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I am a native Californian with both sides of my family in the state in the last half of the 1800s. I have a lot of family and interest in the state, that is why I post in California threads. I keep very good track of what is going on in the state. I grew up on a cattle ranch with quite a little farming. With leased land, we ranched well over 100,000 acres so I know a little about that type of thing.
Santa Maria is becoming the area that the farm help lives, and the people with money either moved out, or live in a concentrated area almost completely separate from the rest of the city. A complaint earlier, the theater was being built in an area that the Anglo's are afraid to go at night. A sign that the city is expanding business wise, not for the wealthy, but for the average resident of the town. The poorest residents want shopping, and entertainment. They are building facilities for the typical residents, not for a small percentage of the population concentrated in a small area of town. The wealthier residents of the city, will not be sufficient to support the businesses such as the theater they are building, and they are building it where they can get the most traffic into the business. If the business owner could look ahead 5 to 10 years in their projections and found that it would be profitable to build in that wealthier neighborhood, that is where it would be built. They are seeing just the opposite, and selected where to build accordingly. I say that, looking at it as a 30 year commercial real estate broker does when evaluating building commercial buildings and businesses.
The county governments are projecting that Santa Maria will grow to 120,000 by 2040 a lot through births. They found 2/3rds of all births are to Hispanic Mothers today, which will accelerate the demographic changes in the city. The trend for the past 10 years especially has been growth in the Hispanic population through immigration into the city. Taking the birth rates, and the immigration trends, expect about 15,000 of that new 20,000 residents will be Hispanic.
Things like this are taken into consideration when planning on where to put businesses. Businesses are color blind, when selecting sites for a big theater, shopping center, etc. They are looking for the business volume potential. Not trying to bring in Anglo shoppers because they have more disposable money as mentioned earlier in the thread. The total Anglo shopper dollars are a drop in the bucket to the other dollars available in Santa Maria, and will be less important in the future of the city.
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Orcutt Academy mentioned they are getting so many people wanting in that they are going to give priority to Orcutt residents now.
Many wealthier residents, are sending their kids out of the city, for school. If they have to live in another city to be able to send their kids there, they will move to be able to get the education facilities they desire. This will accelerate their movement from the city.
Again things that are used to project future business potential when deciding where to locate a business, theater, etc. Suggesting that they should put a business where Anglos would feel comfortable to go at night, is about as race prejudice a statement as one can make. Green dollars are what is considered, not the color of customers' skin.
Location: San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties
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I grew up on a cattle ranch with quite a little farming. With leased land, we ranched well over 100,000 acres so I know a little about that type of thing.
I am going to call you on this, I don't believe you ranched 100,000 acres in California
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Santa Maria is becoming the area that the farm help lives
It has always been the area where the farm help lives.
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and the people with money either moved out, or live in a concentrated area almost completely separate from the rest of the city.
The people with money always live in a concentrated area almost completely separate from the rest of any city. They may have moved out, but, they did not move far, and are still the primary supporters of the cities economics.
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They are building facilities for the typical residents, not for a small percentage of the population concentrated in a small area of town.
The economic center of gravity for Santa Maria has moved south, building a theater in the part of town where most of the people cannot afford to go to the movies, or are afraid to leave a theater in the dark to walk to their cars is a bad idea. That was known when the tore down the theater on the piece of ground where the new theater is proposed.
AJ Spurs closed in large part because the steakhouse demographic did not want to be in that part of town after dark. The only new construction in that part of town in years is Vallarta, a Mexican supermarket.
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The total Anglo shopper dollars are a drop in the bucket to the other dollars available in Santa Maria, and will be less important in the future of the city.
That is a silly statement. The middle class in Santa Maria is not Anglo, it is a mix of Anglo and Hispanic. The people who live in the north part of town for the most part are field workers with a relatively low yearly income, Many of them perhaps most, speak very little english, and in fact a fair percentage do not speak Spanish, but, rather, indian languages.
Orcutt is hardly another city, it is an unincorporated bedroom suburb of CA.
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Many wealthier residents, are sending their kids out of the city, for school
Very few, most people are fairly happy with Righetti and Saint Joe.
I have two nieces that went to Righetti one became a doctor of psychology at 24, the other is a grad student at U of Chicago, Daughter #1, boyfriend a Junior at U of H in Communications, that is just three that came out of Righetti.
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Suggesting that they should put a business where Anglos would feel comfortable to go at night, is about as race prejudice a statement as one can make. Green dollars are what is considered, not the color of customers' skin.
Nonsense, the reason for the ongoing failures of the Mall in what was a downtown is because of the location, that is where the theater is planned to go, there is no reason to think it will fare any better than the rest of the stores in the mall. As my mother who has lived in Santa Maria or nearby since 1947 and is in Santa Maria at least weekly said, " I have not been in that Macy's more than 6 or 7 times."
Now, you are looking stuff up about a town you really know nothing about. I was born in Santa Maria, at the old Sister's hospital, my father was born in Santa Maria during WW1, we have farmed in Santa Maria Valley for over 100 years. You cannot wander around town without running into the family name on stuff. I have a fairly good grasp of the nature of the town. For instance, every farm implement from the original horse draw plow bought by Grandfather to the latest 8 wheeled John Deere for over 100 years was bought in Santa Maria, and we are just one of dozens of ag operations. Almost every employee of the company lived or lives in Santa Maria, for over 100 years, and we are just one of dozens of ag operations. Shopping, medical care, home improvement, automobiles, homes, property taxes, most all in Santa Maria for "La Familia" and employees, and contractors and sub contractors, and again, we are just one of dozens of ag operations, and certainly not the largest.
