Sacramento loves regional planning. Take an issue — say, transportation or land use or coordination of local government — and a group will sprout to chart a course.

It’s 2 p.m., and John Packowski must design an entire house from scratch by 5 o’clock.

Steven Hansen, 32, is a senior regional manager at California-based biotechnology company Genentech Inc. He is a neighborhood representative for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership board of directors and was one of 15 city residents selected to serve on the Sacramento Redistricting Citizens Advisory Committee. Last November, Hansen announced his run to become Sacramento’s first openly gay council member in the newly aligned District 6.

When photographer Jill Carmel moved to Sacramento in 2008, she brought a bevy of cameras, a keen eye for composition and her dream of launching a niche business in a new city — a risky move, but passion trumped fear.

At first glance, the email appeared innocuous enough. All employees were being asked to change their passwords. Just click the link.

“I arrived in the City of Saloons,” wrote Mark Twain upon arriving here in 1866. “You can shut your eyes and march into the first door you come to and call for a drink, and the chances are that you will get it.”

From the moment President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in March of 2010, observers predicted the law’s fate would ultimately be determined by the Supreme Court. Now, almost two years later, the court is indeed preparing final arbitration of the most sweeping and controversial health law in a generation.

In the past few months, Sacramento County’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry has been slashed by two-thirds. Federal and local officials are slapping landlords with fines and criminal charges if they lease or rent to such establishments. In August, Sacramento County was home to 99 medical marijuana dispensaries. By November, more than 63 had closed.

In the past 10 years, Alzada Knickerbocker of independent bookseller The Avid Reader has seen her revenue cut in half. To help businesses like hers that suffered during the e-commerce boom, earlier this year lawmakers introduced the Assembly Bill X1 28, the so-called Amazon tax law.

With the real estate market in the tank, many investors are thinking twice about real estate investment trusts, or REITs. And that suits Jim Johnson just fine.

For most business people, a market-based solution to providing health care coverage to uninsured Americans is a no-brainer.

Husband-and-wife team Alex and Feysan Lodde launched MediVan in 1975 with one bus, three employees and a truckload of dedication. Now called MV Transportation Inc., the privately owned passenger transportation company is the largest of its kind in the United States.

Three years ago a wrecking ball known as the subprime mortgage meltdown slammed into Sacramento’s real estate market, kicking up a dust cloud over the city’s urban development plans. But rather than dwell on the financial obscurity of the future, David Miry and Steve Lebastchi kept their eyes on the past.

When it comes to the issue of accessibility, Sacramento businessman Tony Lutfi knows the drill.

Kevin Straw can restore a car to its original state. He can fix a dent, smooth rough spots, put on a fresh coat of paint and make a clunker look new.

But over the next couple years, Straw will have to learn the ropes of another craft, using unfamiliar tools to restore his business, fix the dents inflicted by a legal attack, smooth over the rough spots of his shop’s accessibility to wheelchairs and paint blue stripes in the parking lot.

Kevin Straw can restore a car to its original state. He can fix a dent, smooth rough spots, put on a fresh coat of paint and make a clunker look new.

But over the next couple years, Straw will have to learn the ropes of another craft, using unfamiliar tools to restore his business, fix the dents inflicted by a legal attack, smooth over the rough spots of his shop’s accessibility to wheelchairs and paint blue stripes in the parking lot.

A 2009 report from Pike Research in Boulder, Colo., forecasts the combined biodiesel and ethanol markets will reach $247 billion in sales by 2020, up from just $76 billion in 2010, or about 12 percent annual growth.

Under the federal Affordable Care Act, all but a small number of Americans soon will be required to have health insurance. But having insurance is one thing; getting the medical care it is intended to cover may be entirely another.

Yolo County is doubly blessed. Within its boundaries lie some of the nation’s richest farmland; the open expanses also make it a prime place to develop solar energy.

In a nation full of hot-button issues, few are as torrid as federal health care reform. More than a year and a half since its passage, the law — officially dubbed the Affordable Care Act but derisively called “Obamacare” by its critics — is still being fought in the courts, Congress and statehouses across the country. But for all the political and legal wrangling, the law is marching forward.

As chief executive officer of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), McKeever oversees planning and funding processes for cycling transportation projects, so he’s interested in what works and what doesn’t.

The next time you dine at Burgers and Brew, Crepeville or Chops Steak, Seafood & Bar, you’ll likely eat something purchased from Restaurant Depot. Those popular eateries are among the regular customers of the privately owned food-service wholesaler at 1275 Vine St. in the River District.

Hair rollers went the way of old-time beauty shops, but rollers of a different sort are in vogue at Bella Capelli Salone in downtown Yuba City, where owner Carol Milani sometimes styles hair in her skates.

Yuba County’s infrastructure was crumbling and its budget bleeding red ink when officials came up with a catching solution to their energy problems.

