River District Survey, Sacramento, 2021

Did downtown have the same problems?

For litter, it had more. For people living outside and for dumping, it was not close. These rates are per mile of street, the whole district against the stretch the Downtown Sacramento Partnership picked as downtown's most littered.

1.9x

more litter per mile downtown, and 7.9 times the graffiti and stickers.

7.6x

the temporary shelters per mile in the River District: 321 tents, other shelters and RVs lived in, against 2 tents downtown. Without the 13 RVs it is 7.3 times.

1.8x

the garbage piles and large items, each pile 50 to 1,000+ pieces, and 1.8 times the human waste and needles.

Downtown's most littered mile (1.2 miles of street, Sunday evening)River District (25.6 miles of street, three days)

Records per mile of street, with the count in brackets

Temporary shelters

1.7 (2)

12.5 (321)

7.6x more in the district

Garbage piles and large items

5.8 (7)

10.4 (267)

1.8x more in the district

Human waste and needles

3.3 (4)

6.0 (155)

1.8x more in the district

Other street conditions

5.8 (7)

7.3 (186)

about the same

Cigarette butts

547.9 (664)

188.0 (4,818)

2.9x more downtown

Plastic

225.2 (273)

156.4 (4,010)

about the same

Paper and packaging

277.2 (336)

122.1 (3,130)

2.3x more downtown

Other litter

99.8 (121)

146.0 (3,743)

about the same

Graffiti and stickers

126.2 (153)

16.0 (409)

7.9x more downtown

Downtown is one walk on one evening, so its small counts (2 tents, 7 garbage piles and large items) make those ratios rough. Both surveyors walked every street, so rates are per mile of street covered, not per mile walked.

What the posts said, checked

Each claim from the October 2021 blog post and a 2026 Rubbish talk, against the open data.

Source	What it said	The data
Blog, October 2021	"Over 17,000 issues across 27 linear miles were recorded in 3 days."	17,039 records in the River District over June 7 to 9, on 25.6 miles of street. With the downtown mile walked the Sunday before: 18,606 records on 26.8 miles of street.
Blog, October 2021	"In total, we tracked 12 categories of issues."	The file records 25 types, with litter split by material. Grouped the way the report's table groups them, they make 12 categories, plus 4 records of "other".
Blog, October 2021	"The River District has a 39x higher occurrence of Temporary Shelters."	78 against 2 on the report's two worst miles: 39 times as many. The blog counts tents and RVs as temporary shelters, and so does this page. Across the whole district, per mile of street, it is 7.6 times (7.3 times without the 13 RVs).
Blog, October 2021	"The River District has an 8x higher occurrence of Garbage Piles."	54 against 6 on the two worst miles is 9 times as many (the report's table says 800% more, which is where the 8 comes from). Across the whole district, per mile of street, garbage piles and large items are 1.8 times.
Rubbish talk, April 2026	"25 miles covered in 2.5 days."	25.6 miles of street in the district, from 9:04 am on Monday, June 7 to 4:52 pm on Wednesday, June 9: two full days and an afternoon.
Rubbish talk, April 2026	"15,000+ pieces logged with material, GPS, and photo."	15,701 pieces of litter in the district, each a photo with a location and a type. 17,039 records counting graffiti, piles and other conditions.
Rubbish talk, April 2026	"Findings were used to secure additional funding."	Not something the data can show.

The 2021 report: worst mile against worst mile

The report the River District received compared one mile downtown with the district's own worst mile. That is where the 39x and 8x in the blog post come from. The downtown column matches the open data exactly; a box around the report's district corner comes within a few on every row.

Issue	Downtown	District	In the file	Difference
Temporary shelters	2	78	79	39x more in the district
Garbage piles	6	54	54	9x more in the district
Large items	1	9	9	9x more in the district
Poop and urine	4	5	5	about the same
Fire residue	0	2	2	none seen downtown
Needles	0	1	1	none seen downtown
Dead rodents	0	3	3	none seen downtown
Small litter	1,394	849	858	1.6x more downtown
Trash cans	7	3	3	2.3x more downtown
Graffiti	104	20	16	5.2x more downtown
Stickers and fliers	49	0	0	none seen in the district

Downtown and District are slide 29 of the 2021 report. The downtown column matches this file's Sunday-evening records exactly. The district's mile is the corner the report maps on slide 30, walked on Monday morning; a box of about 350 m by 270 m around it in the file gives the counts in the fourth column, 8 of 11 exactly the report's (in green) and the rest within a few (that column shows on a wider screen). The comparison at the top of the page uses the whole district instead.

Day by day

One evening downtown, then two full days and an afternoon in the district. Miles of street count each stretch once, however many times it was walked.

Sunday evening

June 6 · 6:57 pm to 8:42 pm

1,567issues

1.2miles of street

Downtown's most littered mile. Most issues on I Street and J Street.

Day 1

Monday, June 7 · 9:04 am to 5:31 pm

7,794issues

10.9miles of street

River District. Most issues on North B Street and North 16th Street.

Day 2

Tuesday, June 8 · 10:37 am to 6:14 pm

6,427issues

9.9miles of street

River District. Most issues on Richards Boulevard and Bercut Drive.

Day 3

Wednesday, June 9 · 12:04 pm to 4:52 pm

2,818issues

4.8miles of street

River District. Most issues on Two Rivers Trail and Richards Boulevard.

Two surveyors, both sides of every street

Who walked itMiles from their phones' routes; issues from their photos

Surveyor A24.6 miles walked · 12,734 issues tagged

Surveyor B22.1 miles walked · 5,872 issues tagged

Surveyor A tagged more issues; the routes show both walked nearly the same streets.

