On a breezy, blue-sky day in late November, West Sacramento city and regional planning officials gathered near Raley Field to celebrate the opening of Tower Bridge Gateway, a reconstructed boulevard connecting Highway 50 to Tower Bridge.

Sanjay Varshney, 44, is dean of College Administration at Sacramento State. Last month, in conjunction with the Chartered Financial Analyst Society of Sacramento, he published the seventh issue of the Sacramento Business Review. It offers a look at emerging economic trends and forecasts for 2012 in the Sacramento region, comprised of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer and Yolo counties. 

West Capitol Avenue is looking pretty snazzy these days. Modern buildings with shiny, chrome lettering line clean, wide sidewalks. Newly planted trees lead to bright bus stops stylized with sculptured ‘W’s nearly 10 feet tall.

As Sacramento’s Next Economy initiative tackles job growth, it is looking at a spectrum of untapped industries — as opposed to singling out individual industries — ripe for expansion. That strategy is the hallmark of two groups in the Seattle area.

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.

Remember comedian Rodney Dangerfield’s famous catchphrase, “I don’t get no respect?”

Developers revamping the 700 block of K Street are turning back the clock on a blighted avenue that was, half a century ago, a thriving business and residential hub.

Not unlike most Capital Region developers, New Faze Development has been through some very serious and trying financial scenarios during the past four years. The North Sacramento-based company has abandoned projects, lost properties and seen its lenders go out of business.

Historic allure and prime location are drawing enthusiastic residents to Sacramento’s newly renovated Maydestone apartment building at 15th and J streets.

Is the master-planned community dead? Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times painted the picture for homebuilders quite clearly when it posed that question.