GTA 6 City of the Week is a weekly article series here on GTA BOOM. Every week, we will evaluate a different city in the United States, gauging how well it would fit GTA 6 as a setting.
After last week's excursion up north, we return to the contiguous United States. In the past few weeks, we've pretty adamantly stuck to the east coast, so it was time to mix things up a bit and go west, to an area that is no stranger to the GTA franchise.
Sacramento
Sacramento follows that trend that we've noticed regarding states in the USA, namely that the capitals of the various states are almost never the most famous or widely known cities in said state. Sacramento has it pretty tough, being up against heavy hitters like Los Angeles and San Francisco — both of which served as the basis of a city in GTA.
Falling north of the rough area that was cut out of the USA for the same GTA San Andreas, Sacramento sits in the central reaches of California. The city is not located on the coast, but rather further inland, on the eastern bank of the Sacramento River. A large metropolitan area has since grown out of the city, but instead of Sacramento proper being in its center, the urban growth mostly expanded northeast of the city.
The population of the city itself doesn't even hit half a million, while the Greater Sacramento Area is home to over 2 million souls. Like so many other things in California, the name of the city — and the river from which it got its name — came from the Spanish, who first colonized the area.
The city's origins can be traced back to another settlement, and a feud between father and son. A pioneer named John Sutter arrived in the area during the tail end of the 1830's, and founded a settlement to the north of where Sacramento would later be located. Fort Sutter soon grew and won its founder great wealth, who sought to expand his realm.
Later, his son, John Sutter Jr. would found Sacramento 2 miles to the south of Fort Sutter, much to his father's detriment. Eventually the son's city outgrew all of his father's settlements, which failed one after another. In spite of gold having been found at Sutter's Mill, the massive influx of settlers during the gold-rush benefited Sacramento instead of Sutterville.
Sacramento's growth after its founding is mainly attributed to the California Gold Rush, which led to the discovery of the Mother Lode, a massive cache of gold and other resources upstream. While the area is prone to dangerous tectonic movement as well as severe flooding, the city's population grew steadily throughout history, and is still growing today, primarily thanks to immigration and to people moving inland from the San Francisco Bay area.
Sacramento's history with foreigners, be they American citizens or otherwise, has been bumpy. Even though the city was named the most diverse in the country in 2002 by TIME magazine, it was not always so. During the two opium wars of the 1800's, a massive influx of Chinese immigrants resulted in the construction of a large Chinatown district. Little of this remains, as efforts to "drive out" the Chinese included the construction of a railway through the district.
Eventually the neighborhood was consumed by a fire, presumably set by white locals who wanted to scare away the immigrants. Sacramento was also home to one of the 15 temporary internment camps in the USA during WWII which housed people of Japanese descent, even if many possessed an American citizenship.
In spite of Sacramento being the capital of California, an odd trend of bureaucratic decentralization has dogged the city for years, with all kinds of state agencies moving out of the city to other, larger locations in the state. After all, Sacramento is only the sixth largest city in California. The local government has been spending quite a bit to convince the remaining authorities to stay.
In spite of the exodus of the state agencies, the State of California remains the largest employer in the city, followed by the administration of Sacramento County. With the top two employers providing jobs to almost one hundred thousand individuals, the third place falls short by a massive amount. The US Davis Health System has just under 8000 employees in Sacramento.
Sacramento one was home to three separate military bases, including two Air Force bases and an army depot. However, all three were closed down by the end of the 90's, leaving Sacramento without a major military presence. While having a military base on hand is by no means an absolute necessity for a GTA map, they are often used nonetheless.
In spite of the differences in the past between Sacramento and Sutter's Fort, the former has since consumed the latter, and landmarks related to Sutter are major tourist attractions in the city. While it isn't as popular among foreigners as San Francisco and Los Angeles, Sacramento is still a popular tourist attraction.
Sacramento is also a cultural hotspot, with more than 30 museums in the greater metropolitan area around the city. Annually, Sacramento hosts a Museum Day, where a varying number of establishments — 26 in 2015 — can be visited for free.
In terms of geography, Sacramento isn't exactly the most idea. Sitting far inland, turning the area around it into an island wouldn't exactly be a smooth transition. That said, the transformation Rockstar put the southwest USA through to craft the map of GTA San Andreas was even more extreme. As such, you could always slice a piece out of California lengthways ranging from the coast all the way to the Eldorado National Forest east of Sacramento.
