Are you finally growing up, Sacramento?

I pose that question not to our state government but to the real Sacramento, by which I mean the Sacramento Capital Region. It’s a query that should be aimed at all of the Central Valley’s big urban areas. Are you ready for civic adulthood, Fresno, Bakersfield, Stockton, and Modesto?

The maturity of these cities is more than a regional question. The Valley persistently lags California as a whole in employment, access to health care, and educational attainment. If California is going to make big gains in the decades ahead and reduce inequality, Valley cities will have to lead the way.

The importance of Valley cities should be conventional wisdom by now, but unfortunately, the narrative feels unfamiliar and counterintuitive. That’s because the Valley is stuck in a state of agriculture-based denial. That’s understandable, given the region’s rural history and the outsized influence that agriculture retains over land use and politics. But that influence obscures the 21st-century reality—most people in the Central Valley live in cities. And so the true economic engines of the region are not the groves and fields but an archipelago of urban islands connected by State Route 99.

Far too often these cities are underestimated by everyone, including their own inhabitants. The cities of the Valley are “small” only compared with the global mega-regions on the coast. More people live in the cities of Fresno and Sacramento than in the cities of Atlanta or Miami. Bakersfield is bigger than the cities of Tampa or St. Louis, and Stockton has as many people as Pittsburgh or Cincinnati.

But the Valley cities all face different versions of the same problem: They have grown into places far larger and more complicated than the governments and infrastructure that once sustained them. One of the great underappreciated dramas in California is the race of these cities to catch up to their urban needs, by adding cultural venues, revamping downtowns, and developing new infrastructure.

Cities are in different stages of this process. Stockton, which is emerging from bankruptcy, and Bakersfield, which is suffering from a decline in oil prices, are the laggards.

The struggle in Fresno has been particularly dramatic, with the city making big if uneven progress. There is new life and housing in its downtown; by summer, Fulton Mall should be transformed into Fulton Street, a main avenue. The new Midtown Trail for bicyclists and pedestrians will connect Fresno and the Clovis Old Town Trail, creating a 17-mile link between the two cities, and including space for future transit. A bus rapid transit system is being launched, a water upgrade should make Fresno less dependent on groundwater, and planning is underway to establish mixed-used zoning districts on thoroughfares and to develop the neediest neighborhoods.

But the most promising—and often most puzzling—case is greater Sacramento.

The Capital Region has long had advantages that give it a more diverse economy than other Valley cities—from the presence of the state government to its proximity to the Bay Area. Sacramento was never that small a town—it instantly became a city during the Gold Rush, and prospered as the terminus of the transcontinental railroad. But for much of its history it coasted—“Stockton with a governor” was one insult—happily lagging the fast-growing coast and developing a slow reputation, enshrined in Mark Twain’s letter from the city: “You needn’t rush down here right away by express. You can come as slow freight and arrive in time to get a good seat.”

Today, it’s a bigger, more ambitious place. Sacramento County has a population nearly the size of Manhattan’s, and the nine counties around the region have 2.8 million residents, on par with the city of Chicago. And there are signs of urban progress, particularly in the center of the city of Sacramento, where the past decade has brought more than $1 billion in public and private investment. A sports arena opened last year, a hospital is planned for the railyards, housing is coming to K Street, and midtown Sacramento’s neighborhoods of restaurants, galleries, and loft apartments are livelier than ever.

But beyond those gains, the picture is as muddy as Sacramento’s rivers. A leadership class heavy in real estate and state government types can seem less interested in improving poorer neighborhoods than peddling empty slogans (Earth to Sacramento: “Farm to Fork” is how the whole world eats). What’s worse, this crew appears to be gripped by a rampant inferiority complex, seeking validation—and outside visitors and tourists—with showy projects of dubious value.

The city of Sacramento is now ludicrously considering building an aquarium—though Monterey’s world-class aquarium, and the ocean, are not so far away. The city is also contemplating expansion of an already struggling convention center. Building of such showy destinations is part of what brought Stockton to bankruptcy (an arena and marina), and nearly sunk Fresno (the Granite Park sports complex, the Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art). The basketball arena may expose Sacramento to similar peril; the city gave the NBA Kings a $272.9 million public subsidy, via a risky parking bond.

