Could San Diego ever go down? (Los Angeles, Fortuna: employment, landscaping, neighborhood)

[DFWGoner]

Originally Posted by AnUnidentifiedMale

The proximity to Los Angeles will always make it difficult for San Diego to draw large corporations.

I don't agree. LA has such a bad reputation many people won't consider living there even if what they think they know is wrong. The racial stuff, crime, traffic, etc. People don't forget stuff like that.

SD is in one the best spots because it can control its own destiny. And I suspect virtually no one wants it to be an LA.. I think If Mexico were like Canada, SD would be like Seattle. Only better. Mexico is a dynamic that must be accounted for in how SD exists. Maybe one day I'll run for office- free beer and fish taco's on Friday!

[AnUnidentifiedMale]

Originally Posted by DFWGoner

I don't agree. LA has such a bad reputation many people won't consider living there even if what they think they know is wrong. The racial stuff, crime, traffic, etc. People don't forget stuff like that.

SD is in one the best spots because it can control its own destiny. And I suspect virtually no one wants it to be an LA.. I think If Mexico were like Canada, SD would be like Seattle. Only better. Mexico is a dynamic that must be accounted for in how SD exists. Maybe one day I'll run for office- free beer and fish taco's on Friday!

I mostly agree with you. After I posted my earlier comment, I had second thoughts about it.

L.A. is becoming such a "messy" place. With graduation rates at many L.A. high schools around 50%, I wouldn't be surprised to see the city become known as a mostly low-wage employment center.

In the most recent edition of Places Rated Almanac, the difference in the forecast for jobs in Los Angeles and San Diego was dramatic:


Forecast 2007-2015

Los Angeles County
High earnings job growth: 0.8% (10,765 new jobs)
Average earnings job growth: 6.5% (89,961)
Low earnings job growth: 8.5% (264,139)

San Diego County
High earnings job growth: 11.2% (35,478)
Average earnings job growth: 12.2% (61,576)
Low earnings job growth: 20.0% (213,081)

Orange County
High earnings job growth: 13.6% (60,332)
Average earnings job growth: 14.2% (78,103)
Low earnings job growth: 16.7% (183,905)

Riverside/San Bernardino Counties
High earnings job growth: 13.8% (41,449)
Average earnings job growth: 16.5% (78,990)
Low earnings job growth: 16.7% (141,027)


Maybe the most striking fact: L.A. County's forecast for future low-wage jobs is 26 times the number for high-wage jobs. The other counties have a much better balance of high- versus low-wage jobs, although San Diego's balance isn't quite as good as Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties.

Maybe the Status Of Liberty should be moved to Los Angeles: "Give us your tired, your poor, your huddles masses..."

[DFWGoner]

You know I have no evidence to support this, but there seems some sort of parallel with LA today and NYC of yesterday. NYC went through some very hard times where 'civilization' seemed to break down.

I also wonder if the California(s) should be split and that is contributing the dismal condition of the nicest part of the entire state. I admit this is based on lacking information, but it's possible certain 'interests' aren't really interested in a fix.

[AnUnidentifiedMale]

Originally Posted by DFWGoner

I also wonder if the California(s) should be split and that is contributing the dismal condition of the nicest part of the entire state. I admit this is based on lacking information, but it's possible certain 'interests' aren't really interested in a fix.

In the early 1990s, a bill was introduced in the California Assembly to split California into three states. It actually made it out of committee, but then it died.

Rumblings about splitting the state have begun again, however, as evidenced by this article in the L.A. Times last month:

Is California too unwieldy to govern? - Los Angeles Times

[starkt]

Here's my take on San Diego. It could be a great city, and it might be someday, but things are not looking good right now.

Some of the problems: Lack of water to support population growth combined with a "growth is inevitable" mentality that ignores the fact that virtually all U.S. population growth is coming from legal and illegal immigration. Result: citizens are being threatened with water rationing even as 5,000 unit new condo developments like Quarry Falls are being approved by the city council.

About 90% of both legal and illegal immigrants are uneducated and poor. Importing poverty and illiteracy into your country is not a good formula for future success. But since we Americans seem to think that we owe it to the rest of the world to welcome anyone and everyone, I don't see this changing anytime soon.

Largely unplanned population growth thanks to the out-of-control immigration brought to us by Ted Kennedy in 1965 is responsible for the decline in quality of life in Southern California and other border regions. Illegal immigrants commonly live two or three families to a house or apartment. That means increased noise, decreased parking and an increased strain on water and other infrastructure.

Next, you have the "big city boosters" who sneer at anti-growth NIMBYs. Well, I'm on the side of the NIMBYs. If you fly over LA, you'll see what looks like a giant flat concrete computer chip with roads and building etched into it for hundreds of miles. Hardly any discernible green. Hardly any hills. Hardly any canyons.

When you fly over San Diego, by contrast, you are struck by the natural landscape of canyons, bays, hills, greenery, etc.

Granted, developers who constantly campaign against NIMBYs like me have done their level best to destroy the beauty of San Diego over the last forty years by building huge tracts of cookie cutter homes, leveling hilltops, putting homes in fire-storm-prone areas, and then -- after filling up 94% of San Diego's developable land with crap -- suddenly "getting the religion" of high-density/build-up-not-out/"smart growth" that will supposedly save what little open space remains.

