As the cost of daily life tests the bounds of gravity in San Francisco, a beneficiary has emerged 90 miles away.

This year marks the deadline for California’s 10-year bet on solar roofs. In 2006, the state launched the “Million Solar Roofs” vision, pumping $3.2 billion into incentive programs. The plan was to build one million solar roofs, or the equivalent thereof, generating 3,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2017.

If you imagine a humming city as a living body, the conventional alleyway might be the large intestine. It’s a lonely grey loading zone, a collection point for garbage, and a covert space for drug use and violence. But as U.S. cities grow denser, urban passageways that were once ignored and crumbling are enjoying a renaissance. Alleyway activation is a designer buzzword for modernizing utilitarian corridors into well-lit public spaces.

Kimberly Garza, a landscape architect and director of ATLAS Lab, offers her insight into how underutilized urban spaces can be transformed.

Communities in the Capital Region are struggling with the increasing numbers of homeless in their streets and parks and have realized that the problem has to be addressed. Local programs help by providing meals and winter shelter. But the primary need is year-round, permanent supportive housing, because living in tents or on park benches is not a sustainable way of life.

Through the first four months of 2017, our industry has completed an impressive 1,888 new home sales. Underscoring the uptick in the homebuilding industry’s economic fortunes, in March we sold more than 500 — 527 to be exact — homes in a single month for the first time in a decade.

San Francisco, which in recent years had the biggest home-price gain in the U.S., was the country’s weakest market in the first quarter, with values falling for the first time since 2011.

With the increase in female representation across the homebuilding and homebuying spectrums, the building and real estate industries have an opportunity to target this growing market, which could shift the way homes are designed, built and sold.

Kandace Mulvaney, a broker with boutique agency Miller Real Estate in Sacramento, offers her insight into a big trend happening in local real estate. For more from Mulvaney, check out “Homemakers” in our May issue. Sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you when it’s available online.

What drives a small grocery store to grow? The answer is customer demand at Compton’s Market in East Sacramento, an established neighborhood with beautiful houses and tree-lined streets.