeing how unpopular DEI, legalization of drugs has become while making sure the dems make our cities more livable
I moved to Sacramento from Portland, Oregon in the early 2000s and I wasn’t very excited about it but I ended up living there for 12 years and fell in love with that city! The walkway into old sac underneath the freeways is not dangerous at all at any time of the night and the reason why the roads aren’t built that low is because of flooding, Sacramento has a long history of terrible flooding. While old town is a tourist hotspot, it’s far from a tourist trap. It has some great restaurants, including one of California’s best (Firehouse) and some legendary dive bars where Sinatra has performed for clientele like Ronald Reagan and Marilyn Monroe. Also, the bike paths along the American River are amazing! As for somebody who lived in Sacramento and watched this videos, you are clueless when it comes to social issues and make wildly incorrect assumptions.
What state do you think CA should be following in terms of Criminal Justice practices? As someone who frequently commutes to LA, I understand and mirror your frustration but I don’t know if the solution is as easily put as you may believe.
My city 🙌 thanks so much for this video. For my master's thesis, i had an idea to put i 5 underground like in seatlle or Boston, especially under the railyards district, its such a noisy eyesore, i also heard, they want to burry i 5 near old sac and build on top of it, i believe some news articles wrote about it and have a plan of how it'd look to build on top of it, how would you compare sac to somewhere like portland? Im debating if, sacramento has a positive future for its urbanism development, i feel sacramento just isn't as advanced as cities similar to its size, what do you think based off of ur time there?
I think Sacramento can and should bury the 5. As far as Sacramento's urban fabric compared to Portland, it still has those great victorian-era bones, and commercial streetcar corridors that are its best assets. Sacramento's most glaring problem is dense, urban housing. On my ride from the airport into the center city, you can see how much this place is still sprawling. And it's no wonder, because their downtown area is dead, as you saw here. I had a lot more I could've shown too. Sacramento could be very prosperous, and of course, it all starts will rezoning. The city needs a massive rezoning effort in downtown for everything in-between Q and J streets. There's such a glaring lack of dense, urban housing (and life) within those areas. Walking down J Street from Old Town is depressing. No house, all parking garages, vacant businesses because it was built for the sprawl of the 1960s, and now the hard work in on us to undo that. But if the city is content with sprawl, and letting the downtown of their Capital city left to rot, then so be it...but it could be so much better. California has the same GDP as the country of Germany, and Sacramento could be its Berlin. It had a future, but destroyed it completely in the 60s and 70s. It'll recover very slowly, and it'll hopefully start with the redevelopment of the railyards and bridge district.
As a resident of Sacramento for 25 years after growing up in the South Bay Area, I can say that this region has a distinct identity that is based upon constant revitalization experiments. The recession of 2008 and, more recently, the pandemic era set us way back. But the general plans are moving forward and the sprawl is a very real problem but has been on the books for at least 20 years if not longer. The transplanting of folks from all over to our region has altered the urban fabric but there are still tons of heritage charm and infrastructure to build upon. The railyards and Bridge District are going to completely transform the city again and we are very excited about attracting major league sports and tech hubs. The urban blight is simply a reality of every big city and was also accelerated by the pandemic, drug crisis, and housing market crunch. But efforts are underway. Thank you for spotlighting our town and deeming it worthy of fair criticism. It is a bummer that you didn't highlight the Crocker annex and Golden One Center/DoCo which have become major attractions. 🤔
Based on the geographical location, Sacramento has the potential to be a really awesome river-front city. I'm surprised nothing on the river was mentioned.
I mentioned and/or visited in this video: Old town, the bridge district, and the Railyards, all of which are on the river. I even showed the river several times...
@@fourth_place lol, I retract my comment. That's what I get for listening in the background. Still imagining a Wuzhen, Yanjin, or Fenghuang style US city along the river is pretty cool.
@@fourth_place I kinda wish you showed the extensive park that goes up the American river, look on google maps, the terminus of the Gold Line has bike trails from there that lead all the way to downtown, passing SacState, and the California State Fairgrounds along the American river the whole time.
Other walkable areas of Sacramento that I recommend are East Sacramento, Old North Sacramento, Land Park/Freeport Blvd, and Old Fair Oaks Village. Sacramento also has scenic bikeways along the American and Sacramento Rivers and Natomas drainage canal, and the new Del Rio bike trail along an old railway line.
