The Super Bowl was a bitter experience for me in ways having nothing to do with the absence of the 49ers.

The celebrated Clint Eastwood Chrysler commercial was phony and manipulative as it glossed over the government bailout that saved Chrysler and other Detroit automakers, a bailout panned by conservatives such as Eastwood.

And as I watched the gleaming images of host-city Indianapolis, I saw everything that Sacramento could be but is not.

The Indianapolis metropolitan area is actually smaller than Sacramento's metropolitan area, and it's a smaller media market. Indy is a state capital just like Sacramento.

Yet while Indy hosts the Super Bowl, big events such as the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials and NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament have fled Sacramento.

Indianapolis made good on reviving its downtown in the same number of decades Sacramento failed to develop its downtown railyard. Indianapolis developed its riverfront while that seems impossible here.

Most important, Indianapolis diversified its economy over the last 40 years while Sacramento remained government dependent. Indy long ago simplified its tax code and created a business-friendly environment. Indy's wealthy pumped big endowment money back into the city.

Hosting the Super Bowl was the culmination of a 40-year campaign with Indy civic leaders focused on investing in their city.

Indy committed millions of tax dollars for football stadiums, arenas and other facilities that helped spur development downtown.

The people of Indy didn't see these as "scams" or "schemes" but as investments.

In the documentary "Naptown to Super City" (tinyurl.com/ 85r2nnk), Indianapolis civic leaders clearly found ways to get things done. Sacramento often finds ways to oppose things.

Indy had a mayor in William Hudnut who governed for 16 critical years. He brought and kept different interests together. Joe Serna Jr. might have done the same here had he not died prematurely in 1999.

The day after the game, I called Leonard Hoops, a Sacramento guy who still owns a home in Natomas and is president and CEO of the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association. "There are more similarities than differences between Indianapolis and Sacramento," Hoops said. "The difference is the naysayers who oppose public financing and taxpayer support are in the minority here while they are in the majority in Sacramento."

What's the mood in Indy now? "There is no way to measure the civic pride that people feel here," he said.

No reason Sacramento can't build its own dreams.

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Call The Bee's Marcos Breton, (916) 321-1096.

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