Forget for a moment the Sacramento region's faltering economy, another city's courting of our professional basketball team and dreary weeks of gray skies and rain.

Sacramento is a growth story, as Phillip Reese told us in a front-page report March 9.

The region grew twice as fast as California overall from 2000 to 2010, the new census figures show, and stands to gain political clout and influence statewide as a result.

Unlike Detroit, Chicago and other cities losing population, Sacramento continues to attract people seeking opportunity and a good life.

Amid the rain, it's easy to forget the sun. The many economic problems plaguing California and our region are real. Just as real, and too often unmentioned, are the green shoots of growth and our region's need to keep working on a better future.

The Kings' possible/probable departure for Anaheim, well-chronicled in our pages, has been seen by some as another slight for a region too often disrespected and already laid low by the Great Recession.

Yet a Bee story by Dale Kasler and Tony Bizjak a couple of weeks ago showed why the move is likely to happen – and it's not because Sacramento isn't a great town.

Instead, Kasler and Bizjak described a sea change in the NBA's economics over the past 10 years favoring ultra-rich owners and fancy arenas – and putting smaller markets at a disadvantage.

Thirty years ago, the Kings played in Kansas City. Unless owners Joe and Gavin Maloof fail to seal a deal, the team will play in Southern California next year, maybe even with a new name.

Their decampment would leave an entertainment gap for Kings fans and related businesses in Sacramento.

It also would open new possibilities and opportunities.

At a recent business event, I heard people already talking about what's next.

Could Sacramento State gain fans and improve its basketball program by playing at the old Kings arena, and would the community rally around them?

Would the debate over a new entertainment and sports arena in Sacramento be different without the Maloofs around?

Could the acoustically dreadful and amenity-poor arena, now called Power Balance Pavilion, be improved for concerts and events?

And as we consider the Kings' departure, what else binds us as a region?

Sacramento has a strong core identity, despite complaints to the contrary. We are the capital of California, the nation's most populous state and one of the world's largest economies.

Our state's history is rooted here – the railroads, the Gold Rush and the political history that has created some kinds of governance peculiar to this place.

Reminders everywhere tell us that work today builds tomorrow. Along the river, the railyard site's new owners are doing preliminary development, still envisioning a mini-city that would transform that part of Sacramento.

The Bee reports often and in depth about the budget challenges facing our region, long dependent on government and construction jobs, and the struggles of businesses and the unemployed.

Yet we also keep telling the other stories – of the region's growth and evolution, of people making their way through tough times and of the choices ahead that will shape life here in the next decades.

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Reach The Bee's editor, Melanie Sill, at (916) 321-1002.

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