Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliNative
. Sacramento, when chosen, wasn't bad for California when it was selected, but now is way too distant from the more populous south.
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As someone from the southest of SoCal, I'm pretty fine with Sacramento being our capital. The Bay Area and LA are inevitably going to disagree about nearly everything, and they are near equal in prominence so it wouldn't be good to favor one over the other. It's best to have a neutral party to resolve disputes. A location in the Central Valley is far enough removed from both to prevent the local politics from effecting state decision making.
Theoretically we could've located the capital further south in the Central Valley, so as to be equidistant to both SF and LA. Fresno is the closest major city to the geographic center of California, making it probably the best candidate. But the tallest portion of the Sierra Nevada lies just west of Fresno, cutting it off from the rest of the country. Perhaps this doesn't particularly matter if one is only looking for a plot of land to build a government office building on, but the lack of connections to the east means Fresno will always have less economic activity than a city with rail and road connections to the greater USA. It would be better to locate the capital in an area with a good deal of commerce, all other things being equal, to take advantage of the skilled labor attracted to such places.
There are only two good passes then over the Sierra Nevada, Donner and Tehachapi. Sacramento lies near the entrance to Donner pass, and Bakersfield to the Tehachapi. Each is around 100 miles from SF and LA, respectively, so both are equally as removed from the politics of the coast. IMO the deciding factor for me is that Sacramento has water access to the Pacific ocean via the Sacramento river and the deep water canal. That's a pretty major advantage for goods shipment, making Sacramento the most accessible city in the Central Valley for industry. That leads to the Sacramento metro area being the most populated and richest area in the Central Valley, with the largest pool of skilled labor. So if we had to do it all over again, I'd still recommend Sacramento for the CA state capital.