They walked each street together

32 mapart or less, half of the time

Matching each of Surveyor A's photos to Surveyor B's photo nearest in time, taken within a minute of it (11,565 pairs), the two were within 32 m of each other half of the time, and within 50 m 67% of the time: usually across the street from each other, each recording their own side.

What the surveyors recorded

18,606 records in five groups, each sorted by hand into one of 25 types. Cigarette butts led; 233 garbage piles each held 50 to 1,000 or more pieces that were counted once.

Litter17,095 records · 92%

Cigarette butts

5,482

Plastic

4,135

Paper

2,211

Food packaging

1,255

Other litter

3,403

Food

261

Glass

197

Masks and gloves

148

Dog waste bags

Graffiti and stickers562 records · 3%

Graffiti

443

Stickers and fliers

119

Dumping274 records · 1%

Garbage piles (50 to 1,000+ pieces each)

233

Large items

Other street conditions193 records · 1%

Overflowing trash cans

Fire residue

Tree and weed issues

Dead rodents

Other

People living outside, and health482 records · 3%

Tents

275

Other temporary shelters

RVs lived in

Human or pet waste

137

Urine

Needles

Counted, not mapped

323 temporary shelters: 275 tents, 35 other shelters and 13 RVs lived in. 144 human or pet waste. 15 needles.

These records point at people. They count in every total on this page and in the bars of the replay, but they are left off the map, and the open data gives their location only to about 110 m. The camera's close-ups were chosen where almost none were recorded.

The survey recorded them so services could reach the people living there. Fire residue was tracked for the same reason: fires that spread from encampments had caused millions of dollars of damage in the district.

Let's take a moment to pause and acknowledge that each dot on the previous map represents a living space for a human being.

The 2021 report, "A Note on Temporary Shelters"

What the survey was for

"We felt like some of our colleagues at City Hall didn't understand the magnitude of the problem."

Jenna Abbott, Executive Director, River District (2021)

She planned to use it for grant applications, to show the city and the county where more resources were needed, and to measure progress year over year. After she shared it:

"They were shocked, dismayed, extremely interested, and very motivated."

Jenna Abbott, on how her colleagues reacted

From the survey

A few of the 18,606 photos. Each was checked at full size: photos of people, shoes, shadows, cars, belongings and tents are not shown.

Candy wrapper and butts, I Street, River District survey, June 2021 — Candy wrapper and butts, I Street

Cans by the American River, River District survey, June 2021 — Cans by the American River

Dumped freezer, North B Street, River District survey, June 2021 — Dumped freezer, North B Street

Face mask and wrappers, Bannon Street, River District survey, June 2021 — Face mask and wrappers, Bannon Street

Plastic spoon, I Street, River District survey, June 2021 — Plastic spoon, I Street

Burnt grass, Two Rivers Trail, River District survey, June 2021 — Burnt grass, Two Rivers Trail

Foam box, North B Street, River District survey, June 2021 — Foam box, North B Street

Fire residue, Jibboom Street, River District survey, June 2021 — Fire residue, Jibboom Street

Cigarette carton, 10th Street, River District survey, June 2021 — Cigarette carton, 10th Street

Litter by a dumpster, Chill Avenue, River District survey, June 2021 — Litter by a dumpster, Chill Avenue

Cup in the gutter, I Street, River District survey, June 2021 — Cup in the gutter, I Street

Wrappers in dry grass, Two Rivers Trail, River District survey, June 2021 — Wrappers in dry grass, Two Rivers Trail

About these numbers

All 18,606 records of the June 2021 survey: 1,567 downtown on Sunday evening, June 6, and 17,039 in the River District on June 7 to 9.
Miles of street come from the surveyors' phone routes: every 25 m stretch they passed counts once. That gives 25.6 miles in the district and 1.2 downtown (the report's "1 mile"). Route points more than 32 m off the line of their neighbours are GPS errors and are dropped first. Together the two walked 46.7 miles, because both covered every street.
The replay: each surveyor has a colour, with live miles and issues. The four slow parts each show seven minutes of one surveyor: Surveyor A on J Street, downtown (Sun); Surveyor B on North B Street (Mon); Surveyor A on Jibboom Street, by the Sacramento River (Tue); Surveyor B on the Two Rivers Trail, by the American River (Wed). The district's streets first show as a faint dashed net that the routes fill in; each night the streets covered so far light up over what is left. Dots turn grey a few hours after they are recorded, and a live screen shows survey photos as they are taken. At the end every dot lights up again and the two areas sit side by side, per mile of street.
On the map, routes keep only the stretches within 150 m of the surveyor's own photos, are lightly smoothed, skip the few steps off the street to photograph a pile (the pile's dot stays), and break where the phone's location jumped straight across a block or parkland. Miles walked are measured before smoothing.
Commissioned by the River District (The River Community Improvement District), Sacramento. The records are open data: RubbishOpenData, River District survey, June 2021 (CSV) (CC BY 4.0). No names, accounts, photos or house numbers; locations to about 11 m.
The 12 photos on this page, the 8 finds and the 39 on the replay's live screen were checked one by one at full size, cropped, and carry no location data.

Downtown had more litter. The River District had 7.6 times the temporary shelters.

Did downtown have the same problems?

What the posts said, checked

The 2021 report: worst mile against worst mile

Watch the survey unfold

Day by day

Two surveyors, both sides of every street

What the surveyors recorded

Counted, not mapped

What the survey was for

From the survey

Read more

About these numbers