A vibrant urban core is one in which the people who live there never even have to leave the neighborhood to experience concerts, sporting events and live entertainment, and who can walk to bustling restaurants of all food genres.

Comstock’s presents our annual salute to female leaders, celebrating six extraordinary women of influence from throughout the Capital Region who are redefining leadership on their own terms. 

You can’t blame a homeowner in Fresno for viewing the thriving metropolis to its northwest with both envy and dismay. While San Francisco home values have surged since the recession, Fresno’s housing market is stuck in a rut. Less than 3 percent of homes in the city and its environs have returned to their pre-recession peak, according to a new study from Trulia.

Historically, the beer game has been just for men: Commercials for big brands have often shown guys clinking bottles together around a grill, or fly fishing while someone pulls a cold can out of the ice chest. The message was clear: Beer is manly, and you are made masculine by drinking it.

But, more recently, we are seeing females incorporated into this picture.

Because the current generation of young adults and professionals prefer urban lifestyles to the spacious lawns and ample suburban backyards of their predecessors, Tuttle says the Sacramento region has an unprecedented opportunity to turn its riverfront into a tie between the two cities.

As the Capital Region rallies around renewed homelessness talks and discussions on the impact of rising rent, one nonprofit has already worked for the last 17 years at the intersection of homelessness and affordable housing.

Natural gas in balmy Texas is feeling the chill of California’s snowy peaks 1,200 miles away.

Californians are very generous. They donate about 2 percent of their income to charity, which amounted to more than $26 billion in 2013, according to the Urban Institute’s analysis of data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics. If you plan to support your favorite causes this year, consider these simple, tax-smart strategies that help your charitable dollars have more impact.

I am an inside sales representative for a medical device company. I work hard to build relationships over the phone to sell and consult on products. When I was hired, the president specifically told me this was not a telemarketing job. Recently, I caught the president introducing our team as “the telemarketers.” Is this a sign I should go back to school asap or find another job?

In 2014, Darling launched Free Form Factory, making after-market decks and hulls out of durable polymer material. Two years later, the company relocated from Rochester, New York to Rancho Cordova. Free Form Factory has unveiled a stand-up watercraft prototype that is 100-percent recyclable and electric-powered.

Equal representation and closing the pay gap for women in academia remains an ongoing issue, as women represent an increasing student demographic at U.S. colleges and universities — but haven’t yet achieved parity as professors or administrators.

In the last 50 years, higher education’s customer base has become decidedly more female. In 1967, 40 percent of college students were women. By 2014, it was 56 percent. The U.S. Department of Education projects that will climb to 59 percent by 2025.

But the people responsible for delivering those educations are still overwhelmingly male.

That bowl of guacamole on Cinco de Mayo will be more expensive this year, as avocado prices rise to a record on surging demand and a smaller crop in Mexico and California.

Lynn Gangone, vice president of ACE Leadership at the American Council on Education, offers her insight into gender equity in academia. For more from Gangone, check out “The New Role Call” in our May issue. Sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you when it’s available online.

Over the last few decades, the newspaper industry has endured some of the most challenging times in its long history. We sat down with Sacramento Bee Executive Editor Joyce Terhaar to talk about revenues, technology and reporting in the modern age.

In a tweet from March 2015, Forbes magazine called bandwidth a “geeky, pretentious shorthand for available manpower,” saying it was “a gentler brushoff than ‘We literally don’t have the energy to deal right now.’”

The Dr. Ernest and Arthella Hunter Foundation was started by Dr. Darryl Hunter. Ernest Hunter had been a career Army dentist for several decades and his son followed him into the military medical field, becoming a colonel in the Air Force Reserve and a radiation oncologist at Kaiser Permanente in the Sacramento area.

President Donald Trump will open the door to new oil and natural gas drilling in Pacific waters off the coast of California with a directive Friday that sets up a certain clash with environmentalists.

As safety fears have led today’s parents to keep their kids indoors — with electronics and television — and as school recess has been on a steady decline, children may be having less opportunity to play. 

Both James and McPherson are now full-time mystery writers who have found a support group in Capitol Crimes, the Sacramento affiliate of Sisters in Crime. McPherson is also a past president of the national board of Sisters in Crime, which has supported female mystery writers for 30 years.