Downtown used to be way more lively when I was a kid (in the 1990s). There were tons of shops and things to do along K st, J st, and in Old Sac. But a combination of things caused many of the businesses to close down in the area. Slowly but surely it’s coming back to life.
Thanks for the video. We live halfway between Sacramento and SF. 4th grade is CA history year and the kids here travel by bus to the state capitol, it’s very cool indeed. Sacramento is typical CA metro. Cool historical sites/bldgs and some not so nice areas. Also, yes, SMF airport is a gem. We prefer over SJ, OAK and SFO
What's with the random comments on mentally ill homeless people? Yeah I experienced that plenty on a couple trips to downtown Portland OR, but I dont really mind it. What are police gonna do about a mentally disturbed person? They have no better training than me or you on the issue and would make it worse or waste jail resources until they inevitably release him.
Cool video! Nice to see Sacramento!! We do have public transportation to and from the airport. The agency that I drive for In Sacramento operates an airport shuttle to and from Downtown Sacramento daily. Yolobus does as well and it’s only $2.50. But I understand..most people hate buses. 😂 Great video!!!
Thanks for visiting my town. I do wish the light rail and airport connections were a lot better here. Hope you got a chance to visit Miami while you were in Florida. The public transit in Miami-Dade was a lot better than I expected it to be when I recently visited. Good luck with figuring out Lynx buses and Sunrail in Orlando 🙃
That pit does not contain the ruins of Japantown. Its the ruins of a large apartment building project that got killed in the 2008 crash. Those are deep pilings that will cost a fortune to remove and make the property very expensive to develop. In any event, it was just purchased by the Nisenan tribe, which owns a large casino out in th ex-burbs, so maybe there might be something there.
I stand corrected! It's all a little misleading though, since the Japantown mural is covering what looks like ruins. As someone from out of town just reporting on what I saw, it certainly seemed obvious what was going on there. Guess not!
It was nice to watch and see an outsider's perspective, I've been in sacramento 13 years now. Glad you made pretty good use of the time you were here and hit many of the main areas I'd recommend to people wanting to explore Sac. Bus route 142/42A/42B Joint SacRt/YoloBus all connect to the airport, and are free transfers to/from light rail downtown, runs every half hour with mostly electric busses until we get the green line. Downtown is dead, oldtown/doco is not a draw for me; it's all about Midtown as you noticed. I love midtown for breweries/coffee/trees and light rail essentially. I noticed some areas you walked through, and yeah I feel bad that its so hit or miss around here, as a local we know where the good spots are and where not. That portion of Folsom you walked in front of Sac State used to be much worse before much of the new sidewalk/landscaping went in, IMHO still a pretty unpleasant area. Love CSUS, and my years studying there with all the big trees on campus. I travel to other cities like Atlanta and kinda treat it like you, I only have a day or two, and know almost nothing about it.
Great video! Did you see the Calpers Lincoln Plaza building near the Crocker Art museum? IMO its one of the coolest pieces of architecture in Sacramento.
SAC light rail is terrible. it doesn't go to the right places and the areas around many of the stations are pointless. and yes the vibe in Sac is "dead end" feeling. always has been. it lives in the shadow of the bay area. all the efforts to make sac more interest hip trendy interesting etc are not an organic thing but forced. i'm 60 and a native northern californian. sac has potential and norcal has a rich colorful history but every that city does is half assed and poorly executed .
Also the first steam powered railroad west of the Mississippi was in St. Louis, not CA. On December 9, 1852, a passenger train, with the company’s officers and leading citizens of St. Louis aboard, inaugurated the new Pacific Railroad with a trip to the end of the line. The people of Missouri then had their first look at a steam railroad. That train was the first to be operated west of the Mississippi River, and ran the five miles from the depot on Fourteenth Street to Cheltenham in some ten minutes.
not sure why you’re attacking Harris as an urbanist. Don’t like an unstable guy swinging punches in public? Trump will do nothing to address that but by electing Trump there will be fewer funding opportunities to improve transportation and land-use in your preferred urbanist environment. Like you will literally get more freeways destroying communities. I had hope for this channel but rather than position yourself as a centrist you really just exposed your ignorance about the role of the Federal government in everyday life. Not saying either party is great or that Democrats aren’t without fault but good lord this should have been a video about a nice visit to Sacramento instead we find out you’re a “law and order” urbanist who would rather support the single worst candidate for cities and sustainability because you perceive Harris as having any responsibility for the drugs you saw on the ground. As an urbanist and a parent I can tell you Harris is better for my bottom line. You earned yourself an unsubscribed.
i don't appreciate how you spoke about that human that was pouncing air... you sound like an elitist snob from the right side of the tracks... not cool unsubscribing now
Get over yourself, people don't deserve to be accosted and attacked by people just for being out and about in public. Not only that, if you want people to embrace urbanism you need to address the widespread anti-social behavior found throughout the country People won't want to walk, or ride public transit or support building housing if they feel those things will put their lives and that of their families or friends in danger.
