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Old 10-25-2011, 09:58 AM
 
Location: San Diego, California Republic
16,580 posts, read 27,294,048 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MtnSurfer View Post
Yeah, but then when you look at the map of the state and draw a line from Point Conception east toward Bakersfield that is only 1/4 of the state. It's like saying cut off the SoCal from the rest of the state and the remainder = NorCal. But then as you travel to the NorCal coast above Santa Cruz and especially above the Golden Gate it is distinctly different.

I think the Central Coast has a uniqueness all its own - not at all like SoCal and also different from NorCal.

Derek
Except for the Dakotas that no one thinks about, few divisions are even or precise. For example, West Virginia is smaller and almost as much north as west of Virginia. If hypothetically, California were to split, it wouldn't be even nor straight forward. Southern California has always been considered the southern 1/4 to 1/3 of the state.
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Old 10-25-2011, 10:03 AM
 
Location: San Diego, California Republic
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BVitamin View Post
Yes.


In reference to the post I replied to, I think the greater divide is between East and West.
While I may have conceded and accepted Central Ca. I will do no such thing with this east/west divide people seem to speak of now. This is a purely political thing started mainly by bitter conservatives in the so called "East California". There is no historical significance behind this that I know of and seems to be a quite recent thing. The north south divide has been in existence almost as long as the state itself. There has always been a cultural divide between the north and south even between areas that are politically similar such as LA and SF.
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Old 10-25-2011, 12:26 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Parsec01 View Post
The Central Coast as a whole? Based on what I've seen, once you hit Ventura heading south, the landscape develops a sprawling, commercialized LA feel. Heading north, Monterey and Salinas seem like the border to me - redwoody Santa Cruz has always been identified as NorCal to anyone I've known in NorCal.
Santa Cruz identifies with being "Central Coast" though--as you have plenty of local businesses with Central Coast in their title around town and the local news affiliates serve both Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Salinas and will announce themselves as ""Cental Coast News". Santa Cruz is identified as both Northern California and part of the Central Coast which is a really a regional idea seperate from NorCal.

The Central Coast is simply the stretch of coastline south of the Bay Area and north of the LA Megaregion. If someone wants to make the claim that SLO is the dividing line between NorCal and SoCal, I'd say they have had a good point--as that's a distinction I heard a lot growing up also. But in terms of a greater Northern California region, I've always included Monterey County and north, just because it's obviously not connected in anyway to Southern California. I mean there's some people who even make the claim Northern California doesn't start until you're north of the Bay Area.

Although Santa Cruz has been influenced(corrupted) by it's proximity to the Bay Area, it will never be part of the Bay Area for obvious geographic(and demographic) reasons. Despite it's own uniqueness it still feels closer in many ways to Monterey despite some differences. I mean it's not as if there's a big change when you cross the Santa Cruz/Monterey county line...Watsonville's basically a smaller Salinas and the coastline to the East and South of Capitola is basically a less affluent mirror image of Pacific Grove. The biggest noticable change is when you drive north on Highway 17 and descend into Los Gatos/San Jose.

Last edited by Deezus; 10-25-2011 at 12:54 PM..
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Old 10-25-2011, 12:36 PM
 
9,961 posts, read 17,463,302 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gentoo View Post
While I may have conceded and accepted Central Ca. I will do no such thing with this east/west divide people seem to speak of now. This is a purely political thing started mainly by bitter conservatives in the so called "East California". There is no historical significance behind this that I know of and seems to be a quite recent thing. The north south divide has been in existence almost as long as the state itself. There has always been a cultural divide between the north and south even between areas that are politically similar such as LA and SF.
The thing that bothers me about the this proposed West/East California divide is that there's this imaginary idea that somehow there's some sense of unity between everyone on one side of the coast range and everyone inland. In reality though, people in Crescent City or Arcata have nothing in common or share many views with someone in Laguna Beach or San Diego simply based on the virtue of both of them being in some imaginary "West California." A lot of my father's family lives in the parts of California north of Sacramento(Oroville, Chico, Plumas County)--while they might be conservative politically, they still have more connection to the Bay Area than they do to somewhere like San Bernadino or the Imperial Valley or even a place like Bakersfield.
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Old 10-25-2011, 05:16 PM
 
