While I think it's very brave to write an opinion piece that is clearly astray from many of the readers to SacPress, I cannot help but feel a little saddened by how backwards some people still are thinking. Mr. Burg said it best, you and your organization, are clearly detached from reality. Even beyond your skewed view of the urban vs. suburban debate (which is turning less into a debate and more into fact), I have to pick on your reasoning through the "American Dream". This idea that we're all here to work hard, get paid, and settle in the suburbs with children is seen as a joke to anyone not considered elderly. It simply doesn't work that way anymore and even you, Mr. Lukenbill, will live to see the day when the US is not the world's leading economy. We already trail far behind in terms of infrastructure, largely thanks to the policies and preferences that you seem to stand behind. Thanks for that.

Paul, So true though. I know many of these small farmers in town and I know that they find a lot of these new markets tedious/costly to attend to. If anything, it's worse for the smaller farmers, as they usually end of having to pull out of the markets mid season because they make no money. In general, new markets take a couple of years to gain attendance levels even remotely close to the already established markets. George, I'm not even going to touch on why the economics of farmers markets != restaurants. But in truth, there's a certain subset of the population who patronizes farmers markets regularly, and opening a new market that isn't far away from existing markets will take away customers from the other market, resulting in generally no new customers and working twice the hours.

Does anyone ever think of the farmers for these kinds of things? The problem of opening a new market in Sacramento is that it spreads things even thinner for the vendors. In our metro area, there're already six farmer's markets on saturday (during the season) and pretty much one every other day of the week. Opening a new market makes the farmers take more time/money out of their pockets to show up and sell their produce. In addition, it takes away from the crowds of other markets (Sunday). While consumers have further choices of markets to go to, the truth is that more farmer's markets means more costs for farmers, meaning higher prices for consumers in the end. If anything, we should be closing certain farmers markets! Does the grid really need more than Wednesday and Sunday (with a short hop over to Oak Park farmer's market if you really need produce on Saturdays)? Food for thought.

It is so competitive out there when it comes to the lunch crowd (and really just getting people to spend money) and you really have to have something that stands out. Blaming the economy instead of a bad business model seems to be the cop-out du jour.

This is too true. Anyone who goes to farmer's markets in the area should know that the prices are often far too high for low income residents. Having a market in Old Sac would probably be ideal, as there would be fresh tourists as well as being located close enough to midtown to make it possible to get more well off residents. One big issue with this whole idea though is that there're too many farmers markets in the area as it is. During the season, it feels like there are like 10+ every week in Sacramento. It'd be hard to sustain a market when there's so much competition already from existing markets.

Doesn't anyone ever get taken aback by that $1.5 million figure you're throwing out there Kevin. Why do we accept such insane amounts of money for something like a bikeshare program. This is why the US is so bad at building infrastructure, our costs are so inflated.

I'm also a recent DC transport. OP and I probably know very well about those who're averse to using public transit or biking, as it is wildly popular amongst the majority suburbanite population there. Try getting a person from the further out Virginia suburbs to come into the district on the Metro. It exists here too, certainly (see: a lot of people in Roseville and Elk Grove). I don't think midtown should be accommodating these people. Urban parking lots are horrific and are really a thing of the past and not something for the present. As for the parking problem, it is a little too easy to get away with free parking in midtown and that should probably change. This will encourage people to park farther away (and explore more of the neighborhood) or contribute to much-needed parking revenue.

I don't like that statistic very much. I imagine it's skewed higher due to the incredibly high cost of living in many of the state's big cities. Sacramento need not apply. Cost of living is way way lower here than in DC.

Hm. Good luck to them. This space is kind of a joke among my circle as it seems that the tenants change with the seasons. I'm pretty sure in the year I've lived in Davis it has been three things and shut down numerous times. This is still continuing the trend of, "Davis: where Sacramento establishments go to die."

I don't agree. Suburbs are not a natural part of the cycle. They have been built up in the last century ad nauseum. Small towns, sure. But an entire network of "not-cities" forming a "city" is new and I hope the cycle doesn't continue. I really hope the trend leads to the end of the suburb. They're isolated slots of land with ugly,copy cat houses of inefficiency. Midtown can be for all ages, I don't see why not.

As the Onion loves to say, "stereotypes make everything easier". Both of these stereotypes hold true as stereotypes, nothing new presented. I don't have a problem with either of these sentiments about Midtown and Roseville (or any other Suburb for that matter). Of course, these aren't 100% true of all people! But they help us and we need them. Suburb vs. Urban center is repeated all over the country. In DC, it's Dupont Circle vs. Fairfax. In San Francisco, it's the Mission vs. Danville. In Sacramento, it's Midtown vs. Roseville. I think it's just recently that public opinion has put the two on more equal footing, considering in the past there was no fight and the Rosevilles of the country would be held in much higher regards than the Midtowns. Now, we're seeing that flip flop and the way urbanization seems to be going,and Roseville will be the "ghetto" and Midtown the ideal.

Awesome! As someone who just started with the whole backyard chickens thing, I'm totally for this. Chickens are so easy to keep and they're far cheaper than a cat or dog. I'm all down for efficient animals that make eggs for me to eat. If I was still living in midtown, I'd still be able to keep my chickens because they don't take much space up at all.

Excellent! I've talked to her multiple times that she needed to move to Midtown and what a great location. I really hope she got a good deal on it too. I can't wait to go visit her when she moves to midtown!

I'm most excited for the part that they're building a racquetball court! More racquetball courts are needed in this damn city.

Awesome Article! However, I do feel that people would be discouraged to come here if they had to pay for parking. It utterly shocks me how many people from the burbs don't understand parking at all in Midtown. And a lot of them make it an issue. They'd have to do some sort of sweeping, sensible reform for people to truly understand it and to have it not make an impact on the performance of midtown businesses.

I know it'd be expensive to implement initially, but has anyone done a long term cost analysis of changing the fare procedures of RT so that it's MANDATORY to purchase a ticket to ride. I don't think I've been on many systems (and I get a kick out of going and riding public transit) that work on the honor system quite like RT. It'd be a good thing. There'd be less of the critters who get on late at night and maybe RT could actually increase service sometime.

One very important note: no one under 21 will be admitted.

Has anyone really considered doing something in West Sacramento, say right across the river (see: Ziggurat pt. 2) or whatnot? Yeah, not a lot of commercial activity, however there is that new planned community, it's really not that far from downtown (light rail would DEFINITELY need to be expanded to the stadium) and would probably be cheaper in terms of real estate? I'm imagining it being something like the Ballpark District in SW Washington, DC. I'm not really backing this idea yet because I'm not completely knowledgable on the logistics, but has this idea ever been thrown out? (Then again, does Sacramento really want to lose another sports entertainment venue to west sac?) Overall, I'm just hoping we can build a new arena somewhere more logical than Natomas. Suburban sprawl is over and probably won't be back for quite some time. Honestly, I'd totally go to more games if I could walk, bike, or (easily) bus to an arena downtown and I don't even like basketball all that much.

Your comments about LA reminded me of Shea/Citifield in NYC. The only businesses around the stadium are chop shops. It's viable (and strangely, loved.) because of its relative closeness to Manhattan by Subway. The subway stop is near the entrance of the field. If they did decide to build something outside of downtown, they damn well better make it easily transit accessible (I'm looking at you, Light Rail. No buses).

I never seemed to see people there, so this is totally not shocking. They should come back and try for a new concept. How many sushi/asian restaurants can you fit on the grid, honestly?