Posted on 07/30/2005 9:09:42 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacunion.com ...
United Nations Agenda 21 PING
One wonders when people are ever going to understand that Smart Growth isn't just an ideology?
California democrats look forward to making squalid, crowded, growth-controlled urban slums inside the massive open Central Valley, so they can fund big government, drug treatment, welfare and other "modern luxuries" there.
The real dream and opportunity for Californians is to settle the entire Central Valley with affordable suburban housing, WITHOUT there ever being one crowded, corrupt "central city" in the entire region.
Ah, another attempt to turn the USA into "Europe Lite".
I have a bit different dream of people dispersing in order to restore the land. It needs the work, unless we want it to be a sea of starthistle.
We shouldn't fill the whole central valley with housing, of course. But creating more traumatized, government-dependent urban ghettoes is what the democrat party needs to survive. Let's not give them any more.
Learning to optimize land use for all of its attributes including farming, habitat, open space, noise dispersion, etc. is something WAY beyond any planner. It takes a fluid market operating on automated contracts.
That's article (patent application) is very good. The idea needs somehow to be presented in a simpler form and implemented in a jurisdiction, to demonstrate the concept to a larger audience.
sac-a-wo has had smart growth for 3 decades it is called too much government and too few land owners. The big powers like McClatchy drove the small business person out of the city to other areas. Nobody beyond K St wanted the town to grow. /glad I don't live there any more rant off.
"Smart Growth" is one of those propaganda terms like "Free Trade," no doubt created by Joseph Goebbels or his descendants. They should all be wearing swastika arm-bands.
You remember Goebbels, late of the Third Reich, don't you?
It was he who said "public opinion is like an organ, which I play according to my needs."
Didn't the Soviets try the same housing scheme?
Yes, they did. Their scheme is the foundation for the smart growth movement in America.
In Russia the people are all packed into multi-story apartment buildings with miles and miles of open land surrounding them. It is one of the most depressing sights I have ever seen. Of course, the high mucky-mucks live in estates, beautiful spacious houses with landscaped gardens. The phrase "It's good to be King" comes to mind.
Been to Watsonville lately? I though you were talking about Santa Cruz county for an instant.
Nursery businesses are having a hard time these days, because the new housing doesn't have yards. The development in Watsonville on Rodriguez street puts 40 "homes" on 1/4 acre. Its architecture truly pays tribute to the soviet housing complexes you speak of.
I know what you mean. I probably single-handedly help support several nurseries; Alladin is my favorite.
I just this week I made the decision that I will do ALL of my shopping in Watsonville/Freedom. I am sick to death of the traffic to the north, and places like Orchard, etc. are much better in Watsonville.
Thanks for the heads up.
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