As someone who doesn’t consider themselves to be as liberal as most urbanists I’m sympathetic to a lot of your viewpoints. Personally, I’ve noticed an increase in bad behavior that has been normalized here in Chicago's downtown and on the CTA. It's definitely frustrating and makes you feel as if you’re being taken advantage of as a taxpayer and resident. For that reason I don’t associate at all with progressives and tend to vote for moderate democrats. I support DAs, mayors and aldermen who want to bolster police forces, be tough on crime, and enforce the law. That being said I think the democratic party is moving in this direction anyway. Defunding the police has lost all the wind in their sails, and drug decriminalization has virtually zero support since Ballot Measure 110 failed so poorly in Oregon. Because of the failing progressive ideas, democrats are largely moving away from that rhetoric. Kamala Harris has touted her record as California’s Attorney General and San Francisco’s District Attorney where she was tough on crime and drug use. This record was something she was criticized for back in the 2020 primaries, but no one is criticizing her for it today. Even Portland, OR might elect the most conservative candidate for mayor this November, something that would’ve been unthinkable in the past.
With all that being said though I still don’t get this idea that voting for Trump or republicans is the solution since they’ve been explicitly clear not to care about things like investing in mass transit, creating inter-city rail, and enacting zoning reforms. Trump even recently said that “the radical left wants to destroy the suburbs by introducing apartment complexes and low-income housing”. In no other country in the world would these things be associated as radical or being far-left. Additionally, both Agenda 47 and Project 2025 explicitly want to cut funding for mass transit and intercity rail while stopping any municipality from enacting reforms on single family zoning. Also, the whole Agenda 47 idea of opening federal lands as the solution to the housing crisis is so laughably dumb it’s not even worth arguing about. Again, this isn't a recent phenomenon either. Republicans have a long track record of this.
Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan canceled the Baltimore Red Line in favor of spending billions to widen highways. Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker stopped the state's inter-city rail project between Madison and Milwaukee, despite it being fully funded by the federal government, just as a pointless political stunt against the Obama administration. This in hindsight was completely stupid since the state spent more money not building it than if they would have built it. Florida governor Rick Scott derailed the state’s HSR project, and now Desantis doesn’t want to spend any state funds extending Brightline to Tampa, but will spend billions on highway expansions, including in downtown Miami. New Jersey’s Republican governor Chris Christie stopped the ARC project which would have significantly improved NJ Transit and Amtrak in NJ and NY. This project is finally taking shape in the form of the Gateway Project, no thanks to him. In Texas, state republicans have made no investment in transit whatsoever, choosing to spend 12 billion dollars widening a freeway in Houston, and 6 billion widening i-35 in Austin. This leaves Austinites and Houstonians having to beg the federal government for money and having to raise their own taxes to try to develop a transit system despite the fact that TXDOT could easily afford it. In Georgia, Atlanta's Marta continues to be the only major transit agency that doesn't receive any state funds as Georgia Republicans don't want to spend any money on the system despite the fact that Atlanta has some of the worst traffic in the country, and most Georgians live in the Atlanta metro area. They instead want to spend 11 billion dollars on express lanes. In Pennsylvania, state republicans want to defund Septa, despite the fact that it gets very little funding to begin with. In Indiana, State Republicans previously banned Light Rail and tried to ban bus-only lanes this year. This dynamic is present across the country. Even more recently, NY Republicans have tried to stop congestion pricing in NYC.
I completely sympathize with being frustrated about the state of our cities in regards to crime and homelessness, but so many of these reasons have to do with the fact that cities have seen little to no investment. How can cities improve if there’s no investment made in them? Investing in things like mass transit, housing, parks, trails, and recreational facilities make cities more desirable places to live and would lead to lower crime and less disinvestment as more people move back to cities. Ultimately republicans don’t care about making that investment, while democrats might. Vote for who you want since you're entitled to your own opinions, but I don’t get your argument that Trump will fix all, let alone any, of these problems.