Beyond the city, getting the disparate parts of the Capital Region to work together remains difficult. While there are recent examples of regional progress on transportation, water, and workforce development, the Capital Region is not cohesive. There’s not even consensus on which of the area’s counties are part of the region. The Sacramento Bee says there are four; government documents often refer to six counties (Sacramento, Sutter, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, and Yuba), while a few academics list nine.

One Sacramento disadvantage as a region is its political diversity; unlike the Democrat-dominated Bay Area and L.A., Sacramento is a swing region, from the left-wing NIMBYs of Davis to the Republican NIMBYS of the foothills. Another challenge to developing urban strategy is all the people who live in the so-called UnCity—unincorporated Sacramento County.

“Though Sacramento often sees itself as the byproduct of forces outside of its immediate control, or as a step-child of the Bay Area,” said a report used at this decade’s beginning by the UC Davis Center for Regional Change, “It both deserves and needs to view itself with a greater degree of identity and autonomy.”

That lack of identity has made it harder for greater Sacramento to address its most stubborn regional problems. Housing affordability has reached crisis level here, as in other parts of the state. Transit is a regional sore spot; Sacramento County voters defeated a transportation sales tax hike in November that, while lacking in imagination, would have restored previous service cuts. And the lack of economic and job growth in the region deserves greater attention. The Brookings Institution ranks Sacramento 95th among the nation’s largest 100 metro regions in economic output per capita, with a 9.5 percent decrease over the past 10 years.

Sacramento’s optimists argue that efforts to address such regional problems, and political and public awareness of them, are deepening. In that vein, the city of Sacramento is now the stage for what may be the state’s most intriguing local political story: new mayor Darrell Steinberg.

Steinberg is a former state Senate leader with broad perspective and deep contacts among the overlapping governments of the region. To the good, he has made decreasing homelessness a priority, and is addressing it regionally, in a way that should force Sacramento County to offer more mental health services. (To the bad, he’s been talking up the aquarium idea.)

Californians are understandably wary when big plans emerge from the Capitol. But we should be rooting hard for the Capital Region. Our state will be much better off if Sacramento can fully launch itself.

The post Grow up, Sacramento! appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

As a famous American observer (Mark Twain or Will Rogers, depending on your source) once said, there are only “four unique cities in America: Boston, New Orleans, San Francisco, and San Antonio,” but he must have said it an awfully long time ago. San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the country, the fastest-growing among the top 10, but I don’t think there is another major U.S. city that conjures up such a blank slate of emotions and associations.

If you know only one thing about San Antonio, it’s probably the Alamo, but it’s hard for some to get too excited about a monument to a last stand. Even locals have mixed feelings about the Alamo. Better to dwell on other things. The Spurs are an easy rallying point. So is the River Walk, a network of walkways along the San Antonio River lined with restaurants, bars, shops, and other attractions. There’s native son Flaco Jiménez, a Grammy-award winning Tejano accordionist who was born here and calls San Anto home. We also claim one of the world’s largest Virgin Mary mosaics. But I know, I know. These hardly qualify as landmarks on par with the Golden Gate Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, or the Hollywood sign.

The truth is, I too used to feel underwhelmed about my hometown. Growing up in San Antonio, I wanted nothing more than to get the hell out. I lived in a suburban bubble on the city’s north side that felt oppressively boring. There were strip malls full of retail stores. There were dozens of gated communities with almost identical houses. There were good schools and churches.

There was no arts scene. No community “center.” I rarely saw people walking around, or riding bikes.

My parents moved us to that side of town in the mid ’90s because the real estate agent had told them that rest of San Antonio was battling a major gang problem. There was some truth to that, although I wonder today whether the problem blown out of proportion by someone looking to land a larger commission.

When relatives visited from Venezuela, we would pile into the car and head to Sea World or Six Flags Fiesta Texas. (Ok, we have theme parks.) And then we would go downtown and drown in the heat as we strolled the River Walk or visited the Alamo.

Looking back, I felt as if San Antonio was boring because the sum of its parts was—when not stitched together—pretty homogenous. The north side was dull. The south side could be dangerous to those unfamiliar with where to go. Downtown was an abomination of underwhelming tourist traps. I knew nothing about the east or west sides.

