people watching

2026/04/26 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

My favorite thing about living in a city, and about the cities I visit, is people watching. I love sitting with a tea or beer, and just watching people passing, or talking, or working, or reading, or writing. This is best when there is outdoor seating. A positive benefit of the pandemic (despite the horror) is that outdoor seating is much more common now that it was before. Outside is the best people watching. People are walking themselves, or their dogs, or their friends, or kids, or partners. Sometimes I make connections with other people, particularly people reading or writing in journals, as I am often doing myself, but the connection or just watching are both enjoyable to me.

People watching, and connecting, works best in dense places, with places to see, and places to meet. That means coffee shops (see coffee shops (tea) on the grid: update 2026-01), most of all, but breweries and restaurants and other businesses as well. Out in the suburbs, coffee shops are few and far between, and usually national chains when they are found at all. You might see people walking their dogs in the suburbs, but it is rare to see people walking to local businesses, or sitting outside. Where I live, coffee shops are thick, and breweries are to be found. Even small towns have a decent selection of coffee shops and sometimes breweries. As I write, I’m in Marlborough, MA, with several coffee shops and one brewery, and I’m looking out the window at people coming and going, and the coffee shop is busy on Sunday morning.

What does this have to do with transportation? Walkable places are where to see people, to people watch and make connections. Only places that are walkable and bike-able have this opportunity. Places that are drive-able don’t offer this. And that is why I very much dislike places that emphasize driving over walking and bicycling.

Spending time in small towns that are alive has made me appreciate that small towns can offer much of what cities offer, if they are old towns that have survived and thrived. Many small towns have not thrived. The problem with the place I’m visiting, Marlborough, is that it has poor transit, and infrequent connections to other transit, the MBTA ‘T’ commuter rail. If you can figure out a life in a small but vibrant town, that has a decent connection to the outside world, that may be the best livability you can find. But that combination is rare.

Here’s to people watching, and walkable places!

what now?

2024/12/212025/02/19 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

It is Winter Solstice today, December 21. It seems like a good day to write the ‘what now’ post that I’ve been thinking about since the election. I’m not religious, so the four ‘sun-days’ of the year, two solstices and two equinoxes, are my main celebrations. And sometimes, but not as often, the cross-quarter days of Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain (Halloween). I’m in Santa Cruz today to celebrate the solstice with good friends, fortunately this year on a weekend. I used to work and live in Santa Cruz, years ago now, but many of my best friends are here. Of course I got here on train and bus and bike. Santa Cruz has about the same number of coffee shops per capita as central city Sacramento, but they are busier here. I’m sitting in a coffee shop, drinking tea. I’ll do a update post on grid coffee soon.

I was very depressed by the 2016 election, but less so this time. Why? Because in 2016 I was uncertain. This time I’m not, I know we are in for a very dark four years. At the national level, things will suck for everything I care about, in transportation and equity. Many of my friends, both in transportation advocacy and otherwise, were far more depressed than I. I was in a personal growth seminar the day after the election, and some people were immobilized with depression. I understand.

But at the local level, I feel more hopeful. I don’t feel as though I do or can have much of an influence for better at the national level, but I do see positive influence and action at the local level. The parting of ways with Howard Chan was definitely a bright spot for me. And the organizations which support the same things I do and working hard on making Sacramento, both city and region, a better place.

I can’t do better at explaining than the Strong Town process, below. Of course this process is about way more than just transportation, it is about everything that makes a place, our place, a livable, vibrant place.

The other major thought I have is that most people will be harmed by Trump, both those who voted for him and those who did not. He is a vindictive, authoritarian person, who cares primarily for himself, and to some slight degree, for his rich powerful friends. No matter what he says, his actions indicate that he does not care for other people. So this will be a bad time for everyone, as he and his sycophants work to undermine everything that is good about our country. He intend to break everything, without having a better idea to put in place.

It would be tempting to blame what goes wrong on the people who voted for him, but I will not. They will be hurting, just like the rest of us. They deserve our empathy and forgiveness. Not that we need to give in to what they voted for, but to recognize that all humans, all life, are the victims here.

Our lives are affected by what happens at the national and international level. There is clearly a trend in many parts of the world towards fascism. But at the local level, there is work to do, past harms to heal, people to celebrate, people to listen to, people to see as neighbors no matter who they voted for. Obviously I do work in this blog, but coming to coffee shops to talk with people is also part of the work.

coffee shops (tea) on the grid

2023/04/072024/01/11 Dan Allison2 Comments

2024-01-07 update since the original post: Anchor and Tree Coffee (16th St) has soft opened, Flow State Coffee has closed, Milka Coffee has a second location on R St, Pressed is probably closing and has shorter hours, Tupi Coffee has moved to 8th St, and I missed Tiferet on the Park Coffee on H St in my original post. The spreadsheet and slide show have been updated and will be further. Note that the spreadsheet image seems to offer clickable links, but does not; you must use one of the other formats.

Disclaimer up front: I don’t drink and don’t even like coffee, but I do drink and love tea, and the majority of coffee shops offer tea as well, but most other businesses do not. So I can tell you absolutely nothing about the variety or quality of coffee at any of these shops.

I have long believed that the frequency of locally-owned coffee shops is a key indicator of livability and walkability. Though I’ve not done the calculations, I think this measure would be just as effective a ‘walk score’ as the WalkScore offered by Redfin, which uses a complicated and proprietary algorithm to determine walkability, measured as distance to amenities. Note that WalkScore does not assess the walking environment such as presence or condition of sidewalks, and safety of crossing streets.

I live in the Sacramento central city, the area bounded by the Sacramento River to the west, Broadway to the south, Alhambra Avenue to the east, and the railroad tracks to the north. I have focused my coffee shop visits on this area. Though there are certainly coffee shops throughout the urbanized county, the number of locally-owned coffee shops drops off rapidly outside the central city. In much of the suburbs, there are only chain coffee shops such as Starbucks and Peets.

My preferred locally-owned coffee shop is Naked Lounge, on the southeast corner of Q Street and 15th Street, across from Fremont Park. I go there for tea, and for socialization. For those who remember ‘the old days’ when people socialized more and spent less time on their computers, yes, I miss those days. Some days I write in my journal, some days I read, some days I talk to people, and yes, some days I too work on my computer.

If you also like to drink tea at home, as I do, I recommend Tea Cozy, 1021 R Street, next to Fox and Goose, with a very large and diverse offering of bulk and packaged teas. And in Davis, Mishka’s Cafe, 610 2nd Street, offers a selection of tea unparalleled in the region, so far as I know.

Below is the table I compiled, along with pdf, Numbers, and xlsx versions. The columns are what interested me, and the ratings are entirely my own, not based on any scale. Reuse means they offer reusable cups for tea and coffee service, outdoor means they offer outdoor seating, and tea indicates my take on the number and variety of teas offered.

I visited each coffee shop location on the grid. I attempted to take a photo of each, outside and inside. I also started taking photos of the tea service, but didn’t start at the beginning so only a few are in the slideshow.