Published: 1 years 93 days ago
Sacramento Bee: Every once in a while, it's helpful to have outsiders be brutally honest about your faults, the blemishes you've learned to live with or would rather ignore.
So it is with a group of urban design experts who just blew through town and gave their impressions of downtown Sacramento.
Mayor Kevin Johnson's office, which invited them, says their report won't sit on the proverbial shelf. The panel's findings will be circulated to advocacy groups, business owners, local architects, unions and others with a stake in downtown. Within a couple of months, Johnson plans to present an "action plan." One item likely to be on the list is addressing another common complaint – that City Hall has become too bureaucratic toward business.
The experts, who spent three days in Sacramento before issuing their report on Wednesday, were brought in specifically to suggest what could be done with the moribund J-K-L corridor. One piece of advice from the panel is we're not supposed to call it the "J-K-L corridor" any more. That sends the message that you're supposed to drive through it to get somewhere else, when downtown should be the destination.
Just maybe, their straight talk will help that happen.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/18/3412520/the-truth-can-set-us-free-on-downtown.html#ixzz1EKbkk04T
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