The California High-Speed Rail Authority replaced an engineer with a political operative to lead the nation’s biggest public works project. Jeff Morales instantly charmed his opponents but made technical decisions that placed high-speed rail at the mercy of the courts. Can Morales save his runaway train?

Infill development is promoted as an antidote to suburban sprawl and environmental degradation and is championed by city planners, environmentalists and policy makers of all persuasions. But as local developers Paul Petrovich and Phil Angelides have long known, infill leads to fights over allegations of increased traffic or environmental hazards.

In California’s post-redevelopment era, landowners, developers and local governments have struggled to make infill projects pencil out. Unlike new suburban developments that offer blank canvases and creative freedom, infill projects are most often shoehorned into existing neighborhoods and commercial developments where community expectations are high and cleanup costs are steep.

The town of Rio Vista has lost gas production, lost weekend crowds of boaters and windsurfers and lost flagship hotels and Delta shoreline restaurants. But more importantly, its people have lost the notion that prosperity returns to those who stick to the status quo and wait it out. 

Joshua Wood, 31, is the executive director of Region Builders, a commercial-building trade association and coalition. Region Builders is comprised of 13 industry and professional associations representing architects, engineers, contractors, developers and allied firms from the Sacramento area.

I don’t think anyone can dispute the fact that local consumer demand is what drives the success of big-box stores. And, overall, I believe that success has brought more positives than negatives.

Already embraced by business and city leaders as a catalyst that will ultimately launch a regional renaissance, Sacramento’s long sought and hotly debated entertainment and sports complex is finally taking shape.

Like an oil derrick with arms, the school-bus-yellow robot is the center of attraction in an otherwise colorless room dominated by metal castings and concrete floors. Moving like a mime on a street corner, the robot picks up a metal casting, holds it to a computer-run camera and then places the part and the fixture that holds it on a machine for tooling.