What Sacramento Learned the Hard Way—And What Fresno Should Know Now

On this week’s Fresnolandia, Jordan and Danielle dive deep into the wonky world of regional planning with Sacramento planning veteran Mike McKeever, former CEO of SACOG and longtime policy advisor to Mayor Darrell Steinberg. Using Sacramento as a point of comparison, Mike unpacks why regions sprawl, how over-entitlement of housing land can stall actual development, and why local governments so often misread real housing demand. The conversation explores Fresno’s hottest planning issue—SEDA—and what decades of Sacramento experience can teach us about urban growth boundaries, infill vs. greenfield development, the role of school districts in planning, and why political pressure, developer expectations, and outdated population projections make long-term growth so hard to get right. If you’ve ever wondered why Fresno grows the way it does—or what smarter growth could look like—this is an episode for the true planning nerds.