Well, that's like closing the barn door after the horses have already escaped.

And the fact is, sprawl development continues even now, at the very same time that neighborhoods like Hillcrest are pressured to accept "build to the lot line" mega-buildings that eliminate space for trees, gardens, lawns; buildings that loom over people's backyards -- taking away their privacy and views, and that increase population with no increase in needed infrastructure to support that population.

This kind of crass, in-your-face, used-car-salesman bullying by developers who think my neighborhood is their personal fiefdom (aided and abetted by politicians) is common in San Diego.

And the lack of concern for the overall well-being of the community is not just shown by developers and politicians, but by ordinary people who litter, who fail to pick up litter, who tag, who fail to clean up grafitti, and a city government that has not bothered to maintain basic infrastructure while paying for stadiums, convention centers, etc.

Beneath its smiling surface, in other words, San Diego is a city of cheap fast-buck artists. And the cheapness even shows in the wealthiest enclaves like Rancho Santa Fe.

Rancho Santa Fe is the only ultra-wealthy community I've ever seen where contractors build spec mansions and then sell them just like any other tract housing -- but for price tags of about $5 million.

What wealthy person of taste would ever buy something like that instead of hiring his own architect or looking for an older home designed by an architect?

My hope is that San Diego will 1) simply be unable to grow because of lack of water; 2) that people all over the country will still want to live here because of the weather, beach mountains, etc.; 3) that those people will compete for a limited number of houses and condos; 4) that real estate will become less and less affordable; 5) that the frankly undesirable types will be priced out of the area. That's the best possible future I can envision for this city.

My worst possible vision? The wealthy retreat to a few enclaves. The flood of immigration continues. Population growth continues. Quality of life declines. The ghetto spreads north and west to the beaches. Crime and graffiti are the signature of San Diego. Tourism declines. Then, finally, the water runs out and San Diego becomes the western equivalent of Detroit and New Orleans.

Don't think it can't happen. It's happening right now.

[AnUnidentifiedMale]

Originally Posted by starkt

Largely unplanned population growth thanks to the out-of-control immigration brought to us by Ted Kennedy in 1965 is responsible for the decline in quality of life in Southern California

You've got to be kidding. 1965? And no one in the last 44 years has been able to reverse what Kennedy supposedly did? Wow. The anti-Kennedy crowd is even weaker than I thought.

And the fact is, sprawl development continues even now, at the very same time that neighborhoods like Hillcrest are pressured to accept "build to the lot line" mega-buildings that eliminate space for trees, gardens, lawns; buildings that loom over people's backyards -- taking away their privacy and views, and that increase population with no increase in needed infrastructure to support that population.

This is the odd thing about your argument, and I know it's a popular one among the "smart growth" crowd. You want to increase population density as much as possible with the delusional belief that it's going to foster "community" and public transportation patronage, while at the same time getting upset when those large condo/apartment buildings are constructed.

Which do you want? Density or space? You can't have both. If you increase density, you will get more noise and less privacy.

[kettlepot]

Originally Posted by AnUnidentifiedMale

You've got to be kidding. 1965? And no one in the last 44 years has been able to reverse what Kennedy supposedly did? Wow. The anti-Kennedy crowd is even weaker than I thought.

Actually, Kennedy pushing through the immigration reform of 1965 is starkt's strongest point. This isn't about hating on Kennedy, this is an established fact. Of course the effects of that immigration law have been exacerbated by illegal immigration and all of it's effects.

However, I do agree with you on your other point. Developments like Quarry Falls are the right kind of development. It's dense, low-water usage development, and it's kind-of-close to mass transit. It's the kind of development that should have been built in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

And the only way to stop in-migration to our area is to price migrants out of it. But if you look at the density of Manhattan, if people really want to live somewhere they will accept really small living spaces, particularly immigrants. It will be a long time before we price enough people out of San Diego, that the population stops growing. Our best option is to stop the immigration daisy-chain. But the politicians won't do it, and that's shameful.

[AnUnidentifiedMale]

Even with San Diego's problems, I think it'll always be appealing because the alternative in SoCal - L.A. - is much worse.

[Oerdin]

Originally Posted by UrbanityRules

See the brown air next to the airport lindberg feild in San Diego

LOL, coastal haze. Coastal haze is a fog like haze which blows in off the ocean and which burns off by around noon on most days. It has nothing to do with pollution and instead is a natural phenomena if you live on the coast certain times of the year. San Diego routinely gets rated as one of the cleanest air big cities in America because we just don't have much heavy industry, the state has very tight auto emissions laws, and we even have a special low pollution gas formula which is used in this state. For real smog (which is a yellow brown color and much thicker) go to LA as the geography of the LA basin (tall mountains on three sides) traps the smog; it gets so bad in LA that whole mountains just a short ways away disappear or only their peaks are visable but they appear to be floating on a yellow-brown cloud.

[ranzchic]

I thought it was also funny he used bay shots to demonstrate how crappy San Diego is. If that's crappy, I want crappier!