Ro Nayyar grew up in Roseville, a first generation American born to immigrant parents from India who owned a liquor store and emphasized the value of pursuing higher education.

On a warm afternoon, soft spring winds are blowing across the campus at UC Davis. In a building on the university’s west corner, Cindy Garcia is hosing pools of blood down a drain. She places a pig skull on an inspection table, washes her hands and steps into the sunlight just as the parking lot is beginning to fill with shoppers toting grocery bags.

An urban wood movement is growing across the country to reclaim this substantially-untapped natural resource, and efforts are booming in the Sacramento region.

Two hundred million Chinese tourists will pack their bags and depart their homeland in 2020, bound for destinations across the globe. It’s not a mass exodus; they’re not  fleeing their government. They’re tourists, and, according to CNN, they might be the greatest phenomenon to hit the  global travel industry since the invention of commercial flight.

Mike Testa, CEO of Visit Sacramento, offers his insight into what the city has to offer tourists. For more from Testa, check out “The Little Music Festival That Was” in our August issue. Sign up for our newsletter and we’ll email you when it’s available online.

The rise of elite youth sports and the popularity of year-round athletics have created an emerging market for participant and spectator spending in south Placer County, which has positioned itself as a major sports destination. Now, two separate entities are looking to capitalize on the region’s sports market with large-scale venues that could turn a profit in as few as three years. 

When Adrian Cummings arrived for his first Startup Hustle session, he had the prototype for an idea — a complete light kit for bicycles — but no customer research, business plan or marketing concept.

In 1984, California’s Department of Technology didn’t exist. Information technology consultants were rare, and there were fewer contractors involved in state services. For the most part, the state developed government systems with in-house resources. From development and analysis to budgeting and implementation, it was a full-service operation. 

That was then. 

The Sacramento Area Council of Governments reported that between 2013 and 2021, the region needs to build about 105,000 housing units to meet demand. Dividing that number by the nine years means almost 12,000 units per year.

Darryl Rutherford, executive director of the Sacramento Housing Alliance, says there’s no easy answer to the Capital Region’s housing crisis, but here he offers some possible solutions being explored.