Alkali Flat, Sacramento, CA

Alkali Flat is the oldest residential neighborhood in Sacramento, a compact grid just north of downtown that still holds Victorian and Italianate houses left from the city's railroad era. Light rail runs straight through it at the Alkali Flat/La Valentina stop, and along the northern edge the Township 9 redevelopment has layered newer riverfront apartments over the historic fabric. You can walk to downtown jobs, the old railyards site, and the river, which is essentially the whole case for living here. It is also a neighborhood caught mid-transition. It backs up against the former Southern Pacific railyards and the freeway, and the blocks swing from beautifully restored historic homes to harder-luck stretches within a short walk. The area carries a long history as one of the city's oldest working districts, and the new development moving in is actively reshaping it. So the honest read is that this is history in progress rather than a finished product. People who want a true walk-to-downtown address wrapped in genuine nineteenth-century architecture, and who can live with an unfinished feel that changes block to block, are the ones who tend to plant here and stay.