Mayor Kevin Johnson, nothing if not ambitious, set the loftiest of goals in his second State of the City address: to make Sacramento the national leader in the green economy. <\/p>\n
He is calling for a regional initiative to recruit clean energy companies and jobs. He wants Sacramento to be as synonymous with green energy as New York is with finance and Los Angeles is with entertainment. He describes a “green rush” – potentially as historic as the Gold Rush that put Sacramento on the map in the first place. <\/p>\n
Frankly, we’d prefer if he dropped the “green rush” label. (It sounds like a medical marijuana dispensary.) Yet the mayor is onto something. Over the next few months, we look forward to Johnson assembling the brightest local thinkers on the green economy, rallying regional leaders and putting forward some specific proposals that go beyond platitudes. <\/p>\n
Green energy holds a world of potential for homegrown jobs that would help strengthen and help diversify Sacramento’s economy beyond the housing industry and state government. <\/p>\n
In the race to go green, however, Sacramento has a long way to go. It faces many competitors. While Johnson notes that the federal government is dangling funds for green tech initiatives, every other clean-energy mecca wannabe is also after the cash. <\/p>\n
Johnson should find ways to build on the Sacramento region’s strengths. The University of California, Davis, is internationally recognized in energy innovation, and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District is building one of the nation’s most advanced electricity networks. <\/p>\n
One study released in December found that the Sacramento region led all California areas in percentage growth of green jobs from 1995 to 2008. Even with that 87 percent jump, however, Sacramento still trailed the Bay Area, which had three times as many green jobs and has a decided edge in raising money for startup companies. <\/p>\n
The fate of the initiative hinges on the mayor’s leadership and more broad-based efforts to make Sacramento a cleaner, more sustainable city. We can’t be shipping our garbage over the Sierra to Nevada and expect to viewed as a green leader. Johnson’s agenda needs to go beyond mere employer recruitment to civic practices that will make Sacramento an attractive, environmentally savvy place to live. <\/p>\n
Johnson says he has already reached out to City Council members and to leaders at UC Davis and California State University, Sacramento, and plans to collaborate with other officials around the region as well. <\/p>\n
In the end, he’ll be judged not by his soaring vision as much as his stick-to-itiveness in making it reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mayor Kevin Johnson, nothing if not ambitious, set the loftiest of goals in his second State of the City address: to make Sacramento the national leader in the green economy. He is calling for a regional initiative to recruit clean energy companies and jobs. He wants Sacramento to be as synonymous with green energy as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}