Worth mentioning that the new Siemens S700s were made just a few miles away in Sacramento, where almost all Siemens light rail vehicles are built
a right wing yimby? ive seen it all 😭
Japantown survived WWII but was demolished in 1958.
There is a very good 26-minute-long documentary about Sacramento's Japantown called "PBS Documentary: REPLACING THE PAST - Sacramento Redevelopment History".
The video has interviews of people who grew up in Japantown and does an in-depth history of Japantown and its demolition/redevelopment.
Did you know that Tax Increment Financing (The Sacramento Model) started with the redevelopment of Sacramento's Japantown?
Another good video to watch is called "More Redevelopment: Old Sacramento and K Street Mall, 1969".
I moved to Sacramento from San Bernardino. Assuming you're a Californian you know that the inland empire is just one giant suburb of LA. It's where everyone who can't afford LA lives. But I think Sacramento could truly be an amazing city. I live near the school and I also CHOOSE to ride a bike and I think that's what this is all about. I have the freedom to make a choice when I wake up. Do I drive? Do I walk? Do I ride my bike? Or I could even take the shuttle that takes me from my student housing to the school! This is what it's all about. Glad you enjoyed the city. Now while I do not know you're political affiliation (I am assuming somewhere to the right). I think it's cool to find a conservative or right winger that is a YIMBY. I think if you are a conservative and your whole thing is to conserve a way of life that we lost, then urbanism should be something all right-wingers strive for. Unfortunately, I don’t see the right making strong strides in advocating for the kind of cities we want. Historically, many conservative policies have contributed to urban planning and housing regulations that separate communities of color and limit housing options. Zoning laws, for example, often reinforce segregation by restricting multi-family housing in certain neighborhoods, which disproportionately impacts lower-income families and communities of color. I enjoyed your video and I am glad you liked Sacramento or at least what you saw of it. I personally love California and I criticize this state every damn day and it's all out of love for this state. But I don't think voting Republican will make this state any better.
I appreciate the perspective, but, the idea that if california flipped republican that things wouldn’t better than they are now, I just find that hard to believe, especially when California is on the downward trajectory now, on many metrics, and has been for as long it’s been lead by liberal democrats. Also, wasn’t the democratic party the party more closely tied to segregation? You can’t simply just equate zoning laws with conservatives and tie that back to segregation, when segregation was tied heavily to southern democrats. In fact, the Nixon administration accomplished more in 1970 to desegregate Southern school systems than had been done in the 16 previous years. And, as much as liberals would like to virtue signal, I think a lot of this DEI stuff that liberals have ushered into the culture is just segregationist, pain and simple. Didn’t biden eulogize that former KKK representative back in 2010? With Obama and Hilary in attendance? For some reason, media narratives have ingrained it into the liberal psyche that blanket statement of conservative = racist and it’s all just part of the false narrative at this point. But, at the end of the day, when you’re talking about which party is doing more for the safety of our cities, a return to traditional city planning, and bringing back a social and moral order in this country, I think it’s far and away the “new” conservative movement. The people tired of the lies, tired of the virtue signaling, and yes, for a lot of us, tired of the car centric culture that keeps us in our homes avoiding traffic, instead of getting outside and living meaningful, honest, lives. Conservatives want small business, they want free-market solutions, and they want government to only do what they’re supposed to which is use our tax dollars on AMERICANS. And lower them substantially, too. There’s way too much red tape, way too many committees and councils, and way too much bureaucracy and waste of taxpayer dollars on everything from paying $100 Billion to house illegal immigrants in a single year, to the Biden-Harris agenda of giving billions of dollars to every group and initiative that doesn’t involve a straight white male. Democrats have lead this country for 12 of the last 16 years. Is anyone happy about the state of the economy, culture, our big cities right now? I think voting for the right republicans all the way to the bottom of the ballot would change a lot for the better in a lot of places, but that’s just my opinion. I’m entitled to it, as you are yours.
@@fourth_placePlus, Dems have controlled California for decades, and are obviously part of the problem.
