The Bee has updated its story about whether the suburbs of Sacramento are thriving or not, and it has become the subject of some recent discussions on Nextdoor. As we previously reported: Surprise! The ones that are suffering are UNINCORPORATED! Who knew? Um….really? Isn’t this what we have been posting about on this blog for several years now?

The Bee’s story notes that some suburban communities are thriving, like Granite Bay, for example. Lo and behold, that’s where the money is, it is ground zero for 1%ers. And the article mentions that some communities are fighting uphill battles - like Citrus Heights, as its retail stores adapt to the new online shopping era, or Rancho Cordova, which needs to bootstrap its older neighborhoods. Well, duh! Where did the legacy problems that beset Citrus Heights and Rancho Cordova come from? You see, they are NEW cities. They inherited a mess from years of neglect under the stewardship of Sacramento County. But they are able to deal with it because they are, you know, CITIES. Cities figure out what ails them and then set forth to fix it. They are in charge of themselves. To its credit, the article actually mentions that:

The article notes that there is blight and poverty in Arden Arcade, citing our precipitous drop in household income since 1980 among the 25 communities the Bee analyzed. Gosh, did you know that our community’s incomes are among the lowest in the region? Of course you do. The Bee also says more people per unit are now packing into Arden Arcade’s many apartment complexes and (as this blog has reported) that we have the region’s lowest percentage of residents who own their own homes. Unfortunately, the Bee says our community’s incorporation attempt in 2010 failed because we are so big that people don’t feel a kinship with nearby neighborhoods. Really? Would it be more accurate to say the Downtown Sacramento Power Elite fought against Arden Arcade’s local control ballot measure in 2010 so they could maintain the status quo that feather’s their nest? Well, whatever. That old 2010 stuff is water long since over the dam. Here we are almost a decade later and, at least, The Bee has finally blurted out that a) we are hurting and b) places where the 1% don’t live but are doing OK anyway are cities. Isn’t that interesting?