Sunday, December 10, 2023

Sprawl - Today's Bee Letter

12/10/23 re: “Sacramento has an ugly addiction to sprawl” p.D13

The Bee correctly decries Sacramento's addiction to sprawl. Sprawl is not just a polluting mess, it’s an unhealthy, regressive “tax”–every driving age adult must own a car to shop or get to work. Seniors who can’t drive and children are, in effect, second-class citizens.

As someone who protested this for literally decades both in a Community Planning Advisory Committee and as a private citizen, government’s tone-deaf response has been beyond frustrating. My best guess is that land speculators (i.e. "developers") are firmly in command, and their proxies in government have difficulty understanding that alternatives exist since their paycheck is conditioned on them not understanding. The late Grantland Johnson once said that it's widely acknowledged that, in all of California, the Sacramento region is the most in the hip pocket of development interests. That's not a contest anyone would want to win.

Meanwhile, the region has 20 years of unbuilt infill.

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