Under the Urban Canopy: California’s Capital is “Coming of Age”

One month discovering makes Sacramento so damn lovely

Trees teeming with leaves on a Sacramento street, as if holding yellow-green confetti. Photo by Author.

Before I knew anything about Sacramento, I noticed the trees. It’s spring, and the tall and tangled branches above me — of blue oak, valley oak, and interior live oak — speckle in soft lime. They form a tunnel-like canopy over the road, graciously lending shade to neighbors beneath. I spend long runs through Land Park with my neck craned skyward at the picturesque frames they create.

What I now know is that Sacramento’s trees are its trademark. And I’m not the only one — as someone just getting acquainted with California’s capital city — to notice. “It’s a really beautiful city, ” Hannah Weinberg, who works at Nico Wine in Midtown Sacramento, said. She told me about one of the bar’s regulars who described to her a recent moment he had while on his way to his usual spot. The man was walking and suddenly stopped to look around. A thought couldn’t help but surface: I love where I live.

“I think those people have those moments pretty regularly here, where they’re walking just on a seemingly mundane, routine [day] but it catches them off guard, like ‘oh, there’s something really special here,’” Weinberg said.