You criticize the Democrats for these things, but choose to ignore the extremely visible and clear plans for the GOP to do far worse in the modern day, including plans to defund public transport, which we're already seeing or will soon be seeing the effects of in major cities across the country? It's not adding up. Opinions are opinions of course, but it just seems very contradictory. I wish transit and urbanism was something that had bi-partisan support, but unfortunately it clearly does not. I'll believe that they care about urbanism and high-quality public transit when I see it. You might want to vote for the 'right republicans', but you'll be bringing the wrong ones with them, and they won't bring the changes you hope for.
Yolobus and SacRT have joined together to provide bus service to the airport. The buses arrive every 15 minutes. Depending on traffic, it can take 10 minutes to get downtown at a cost of $2.50. The costly light rail Green line has been in the works for decades. With 12 planned stations along the green line, it would take about an hour to make the journey from downtown to the airport.
California is not the only place that has that I got homeless in every state of the union you understand that
It’s much more pronounced here compared to any other state. It is 4th in the nation in homelessness per capita behind NY, VT & HI. Just numbers wise it’s #1 in the nation.
@@fourth_place @SOUTHERN LIFE claims that the homeless population is bigger in Florida but the state, county and muni governments have chased them into the woods.
@@EdwardM-t8pthat is true
you’re absolutely right
Until very recently, court rulings in the Ninth Circuit made it impossible to arrest homeless people. This rule was only enforced in states that made up the Ninth District, including California, Washington, and Oregon. So, homeless people in those states did not fear the cops as much as elsewhere so they were much more in your face, as opposed to hiding in back alleys, making it seem like their numbers had increased significantly when they really hadn't.
The Supreme Court recently overturned that rule, so the homeless should go back to hiding soon (again, with no real change in their numbers).
In any case, arresting the homeless is fiscally irresponsible. The cost per day to house an inmate is five or ten times the cost for a shelter bed, yet there is a shortage of shelters still.
10:23 that is a failed skyscraper project that went bust in 2008. It just got transferred to the Miwok tribe and there’s no plans yet on what they’re going to do with it.
Thank you for covering my city. Fantastic video! Hopefully we’ll have the Railyards, Bridge District, and River District finished by the 2030s
Sacramento mentioned. Woo!🎉
What’s with the weird jabs at protestors and people from south of the border?
A remnant of Japantown is located along 10th Street just north of W Street and the U.S. 50 Freeway. There are several Japanese stores and restaurants along several blocks.
Regarding the freeways separating Downtown and Oldtown, the original plan was to demolish the entire riverfront for the freeway, but historical societies were able to build public support to stop it. Politicians got presidential support for building the freeway, and since building it on the other side of the river was more expensive, the compromise was preserving oldtown, but having the freeway where it stands today. While it's still unfortunate, it's a sight better than even the more "best-case" scenarios, like Portland's and San Francisco's waterfronts of today.
While I don't know the specifics, I know that the high watertable in the area makes underground construction undesirable in the area, so most projects need to either be at-grade or elevated unfortunately.
The Guy West Bridge and the under-crossing are generally treated as public-access infrastructure, when I went to Sac State I would regularly see and even know people who commuted between areas just outside of Campus Commons and the area around University/65th Station on a day to day basis.
With the S700s coming on the scene, I think SacRT just stopped cleaning the exteriors of the other units for the last few years. They were well maintained well into the twenty-teens, but at some point that just ended, and a lot of them got blue patches on front, hiding their nicer white-blue-gold chevron'd liveries on the front.
No one says "The 5, the 99" in Northern California. You must be from SoCal? 😉
Correct, and I’ll never say it any other way!
@@fourth_placethis arrogance made me stop watching at 1:30. Good luck being a d***. How do you block worthless videos?
@@fourth_placeI’m a Sacramento native, been here majority of my life. Half of us say it just like you do. It mostly depends on where in Sac you grew up.
Are you a right wing urbanist? That's an interesting combination.
why do you say it’s interesting?
@@fourth_place it's just unusual
All political sides should be in favor of having the option to live in a cool, walkable area
don’t forget safe! ;)
@@fourth_place its interesting because you cant really be an urbanist in the US without seeing the fact that it was the greed of a few rich people with greedy racist motivations that destroyed the amazing cities we once had, the parking minimums, the destruction of historic downtowns to put parking lots, the redlining, and the urband freeways that cut off minority communities from downtown or just other neighborhoods. The realization that the horrible envoirments that exist today that are ugly, uncomfortable, unhealthy, inefficient and most importantly deadly are the direct result of capitalism is not one that is conducive to being a conservative, especially when the candidate for the conservatives is one of those same types of rich people that ruined these places.
