Our Old Towns

I put the boat into Miller Park today to spend time on the Sacramento river. Nice way to keep cool on this near record hot day. We took advantage of the subsidized parking at the Old Sacramento public dock and ate lunch at Hot & Spicy, blowing one bill and pumping cash back into the local economy at a local eatery.



This part of Sacramento is very nearly the only part in the whole county that is designed in a traditional urban layout. What is it about this that attracts me, vs. Old Town Elk Grove:



First and foremost, the lack of enclosure in Old Town Elk Grove. And by that I mean buildings that form an enclosure around me, the pedestrian. I wouldn't have much business to conduct with second or third story tenants but that isn't my point; my point is, I feel more comfortable in an enclosed outdoor setting. Elk Grove feels rather like walking across a soccer field to the next business, and without a population density that puts people on the street, that soccer field is empty.

There is no way these newly planted trees are going to compensate for that lack of enclosure because these trees were planted haphazardly -- there is no uniformity, no formality, no likelihood of them overarching the future street forming a canopy. Elk Grove is a hundred degrees five months out of the year! Old SACTOWN doesn't employ many trees, either, but their pedestrians are sheltered from the elements. Even on a scorching day you don't feel like you're trying to cross the Venusian equator. The buildings themselves provide that enclosure. There is a continuity to the buildings while each is unique. That's the problem with Elk Grove -- our building codes say everything about what you can't build but give no guidance on what ought to be built; hence, a hodgepodge of styles and sizes and parking lots in between sections and overall disharmony...even though Old Elk Grove is designated a Special Planning Area! The code offers guidelines for what to do, but yet? Doesn't that make you wonder about the planning area in which you live? It ain't special, that's for damn sure.

I also think that Elk Grove Blvd., with its 5,000 daily thru commuters, doesn't help things. But compare this to Livermore's 1st street -- even though that thing is brutalized by thru commuters taking the shortcut from Tracy to Freemont, there remains a degree of livelihood on its margins. Parallel parking provides pedestrians a physical buffer from traffic and there is a substantial volume of parking on the street (although as you're endlessly circling around looking for one on a Friday night you wouldn't think that). It not only offers a place to park but the sheer volume of parked cars slows down all those irritable thru commuters. A thousand slant parking spots means there are a thousand potential cars pulling out and drivers have no choice but to slow down. Old Sacramento is not on an expressway, not on a thoroughfare, and not on a commuter freeway. Speeding to get to the dry cleaners before closing time doesn't happen there but it happens all the time on Elk Grove Blvd., and with a city mandate to ensure that the comfort and ease of vehicular transport trumps everything else, well...I'm not thinking, living, and shopping Elk Grove...