Location: San Diego, California Republic
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Deezus View Post
The thing that bothers me about the this proposed West/East California divide is that there's this imaginary idea that somehow there's some sense of unity between everyone on one side of the coast range and everyone inland. In reality though, people in Crescent City or Arcata have nothing in common or share many views with someone in Laguna Beach or San Diego simply based on the virtue of both of them being in some imaginary "West California." A lot of my father's family lives in the parts of California north of Sacramento(Oroville, Chico, Plumas County)--while they might be conservative politically, they still have more connection to the Bay Area than they do to somewhere like San Bernadino or the Imperial Valley or even a place like Bakersfield.
+1 you are absolutely right. That's what I was saying. East/west was made up recently but the north/south existed naturally almost from day one. The results of this are as you mentioned, still apparent today.
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Old 10-26-2011, 08:47 AM
 
Location: San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties
6,390 posts, read 9,642,757 times
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A little known factoid, at the time of the American invasion of California, it was split into two sections, for all intents and purposes, two states of Alta California, the South, with Pio Pico as Governor, headquartered in Los Angeles and the North headed by Juan Batista Alvarado and Mariano Vallejo, head quartered in Monterey and Sonoma.

Even then, the political differences split the state.
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Old 10-26-2011, 10:19 AM
 
812 posts, read 1,465,791 times
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For me, the Central Coast begins/ends at the Ventura Pier. I'll let others decide the northern boundary. I've driven back and forth past the Ventura Pier on the 101 hundreds of times, to and from SoCal and various "Central Coast" places, and there's something almost visceral about passing the pier going either direction. One minute you're in SoCal with all its sprawl, people, etc., the next minute you're in a different world, and vice versa. It's almost like time travel, hitting that pier going either direction.

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Old 10-26-2011, 09:42 PM
 
Location: San Diego, California Republic
16,580 posts, read 27,294,048 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by .highnlite View Post
A little known factoid, at the time of the American invasion of California, it was split into two sections, for all intents and purposes, two states of Alta California, the South, with Pio Pico as Governor, headquartered in Los Angeles and the North headed by Juan Batista Alvarado and Mariano Vallejo, head quartered in Monterey and Sonoma.

Even then, the political differences split the state.
Great points, I knew that but forgot
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Old 10-27-2011, 01:46 PM
 
9,961 posts, read 17,463,302 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by smdensbcs View Post
For me, the Central Coast begins/ends at the Ventura Pier. I'll let others decide the northern boundary. I've driven back and forth past the Ventura Pier on the 101 hundreds of times, to and from SoCal and various "Central Coast" places, and there's something almost visceral about passing the pier going either direction. One minute you're in SoCal with all its sprawl, people, etc., the next minute you're in a different world, and vice versa. It's almost like time travel, hitting that pier going either direction.
That's a good description. Once you get north of the Ventura Pier area it starts feeling different. Like up around Rincon Point, it's clear that you've gotten out of LA sprawl and things are a little quieter.

Growing up, the north end of the Central Coast for me always felt like crossing over the Highway 17 summit and then descending into Los Gatos and then San Jose. On one side was all of us Santa Cruz local yokels in our little college/beach town on one side of the redwoods and on the other side was the huge suburban sprawl of Silicon Valley, ethnic neighborhoods, huge malls, and so on. We'd always go to see the Sharks play in San Jose or drive up to San Francisco for the day and coming back over the hill descending into the coastal fog of a summer night in Santa Cruz where things were relatively laidback always felt like we were crossing a border.

Right on the coast on the other hand, I'd say Half Moon Bay is the first place that feels more connected to the Bay Area instead of feeling more like the Central Coast. Maybe it's just the influence of Bay Area daytrippers or maybe that it was just the first town over the San Mateo/Santa Cruz County line, but it always felt a little different.
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