(Not so) fun fact: the redevelopment of Sacramento Capital Mall was funded through the nation’s first ever use of Tax Increment Financing.
I like how you discussed the historical context of this great (but could be better) city throughout the video. I.E. Japan Town. But, for some reason, that clearly stopped for the homeless people in your video.
It is upsetting to know that there has to be security on the Light rail, but you never even start to think about the interconnectivity of your belief in urbanism and helping homeless populations.
Sacramento Police get $250 MILL a year w/ a pop. of 526 K. WHICH IS ABSURD. so- let us agree. How about we take not even ten percent of the police budget into low-income urban housing, and help homeless people to get sober and back on their own two feet. and we will come back in ten years and we'll see the social and economic benefits of this.
Fwiw, current planners see the folly of not undergrounding I-5 and demolishing the West End. On many weekends, Capitol Mall is used to host major festivals. We need more of that. We also plan to redevelop some state buildings into housing on Capitol Mall, which should help improve the street vibes. As always we are a work in progress.
I consider myself as a moderate and I so wish that cities in California go back to being tough on crime. I understand your frustration but I absolutely don’t agree that voting right wing is gonna change anything. Instead I’d recommend supporting Prop 36 and other propositions that are tough on crime Instead of the candidates vote for policies as despite all our problems California is still prospering as an economic juggernaut and injecting sense into Democrats is so much easier than the current right wingers up for election. Even disregarding Project 2025, right wingers are running on preserving single zoning, cutting down public transit in support of Caltrans supporting highway widening, gutting high speed rail when even through all its troubles and mismanagement is finally on track to do something great. From an urbanism perspective and making walkable and sustainable cities voting right isn’t gonna make the affordability situation any better. It will make downtown Los Angeles like Downtown Atlanta or Houston. Safer but it will still be a shell. We desperately need more downtown density and fast. We need metro projects to speed up not slow down. You’re entitled to your opinion but as someone who’s seen the amazing change that other west coast cities have gone through outside California I still think we can change left wing policies especially seeing how unpopular DEI, legalization of drugs has become while making sure the dems make our cities more livable
I moved to Sacramento from Portland, Oregon in the early 2000s and I wasn’t very excited about it but I ended up living there for 12 years and fell in love with that city! The walkway into old sac underneath the freeways is not dangerous at all at any time of the night and the reason why the roads aren’t built that low is because of flooding, Sacramento has a long history of terrible flooding. While old town is a tourist hotspot, it’s far from a tourist trap. It has some great restaurants, including one of California’s best (Firehouse) and some legendary dive bars where Sinatra has performed for clientele like Ronald Reagan and Marilyn Monroe. Also, the bike paths along the American River are amazing! As for somebody who lived in Sacramento and watched this videos, you are clueless when it comes to social issues and make wildly incorrect assumptions.
What state do you think CA should be following in terms of Criminal Justice practices? As someone who frequently commutes to LA, I understand and mirror your frustration but I don’t know if the solution is as easily put as you may believe.
Florida. They don’t play around.
My city 🙌 thanks so much for this video. For my master's thesis, i had an idea to put i 5 underground like in seatlle or Boston, especially under the railyards district, its such a noisy eyesore, i also heard, they want to burry i 5 near old sac and build on top of it, i believe some news articles wrote about it and have a plan of how it'd look to build on top of it, how would you compare sac to somewhere like portland? Im debating if, sacramento has a positive future for its urbanism development, i feel sacramento just isn't as advanced as cities similar to its size, what do you think based off of ur time there?
I think Sacramento can and should bury the 5. As far as Sacramento's urban fabric compared to Portland, it still has those great victorian-era bones, and commercial streetcar corridors that are its best assets. Sacramento's most glaring problem is dense, urban housing. On my ride from the airport into the center city, you can see how much this place is still sprawling. And it's no wonder, because their downtown area is dead, as you saw here. I had a lot more I could've shown too. Sacramento could be very prosperous, and of course, it all starts will rezoning. The city needs a massive rezoning effort in downtown for everything in-between Q and J streets. There's such a glaring lack of dense, urban housing (and life) within those areas. Walking down J Street from Old Town is depressing. No house, all parking garages, vacant businesses because it was built for the sprawl of the 1960s, and now the hard work in on us to undo that. But if the city is content with sprawl, and letting the downtown of their Capital city left to rot, then so be it...but it could be so much better. California has the same GDP as the country of Germany, and Sacramento could be its Berlin. It had a future, but destroyed it completely in the 60s and 70s. It'll recover very slowly, and it'll hopefully start with the redevelopment of the railyards and bridge district.
