San Jose reaches 1 million

It's a development that doesn't really make a difference in putting a ballpark plan together. Still, civic leaders and pols pushing for a ballpark will undoubtedly point to San Jose's newly minted seven-figure population.

Kevin Starr, a professor of history at the University of Southern California and a former state librarian, said 1 million people is a distinct urban threshold.

"When a city reaches a million, it reaches a certain transformative population," Starr said. "You are dense enough then to get anything done that you want to get done. So let those people that don't want San Jose to be a big city move to Redding — seriously. This place was destined to be an important American city right from the beginning."

I don't know if San Jose will ever "arrive" the way Tom McEnery had envisioned in the past. Reaching 1 million is certainly a step towards that. In the meantime, at least San Jose can say it has more tall buildings than San Antonio. Woohoo! - er, um...