'Smart Growth' Is Coming to Sacramento - And It's Really Stupid

By Susan McLaughlin
Sacramento Union
March 2005

John Augustus Sutter had a vision. In the 19th century, when Mexican Territoral Gov. Juan Alvarado offered Sutter a grant of land in the great valley of California, the landscape was considered as unremarkable as a sea of grass.

But Sutter, who pictured his land as an agricultural empire, wasted no time establishing a trading post in what proved to be a most propitious location. The post, which soon grew into a settlement, was positioned at the confluence of two rivers and was a natural destination point of the overland trails of the Sierra Nevada. As the settlement grew, it became a city serviced by the continental railroad and the Pony Express, with deep river access to the ports of Oakland and San Francisco.

While the location was notable for its easy access to transportation and commerce, residents endured hot, dry summer weather. Encouraged by Sutter himself, who had sold the settlers their town lots, they planted trees in their yards, gardens, and parks to block the sun. By the 20th century Sacramento had grown from a sea of grass to a place known as the “City of Trees,” its reputation one of comfortable, reasonably priced neighborhoods.

In the 21st century Sacramento’s tree-lined distinction will change. Sacramento’s transformation into clusters of “compact developments,” mixing commercial zones with family living spaces, has already begun.

Called “smart growth,” the transformation simply means government-sponsored crowding and control. The goals of smart growth are reducing or eliminating private transportation options, mainly automobiles, and restricting the housing market to high-density, cost-shifted apartments or condominiums.

The Sacramento Area Council of Governments is one organization fully on the smart-growth bandwagon. SACOG offers grants of all sorts to local governments and communities so they’ll follow smart-growth guidelines. One such project: the Sacramento Region Blueprint. Created to link transportation and housing, the project actively promotes high-density, mixed-use development. The idea plunks down business and light industry, transit centers, and dense apartment or condominium complexes in Sacramento neighborhoods - communities where the single-family home once reigned.

Soon residents will witness the crowding effect of “infill development,” meaning the prohibition of vacant lots and larger parcels. “Intensification,” “densification,” and other monstrous jargon will cover suburban office parks and “underutilized” land. Other multiple-use plans could include locating mental health clinics and unemployment offices at public facilities.