As a resident of Sacramento for 25 years after growing up in the South Bay Area, I can say that this region has a distinct identity that is based upon constant revitalization experiments. The recession of 2008 and, more recently, the pandemic era set us way back. But the general plans are moving forward and the sprawl is a very real problem but has been on the books for at least 20 years if not longer. The transplanting of folks from all over to our region has altered the urban fabric but there are still tons of heritage charm and infrastructure to build upon. The railyards and Bridge District are going to completely transform the city again and we are very excited about attracting major league sports and tech hubs. The urban blight is simply a reality of every big city and was also accelerated by the pandemic, drug crisis, and housing market crunch. But efforts are underway. Thank you for spotlighting our town and deeming it worthy of fair criticism. It is a bummer that you didn't highlight the Crocker annex and Golden One Center/DoCo which have become major attractions. 🤔
Finally, an urbanist channel that isn't afraid to condemn anti-social behavior and criminality. I am so happy this is like winning the lottery
SMF added a terminal awhile back. Now the Airport has way more capacity than is needed at the moment.
They're actually planning on building a third terminal, which I believe will be fully dedicated to Southwest flights.
@ There has been talk about adding gates to terminals A and B, or adding a Terminal C. What source is saying they are actually doing it.
The name of the world's largest engineering firm that built the LRVs is pronounced ZEEmens, not Simons.
Yeah, I know, I just suck at pronunciation (especially in german).
We need YIMBY in both side of the aisle, America needs to BUILD BUILD BUILD 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Based on the geographical location, Sacramento has the potential to be a really awesome river-front city. I'm surprised nothing on the river was mentioned.
I mentioned and/or visited in this video: Old town, the bridge district, and the Railyards, all of which are on the river. I even showed the river several times...
@@fourth_place lol, I retract my comment. That's what I get for listening in the background. Still imagining a Wuzhen, Yanjin, or Fenghuang style US city along the river is pretty cool.
@@fourth_place I kinda wish you showed the extensive park that goes up the American river, look on google maps, the terminus of the Gold Line has bike trails from there that lead all the way to downtown, passing SacState, and the California State Fairgrounds along the American river the whole time.
Other walkable areas of Sacramento that I recommend are East Sacramento, Old North Sacramento, Land Park/Freeport Blvd, and Old Fair Oaks Village. Sacramento also has scenic bikeways along the American and Sacramento Rivers and Natomas drainage canal, and the new Del Rio bike trail along an old railway line.
Downtown used to be way more lively when I was a kid (in the 1990s). There were tons of shops and things to do along K st, J st, and in Old Sac. But a combination of things caused many of the businesses to close down in the area. Slowly but surely it’s coming back to life.
Thanks for the video. We live halfway between Sacramento and SF. 4th grade is CA history year and the kids here travel by bus to the state capitol, it’s very cool indeed. Sacramento is typical CA metro. Cool historical sites/bldgs and some not so nice areas.
Also, yes, SMF airport is a gem. We prefer over SJ, OAK and SFO
Love your videos, please continue them!!! I love learning and looking at cities.
Thanks! Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on any future vids! I’m just getting started over here 😎
What's with the random comments on mentally ill homeless people? Yeah I experienced that plenty on a couple trips to downtown Portland OR, but I dont really mind it. What are police gonna do about a mentally disturbed person? They have no better training than me or you on the issue and would make it worse or waste jail resources until they inevitably release him.
Cool video! Nice to see Sacramento!! We do have public transportation to and from the airport. The agency that I drive for In Sacramento operates an airport shuttle to and from Downtown Sacramento daily. Yolobus does as well and it’s only $2.50. But I understand..most people hate buses. 😂 Great video!!!
Thanks for visiting my town. I do wish the light rail and airport connections were a lot better here.
