Improving Urban Blight - After working a conference in San Francisco this past weeekend, I had the chance to spend Tuesday catching up on errands and spending time by myself. And as part of that time alone, I decided to treat myself to a couple meals at newly opened Sacramento restaurants. I'm buoyed by the fact that gentrification is well underway in Sacramento, with many new, hip, upscale restaurants slated to open over the next few months. I ate my lunch at the Riverside Clubhouse and had a tasty sirloin salad and then walked to a dinner of spicy butternut squash tortellini at Lucca. The crowd at Lucca (which is across from our atrocious franchise of Hamburger Mary's) featured a decidedly upscale crowd with a large percentage of well dressed "settled queen" couples. (An aside, do I count as a settled queen if I've been in a relationship for more than 5 years but don't own a home?)

Do Homo customers + New restaurant options = Surefire success? Lucca's only been open a couple weeks, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that with the addition of PF Changs on the other side of the street that the downtown and midtown areas will become even more of a draw. Having just walked with Rob and Tom down the K Street Mall into Old Sacramento, I'm reminded that even though downtown Sacramento has come a long way from where it once was, there's still a lot of work to be done to truly revitalize the area. I'm hoping that the addition of these new eateries paves the way for further improvements. I'll have to start lobbying Pottery Barn to stake out a new store location while they still can.

Meanwhile, on a related issue of urban planning, comes word from Southern California that the community of South-Central Los Angeles wants to be renamed South Los Angeles. I understand the symbolic significance, but as these articles in the NY Times and LA Times point out, some neighborhoods in the area have already made unofficial attempts to recharacterize themselves, with mixed results.