Del Paso Blvd.: Once and Future Glory?
Del Paso Boulevard is decades away from its glory days. In the 1950s, it was a main drag full of drive-in theaters, grocery stores, auto dealers, restaurants and retail shops -- a commercial hub in a small, separate city known as North Sacramento. Then came the 1960s. The small town merged with Sacramento, freeways swooped down and out, directing cars toward modern shopping malls in different places. Businesses moved out and drugs moved in, drawing criminals, hobos and prostitutes.
"If you've got a run-down neighborhood, it's going to attract run-down people, and the crime rate goes up," says Sacramento Police Lt. Gina Haynes, who has worked in the area for 19 years. "I think a lot of people had given up hope. They would go home, lock their doors and stay there."
jaymurph
4:17PM
November 14, 2007
is there some reason the only people you talked to are former elected officials and chamber officers? as I understand it, there were a lot of people involved in the streetscape improvements