A downtown looking up

Truckee seems an unlikely place to look for smart, urban growth. The Sierra town is known best as a gateway to Lake Tahoe, a gas and food stop for skiers snowboarders and gamblers on their way up from Sacramento and the Bay Area. But a new development that will expand the city’s historic downtown by converting an Old Union Pacific railyard makes sense on a number of levels. If they the project succeeds, Zocalo Public Square commentator Joe Mathews says it could be a signal moment for California’s mountain communities, as they struggle to keep and attract new generations of residents.