A Portrait of California (Los Angeles, San Diego: transfer, high school, income)

[jade408]

Really interesting report on quality of life in California (and the US) from the American Human Development Project.

They came up with 5 "Californias"

They look at life expectancy, income, level of educational attainment and other factors to come up with an index on quality of life -- the human development index. It pays to be Asian in Santa Clara county (Silicon Valley Shangri-la) where the index is 9.35 on a 10 point scale.

They cover 5 profiles in depth:
• Silicon Valley Shangri-La - well-educated professionals and entrepreneurs
• Metro-Coastal Enclave California - affluent, educated knowledge workers
• Main Street California - “Middle class” suburban and ex-urban residents who are doing well compared to the average American, but are increasingly insecure about their futures
• Struggling California - Blue- and pink-collar workers without high school educations
• The Forsaken Five Percent - extremely impoverished area (LA, San Joaquin Valley) with 1960s era average wages

Be sure to take a look at the maps:
A Portrait of California — Measure of America: American Human Development Project
Bay Citizen summary
Download the full report >> this is a really great report, well-designed and gives you good background on the terms and the issues

[18Montclair]

My one bone of contention with this report is how they name the individual geographies.

If you look at a map, the area they call "Piedmont" actually refers to the entire Oakland Hills(Northwest and Southwest Districts) and the city of Piedmont.

Here are the top scoring places:
Santa Clara-Los Altos/ Mountain View/ Palo Alto 9.35
Santa Clara-Cupertino/Saratoga/Los Gatos 9.12
Orange-Newport Beach to Laguna Hills 8.88
Contra Costa-Moraga to Walnut Creek 8.77
Contra Costa-San Ramon 8.76
Los Angeles-Bel Air/Brentwood/Pacific Palisades 8.75
Orange-Irvine 8.73
Los Angeles-Redondo/Manhattan/Hermosa/El Segundo 8.63
San Francisco-Marina/North Beach/Chinatown 8.27
Santa Clara-Sunnyvale 8.25
Alameda-Piedmont 8.24
San Mateo-City & Pacific Coast 8.20
San Diego-Torrey Pines to Mission Bay 8.17
Los Angeles-Signal Hill/Palos Verdes/Lomita 8.16
Alameda-Livermore 8.07
Marin-Mill Valley 8.06
San Diego-Encinitas 8.06
San Diego-Poway 8.02
Santa Clara-Almaden 8.02

The cities of Los Altos, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Cupertino, Saratoga and Los Gatos make up the top 1% of California. An area that is extremely weatlhy, very highly educated, people tend to live quite long.

If you look over their entire ranking for different parts of the US, nowhere scores a 9 or higher, just that area which they call Silicon Valley Shangri La. LOL. Its very impressive.

But I must say, The East Bay does exceptionally well at the top of this ranking:

Alameda-Piedmont is the Oakland Hills+Piedmont
Contra Costa-Moraga to Walnut Creek is Lamorinda+Walnut Creek
Contra Costa-San Ramon is Alamo, Danville, Blackhawk and San Ramon
Alameda-Livrermore is Livermore, Dublin & Pleasanton.

That's a huge swath of the East Bay, all physically connected at that.

Were I a realtor in these areas, I would tatoo this onto my forehead because this deals with quality of life similar to the UNs HDI(Human Development Index).

Speaking of Oakland. Our poor city is sliced and diced and assigned to our neighbors except for a tiny sliver they call "Elmhurst", which covers just a part of the East Oakland flatlands and scores 3.07, the lowest in the entire Bay Area...but still good enough to avoid the bottom 10 in CA.

Anyway, the entire hills are labeled 'Piedmont', much of East Oakland including Downtown is assigned to 'Alameda' and West and North Oakland is called "Emeryville". So strange. LOL.

[jade408]

I have to agree, "Piedmont" is half of Oakland. They really need to rename these, that is just silly. Where is Oakland? Some confused transplant is going to take that as evidence that all of "Oakland" is poor, because "Elmhurst is.

That has to be the weirdest naming convention ever.

[Bulldogdad]

Forget north vs. south – five Californias on this list

[xani]

Originally Posted by jade408

Really interesting report on quality of life in California (and the US) from the American Human Development Project.

They came up with 5 "Californias"

They look at life expectancy, income, level of educational attainment and other factors to come up with an index on quality of life -- the human development index. It pays to be Asian in Santa Clara county (Silicon Valley Shangri-la) where the index is 9.35 on a 10 point scale.

They cover 5 profiles in depth:
• Silicon Valley Shangri-La - well-educated professionals and entrepreneurs
• Metro-Coastal Enclave California - affluent, educated knowledge workers
• Main Street California - “Middle class” suburban and ex-urban residents who are doing well compared to the average American, but are increasingly insecure about their futures
• Struggling California - Blue- and pink-collar workers without high school educations
• The Forsaken Five Percent - extremely impoverished area (LA, San Joaquin Valley) with 1960s era average wages

Be sure to take a look at the maps:
A Portrait of California — Measure of America: American Human Development Project
Bay Citizen summary
Download the full report >> this is a really great report, well-designed and gives you good background on the terms and the issues

They forgot "Invisible highway to hell"--huge underground economy, growers, dealers, factories where all workers are illegals. Eureka, North Coast, Los Angeles. Not the same as $8/hr workers and SSI recepients.