Unlike some other major cities, San Antonio has always lacked a core that everyone is tapped into, or a matrix of public transportation connecting culturally diverse and historically distinct parts of town. People who grew up in one part of town rarely felt it was worth their while to venture beyond their immediate vicinity.

I went to college in Austin, a city where you could find people walking and biking for pleasure. A city where you could hear live music on almost every street corner and order a donut at 4 a.m. I moved to Chicago after graduation, until the end of a relationship sent me packing my bags for home in 2010. Mending a broken heart, I dove back into life here. I got a job at a nonprofit close to downtown and moved into a place within minutes of the San Antonio River—the part with fewer tourists and more wildflowers and bike paths. I started to appreciate the Tower of the Americas and the downtown skyline. I shopped at fruterías and met my neighbors. I walked to restaurants, read in parks, and used my Spanish. At night, I listened to the train pass by.

Slowly and then all at once, I discovered San Antonio. I fell in love with the city. I also fell in love with the freedom to define my hometown for myself, in the absence of some overpowering narrative of the place that we are all supposed to abide by.

I began to pay attention to what was happening around me. I got a job at the local newspaper as an editorial assistant and worked my way into the newsroom. I learned that the city was one of the fastest growing in the country. I watched as former Mayor Julián Castro launched his national political career. Meanwhile, in San Antonio, the technology industry bloomed. Eagle Ford Shale, one of the nation’s most active oil and gas drilling areas, pumped billions into the local economy. In June, the city elected its first African-American mayor, Ivy Taylor, who is only the second woman to hold that office.

In 2011, the city began offering free exercise classes in a dozen parks, an effort that has flourished. Public housing developments in some parts of the city have started to integrate mixed-income residents as a way to give struggling families a road map to upward mobility. Schools here began experimenting with restorative discipline reforms that are helping more kids graduate—a model that could be emulated across the state.

The Spurs continue to make us really proud. We now have a legitimate culinary scene with diverse, affordable restaurants. Businesses are moving here, along with tens of thousands of people. San Antonio’s population is expected to double by 2040.

There’s something about the pace of life and the city’s culture that makes it seem like a really big small town. We should be heavyweights in our own right—we’re the second largest city in Texas behind Houston. We have a robust economy and are experimenting with progressive initiatives. Yet, we get left behind in name recognition and appeal, eclipsed even by other Texan cities like Austin and Dallas. Radio personality John Lisle once said that San Antonio is like the Barney Fife of metropolitan cities: “We have the gun, we just don’t have any bullets.”

The Dallas metropolitan area is actually far larger than ours: San Antonio ranks seventh among U.S. cities (second in Texas), but 25th among what the Census calls “metropolitan statistical areas.” Those differing measuring sticks (size is important in Texas) mirrors San Antonians’ ambivalence about our hometown. Josh Brodesky, a former colleague of mine at the San Antonio Express-News, points out that “we’re big, but we’re small.” He added “and we don’t want to be viewed as small, but we kind of don’t want to be big.” What really annoys us, if you want to know, is when The New York Times says that Austin has the best breakfast tacos. Give me a break.

San Antonio does know how to pay homage to its past, and has more of a past than any other Texan city. But we’re also a forward-looking city, and predominantly (almost two-thirds) Latino, mirroring what the rest of the nation will someday look like. We’re at the forefront of immigration, poverty, and education issues. People from across the country are looking at San Antonio and taking note of how we handle some of our toughest problems. An ambitious citywide preschool initiative and efforts to treat violence as a public health concern deserving of community intervention are becoming models for other cities to emulate.

Still, we San Antonians have a sense of humor about our city’s branding problem. Playing off of the “Keep Austin Weird” moniker, a local artist created the slogan “Keep San Antonio Lame” in 2004, with the “a” in “lame” being a picture of the Alamo. People went crazy for it, rallying around the slogan like a battle cry. It was easy to love. First, it was a slight jab at our self-consciously hip neighbors to the north. Second, it was a slight jab at ourselves, but also subversively deceptive.

We think our town is pretty special, but we aren’t going to lose any sleep if you don’t find that out for yourself.

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