Sacramentens
I’m not sure if it would be “Sacramentens” or “Sacramentans,” or something else all together, but I’ll continue. Years ago, a national radio host railed against the people of Sacramento insisting they were angry, bitter folk who loved complaining. I was a bit taken a bit, and, irony aside, angry. However, the longer I live here it seems true. We love to complain, and judge. Yes, I suppose people everywhere hates something, but here, we seem to revel in out hatred, and eagerly complain to anyone.
Wow, that’s quite an accusation without any solid examples! Not saying you’re incorrect, just saying a few examples may be in order. My guess is the years of having a “cow town” image reinforced by bigots like Lakers coach Phil Jackson has implanted a fat Doritos Cool Ranch chip on our shoulder.
Sacramento will always want to be a major media/consumer market like L.A. or San Fran, but we don’t want all the negative aspects that come along with it. In the end, the voters contradict their feelings by voting down projects like the new arena and shopping plaza. I guess that’s a great example of your point, we love to complain and will flex our voting power to make sure we have plenty to complain about.
The whole downtown redevelopment fiasco is a great example. The towers Saca failed to build, the Moe Mohanna vs City of Sacramento battle.
No matter what side, they people of Sacramento hold strong opinions and will let you know. Meanwhile the city stagnates.
Downtown shopping is great. Downtown Arena is a waste of space and poor planning. And the Lakers aren’t bigots.
And it’s Sacramentans – I think anyway.
People here are no where near as bitter as San Franciscans, so far as I can tell. They take the bitter cake. Probably the only thing we bitch about is people bitching about the notion that we bitch about ourselves. But we don’t. Oh, the vicious circle.
When I lived in Minneapolis, the residents there loved to complain about the weather, etc. People everywhere love to complain. It’s just part of the scenery in life.
The only place they didn’t complain (to me anyway) was on the beaches in Southern Cal. Not only was there not too much complaining, but there wasn’t much conversation of any substance, anyway.
CD: Downtown shopping is great? Perhaps you haven’t been exposed to the great open air shopping like The Block in Orange, CA. Our area malls are riddled with loitering thugs and homeless. The stores we have attracted are OK (not great) and the atmosphere/experience is horrible.
And for the record, I didn’t call the Lakers bigots, I called Phil Jackson a bigot.
Try living in the Pacific NW where it rains for eight months straight.
People here are *much* friendlier and sunnier.
No, Matt. There’s no downtown shopping worthwhile yet, but I think downtown shopping would be great – in contradiction to what I interpreted your views to be in your first comment in this post.
And The Block sucks. Wait, that’s not fair. The Grove sucks, the Block is just fine. I don’t oppose a Block style development on K Street because pretty much ANYTHING would be better than the nothing we have now. And then we wouldn’t have to drive to Arden or Roseville.
Maybe Sacramento has a reputation for complainers because people base their assumptions about the central city entirely on the corner of Seventh and K. Believe it or not, it is physically possible to shop in places that are not malls.
Try J Street in the twenties, the shops on the side streets along “the Handle” (god help me, I’m actually using that term) or Twenty-first Street. You won’t find any of your favorite high-end chain stores, which in my mind is what great shopping is all about: places that you DON’T find anyplace else.
Sacramento’s “cow-town” reputation is entirely an illusion–the last time this was a cow town was when John A. Sutter owned the place. We’ve been a city since the 1850s.
But because we’re self-conscious about not being a first-tier city, the city sometimes becomes susceptible to dingbats who try to sell us on cockamamie ideas. Saca’s towers failed because HE IS INCOMPETENT. The downtown arena measure failed because IT WAS A REALLY STUPID PLAN. Mohanna’s properties wither away because HE IS A MORON. None of these problems occur because Sacramento is a cow-town, because it isn’t. There are plenty of projects which do get built and executed, but they don’t make the editorial page because success doesn’t make good news.