Hope you got a chance to visit Miami while you were in Florida. The public transit in Miami-Dade was a lot better than I expected it to be when I recently visited. Good luck with figuring out Lynx buses and Sunrail in Orlando 🙃
That pit does not contain the ruins of Japantown. Its the ruins of a large apartment building project that got killed in the 2008 crash. Those are deep pilings that will cost a fortune to remove and make the property very expensive to develop.
In any event, it was just purchased by the Nisenan tribe, which owns a large casino out in th ex-burbs, so maybe there might be something there.
I stand corrected! It's all a little misleading though, since the Japantown mural is covering what looks like ruins. As someone from out of town just reporting on what I saw, it certainly seemed obvious what was going on there. Guess not!
It was nice to watch and see an outsider's perspective, I've been in sacramento 13 years now. Glad you made pretty good use of the time you were here and hit many of the main areas I'd recommend to people wanting to explore Sac. Bus route 142/42A/42B Joint SacRt/YoloBus all connect to the airport, and are free transfers to/from light rail downtown, runs every half hour with mostly electric busses until we get the green line. Downtown is dead, oldtown/doco is not a draw for me; it's all about Midtown as you noticed. I love midtown for breweries/coffee/trees and light rail essentially. I noticed some areas you walked through, and yeah I feel bad that its so hit or miss around here, as a local we know where the good spots are and where not. That portion of Folsom you walked in front of Sac State used to be much worse before much of the new sidewalk/landscaping went in, IMHO still a pretty unpleasant area. Love CSUS, and my years studying there with all the big trees on campus. I travel to other cities like Atlanta and kinda treat it like you, I only have a day or two, and know almost nothing about it.
I came to thumbs up just for the hilarious title.
Really enjoyed the video! Hope to see more.
I appreciate a right wing urbanist. Got sick of the echo chamber of woke
Great video! Did you see the Calpers Lincoln Plaza building near the Crocker Art museum? IMO its one of the coolest pieces of architecture in Sacramento.
You can't spell Sacramento without RAMEN!
I love the trees at the capitol.
I live in Sacramento.
A precautionary YIMBY. I can’t make this stuff up 😭😭😭
W video👍
Walks 20k steps throughout the city and still complains about crime.
don't be afraid to say SEMENS
Sacrt didn’t even have enough money to build the low platforms , so every station is half built 🤣
SAC light rail is terrible. it doesn't go to the right places and the areas around many of the stations are pointless.
and yes the vibe in Sac is "dead end" feeling. always has been. it lives in the shadow of the bay area. all the efforts to make sac more interest hip trendy interesting etc are not an organic thing but forced.
i'm 60 and a native northern californian. sac has potential and norcal has a rich colorful history but every that city does is half assed and poorly executed .
Not sure what you meant about using your vote wisely or w/e but great video
Also the first steam powered railroad west of the Mississippi was in St. Louis, not CA.
On December 9, 1852, a passenger train, with the company’s officers and leading citizens of St. Louis aboard, inaugurated the new Pacific Railroad with a trip to the end of the line. The people of Missouri then had their first look at a steam railroad. That train was the first to be operated west of the Mississippi River, and ran the five miles from the depot on Fourteenth Street to Cheltenham in some ten minutes.
Just encouraging informed voting this election season! :)
not sure why you’re attacking Harris as an urbanist. Don’t like an unstable guy swinging punches in public? Trump will do nothing to address that but by electing Trump there will be fewer funding opportunities to improve transportation and land-use in your preferred urbanist environment. Like you will literally get more freeways destroying communities. I had hope for this channel but rather than position yourself as a centrist you really just exposed your ignorance about the role of the Federal government in everyday life. Not saying either party is great or that Democrats aren’t without fault but good lord this should have been a video about a nice visit to Sacramento instead we find out you’re a “law and order” urbanist who would rather support the single worst candidate for cities and sustainability because you perceive Harris as having any responsibility for the drugs you saw on the ground. As an urbanist and a parent I can tell you Harris is better for my bottom line. You earned yourself an unsubscribed.
butchered that Siemens pronounciation
i don't appreciate how you spoke about that human that was pouncing air... you sound like an elitist snob from the right side of the tracks... not cool unsubscribing now
Get over yourself, people don't deserve to be accosted and attacked by people just for being out and about in public. Not only that, if you want people to embrace urbanism you need to address the widespread anti-social behavior found throughout the country
People won't want to walk, or ride public transit or support building housing if they feel those things will put their lives and that of their families or friends in danger.