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Then:

The year was 1989. Comstock’s was in its infancy. Hometown boy Phil Angelides was featured in November, standing in the center of the historic Southern Pacific railroad station.

The final stages of construction at a trend-setting apartment project in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, known by its address at 38 Harriett St., largely resembled a life-sized game of Tetris.

Great cities are the result of vision and consensus. During more than three decades as a journalist in Sacramento, I have been drawn to subjects with a vision for the region. 

It was in 1989 that the San Joaquin Business Council formed to envision and outline an economic development and prosperity plan for its county. Called Vision 2000, the strategic plan and its backers, including the newly created San Joaquin Partnership, sought to add tens of thousands of jobs to the region by removing barriers to business development and promoting the relocation of companies to San Joaquin.

Then: 

As our cover boy in January 2006, Kit Miyamoto discussed the “Miyamoto Way” of doing architectural engineering. Engineering, he said, is logic. It’s black and white. However, he added that logic can be applied creatively in many development disciplines.

In 1993 the federal Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission added McClellan Air Force base to its list of potential closures, and the Capital Region drew in its collective breath.

As a resident of fabulous West Sacramento, I was going to start this column with my standard opening line of “West Sac is the best Sac,” but flipping through the pages of our July ’92 issue, I found a quote from Val Toppenberg that said, “Cross-river bashing is not productive.” What a fun-killer.

Then: 

As part of the Comstock’s-sponsored Vanguard Awards issue in Sept. ‘02, the infamous Gavin and Joe Maloof graced our cover as “Outstanding Corporate Citizens.” 

Our biggest flaw is not thinking big enough, not encouraging the visionaries who want to move us from where we are to where we could undoubtedly be.