I like this project, even if it gets downsized or the architecture becomes a bit cheaper. Honestly, this city needs to grow up. I won't make comparisons to places like SF or Seattle, with their massive booms, because we're not like those cities. But look at Portland and Austin; they're practically lightyears ahead of us.
We need more projects like this, whether it's tearing down existing infill or on parking lots, because the demand is there. Look at how long the waiting lists were for Powerhouse 16! Hell, I want to live in Midtown, return to some semblance of the life I had in Portland, but there's nowhere for me to go unless I want to try and take on a Victorian! There's all these people, people like myself, fleeing the suburbs, fleeing the prices of the Bay Area, and we're telling them there's nowhere for them to live because we want to save half a faded mural on an alleyway wall of a brick building built in 1965? I hear arguments about preserving Sacramento's "identity." What identity? The one from the 60s-late 90s when this city was compared to the likes of Stockton and Fresno as one of the pits of California? Oh yeah, sign me up to save that!
Whether the older generations of Sacramento like it or not, it's people like me who are the future of this city. I would quite happily tear down most of that stretch of J Street from 21st-29th in the name of development. When I was a kid, growing up, going on trips to SF, San Diego, even New York, I always looked around and thought, I want to bring these things to my city! And then I moved away, lived in Portland for four years, and realized I didn't have to try and put up that kind of fight. I could simply live somewhere that already has what I like, such as Seattle. I look around this city and I see a place that really needs to just grow up, because if it doesn't, it's about to lose an entire generation. See, I went to architecture school not just because I'm passionate about design, but to try and bring great design to my hometown. I know plenty of people who are smart and passionate about making a difference, and you know what? A lot of them left and won't come back because this city can't get its act together. Sure, maybe we can't compete with Pasadena or Seattle, but this city is losing young, passionate, intelligent professionals to places like Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, and Madison, WI.
If a city's priorities become too much about the past and not enough about the future, you doom it to be a stale museum city that refuses to grow and adapt as people and attitudes change. We aren't London or Rome; hell, we're not even Philadelphia. We can't pretend to be a museum city of Victorian homes from the 1910s; they've already got that in San Francisco.
A city is only as great as its people choose to make it. There is an entire generation of young, urban, intelligent professionals who want to make their hometown great, and I say this as one of those who's dedicated their life to that pursuit. I want to, WE want to make Sacramento a great city, and we can be as great as Portland or Austin or even Pittsburgh. Being stuck in a romanticized past of a worse time won't cut it, and if that's where this city ends up, then you can count me, my economic impact, and my community work out.
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