Our community is often told we have to wait and see what the private sector is willing to do. As a result, we get lame commercial projects like Country Club Plaza (Winco and maybe one of these days, a theater and some restaurants) and Arden Creek Town Center (AKA "your name here"). Not to demean those projects, of course, because they have done precisely what the County lets them do. Then Country Club Center crashes and, frankly, nobody knows what's going on there now. You see, the property owner needs to "figure something out". Never mind what the community might need or want. {...sigh...} That's life as we know it.

But what if we take a few moments to consider Merlone Geier's "Village at San Antonio" project in Mountain View? It is a mixed use project with 300-some-odd residential units, a Safeway, a hotel and a bunch of specialty store and restaurants. Remember Merlone Geier, the firm responsible for Arden Creek Town Center, the firm that forced Bandera to close? Their successful San Antonio Village project is in a city. A city that has a vision.

And here is the "BDX at Capitol Village" project in Rancho Cordova, another city with a vision. It is located adjacent to a park and a thriving commercial center that includes retail stores, restaurants and offices.

The Mountain View and Rancho Cordova projects are viable in their locations primarily because the people in charge of land use care about the community and have acted accordingly. Can we say that about the County?