With megasites Groupon and LivingSocial trumpeting daily deals that lure throngs of customers with up to 70 percent discounts on everything from dinners to skydiving lessons, it’s no surprise local businesses are signing up. After the deal is on, though, does the promise of new customers and more revenue add up?

Being the bearer of unwelcome news rarely makes you the most popular person in town, particularly when it comes to flood control. But it doesn’t worry David Ford, one of the most trusted figures on California’s sometimes-contentious flood control scene and a man with a knack for speaking what Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Frank Hagar once called “the truth that men prefer not to hear.”

In November, after seven years of work, the U.S. Green Building Council passed construction guidelines for health care facilities. Some local building experts say it’s too early to tell what this means for Capital Region architects and builders; others say it’s too much too late for the region.

If a local economy is thriving and healthy, it may have the manufacturing industry to thank. If things aren’t so good, it’s probably because manufacturing jobs are leaving.

Golf bag slung over his shoulder and a bounce in his step, a stocky fellow walks alone to his car in the Haggin Oaks parking lot. “I was crushing the driver,” he says, talking more to himself than anyone else. “Absolutely crushing it.”

Buy enough businesses and eventually you learn what to expect from the process.

Scott Syphax is an unlikely person to garner a nickname like Dr. Doom. After all, the president and CEO of Sacramento-based Nehemiah Corp. of America is far too thoughtful and deliberate to be saddled with a sobriquet more in line with a snickering cartoon villain.

If you think starting a business during a recession is a risky enterprise, imagine putting your entrepreneurial faith in the commercial future of a river flowing to a desolate wilderness.

For credit unions, the ability to provide services in the face of disaster is the measure of a job well done.

While the economy strangles commercial real estate throughout California, the greater Stockton area linking Interstate 5 and Interstate 580 is blossoming with industrial logistics centers that warehouse commercial goods for distribution throughout Northern California and the western region.

Commercial developers hit hard by the drop in property prices are looking at development impact fees to soften the blow to their bottom lines.

The past couple years have been brutal on workers: furloughs, salary freezes, layoffs and budget cuts. It’s enough to give the most loyal employee a case of the business blahs and a sense of restlessness as the recession lifts.

When Californians went to the polls on Nov. 2, they did more than just select a slate of new Capitol denizens. With the eyes of the world upon them, voters emphatically rejected Proposition 23, the oil industry-backed initiative to block Assembly Bill 32, the state’s groundbreaking effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In the Capital Region and beyond, some customers are switching from large financial institutions to smaller community banks, partially in response to columnist Arianna Huffington’s December 2009 “Move your Money” campaign, which encouraged consumers to do just that.

For decades, devising a clear solution for California’s suburban sprawl and ensuing car culture has been the Holy Grail for smart-growth advocates. One trip on any of the Golden State’s perpetually clogged roadways during peak hours shows how ineffective most of those efforts have been.

It should be the perfect prescription for an ailing housing market, but so far few buyers are taking it.

As consumers fill their lives with reusable shopping bags, organic foods and energy-efficient vehicles, touting the environmental friendliness of goods and services has become an increasingly important marketing strategy for companies worldwide. This, coupled with vague government guidelines for green marketing claims, is causing challenges as competitors, consumers and environmental advocates demand standards and verification of these claims.

If there is one thing a business owner hates, it is uncertainty. Planning for the future — or even managing the present — cannot effectively happen unless the person signing the checks knows the rules of the game. But when it comes to California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, uncertainty is about the only thing employers can count on right now.

Now in its 15th year, the Florin Road Partnership might be one of the region’s great turnaround stories.

California is used to being the trendsetter. The state has led the way on everything from auto emissions standards to stem cell research, but when Assembly Bill 3754 was signed into law in 1994, California was the 40th state to allow the creation of Property and Business Improvement Districts.

In 1999, with the opening of the Galleria at Roseville looming, property owners in what is now the Sunrise Marketplace were having an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu.

As the first Property and Business Improvement District in California, the Downtown Sacramento Partnership has done much more than create the model. In 14 years of operation, it has also set the standard.

At one time Fulton Avenue was given the ignominious title of ugliest street in Sacramento. It wasn’t completely undeserved.

By the mid-1990s, it was fair to question whether downtown Stockton was on the path to decay. Crime and blight were major concerns that kept visitors and businesses away, and there was little to suggest a turnaround was in sight.

For years, the debate over climate change centered almost exclusively on science: Is global warming occurring, and if so, are humans causing it? But with the economy still struggling, the argument has shifted to one of dollars and cents.

Customers of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and other power providers could soon realize the benefits of living on a smarter grid.

Over the course of his lengthy career as an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Michael Chapman transformed trauma care in the Sacramento area, saving countless lives along the way.