A side note, the manager of a particular farming supply company had a sudden severe illness. A fund raiser was held to help his wife and kids out with expenses. The fundraiser was of course, Santa Maria style barbecue, held on a Sunday after church. It raise $40,000 in one day.
I am going to call you on this, I don't believe you ranched 100,000 acres in California
You are wrong about that. We leased over 100,000 acres of land from a timber company that owned it adjoining our ranch. We leased them part of the ranch to put a logging camp on it, where the men lived while working for the logging company back in the early 1900s. When the logging was finished, they leased us their land, as there was a lot of good pasture, several streams for water.
You are thinking southern California not Northern California.
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There are no hispanics on the city council. The desire is to bring whites back downtown, as they have the discretionary income. The town has no core, it was torn out in the early 70's, the goal is to bring it back.
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Nonsense, the reason for the ongoing failures of the Mall in what was a downtown is because of the location, that is where the theater is planned to go, there is no reason to think it will fare any better than the rest of the stores in the mall. As my mother who has lived in Santa Maria or nearby since 1947 and is in Santa Maria at least weekly said, " I have not been in that Macy's more than 6 or 7 times."
See the contradiction of your two statements. One says they want to bring the white people back downtown. The other says the location is bad, and people like your mother don't shop there.
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The economic center of gravity for Santa Maria has moved south, building a theater in the part of town where most of the people cannot afford to go to the movies, or are afraid to leave a theater in the dark to walk to their cars is a bad idea. That was known when the tore down the theater on the piece of ground where the new theater is proposed.
They would have torn down the old theater, because of being functionally obsolete. A multi-plex theater is the only kind that really makes money today. They tore the old one down, as it was no longer really usable and are putting in one that will make a profit.
They are putting in the theater for the future, not what it is today. They know where they are putting it, is where the future economic center of the town is. That type of venture, is going to be financed. The lenders would not put up the money, if they did not agree this would be a good location for future trends in the city. In my former profession, I was very involved in this type of thing, and know what it takes to get financing for such a project, especially in today's real estate climate.
When you say the economic center has moved south, you mean the white people have moved south. That does not mean the maximum dollars to be spent for movie tickets have moved south. The white population has been shrinking for 20 years and will continue to shrink in real numbers, but the Hispanic population has been growing fast. With the city projected to grow by 20,000 people in the next 18 years, with more than 2/3rds to be Hispanic, any smart developer is going to look to the major population for business. With that in mind, it would be stupid to put such a theater in the south part of the city instead of where the major population center is.
You are thinking of Santa Maria of the past, not the Santa Maria of the future.
Wal-Mart thinks enough of the downtown area, they have a super store near the shopping center. They are going to put in two Wal-Mart grocery stores, one in that area, and another not far away.
Wal-Mart would not be adding these two additional stores, if they were not doing well in the existing store. With that activity, there is no wonder that is he area they are putting in the theater in the area. It is a proven traffic getting and profit area for the right business, and a multi-plex is one place the people with less money will go for entertainment. As I said before, when you put in new Wal-Mart stores, and that type of theater, you are not building it for today's business. You are building it for the future 5 and more years down the road. They are building it for today's residents, and for the 20,000 expected in the next few years. Experts have evaluated the area, and they know it will be profitable to build there.
Facts: In 10 years from 2000 to 2010, the white residents declined by 21%, while the Hispanic residents increased by 70%. Expect this same type of trend to continue.
They are not putting it in the small corner of the city, where the wealthy live. Expect the white exodus to continue at or faster than the rate of the last few years. Over the next few years there will not be the growth there, to fill the seats in the theater, and to buy the groceries.
The theater is being built, Wal-Mart is putting in two grocery outlets, and others are expanding and will be expanding and moving in, to fill the needs of the majority of the residents of the city.
Location: San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties
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Originally Posted by oldtrader
You are wrong about that. We leased over 100,000 acres of land from a timber company that owned it adjoining our ranch. We leased them part of the ranch to put a logging camp on it, where the men lived while working for the logging company back in the early 1900s. When the logging was finished, they leased us their land, as there was a lot of good pasture, several streams for water.
Forgive me, if I flat do not believe you.
See the contradiction of your two statements. One says they want to bring the white people back downtown. The other says the location is bad, and people like your mother don't shop there.
A failure of understanding on your part, that some want to bring white people back actually reinforces my second contention
They would have torn down the old theater, because of being functionally obsolete. A multi-plex theater is the only kind that really makes money today. They tore the old one down, as it was no longer really usable and are putting in one that will make a profit.
Not at all, restoration and profitability of old theaters is common today, as witnessed by the Fremont theater in SLO
They are putting in the theater for the future, not what it is today. They know where they are putting it, is where the future economic center of the town is. That type of venture, is going to be financed. The lenders would not put up the money, if they did not agree this would be a good location for future trends in the city. In my former profession, I was very involved in this type of thing, and know what it takes to get financing for such a project, especially in today's real estate climate.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Downtown has as much chance of being the economic future of Santa Maria as South Fresno has of being the economic future of Fresno. The current 10 screen multiplex is in the economic center of Santa Maria, such as it is.
When you say the economic center has moved south, you mean the white people have moved south. That does not mean the maximum dollars to be spent for movie tickets have moved south. The white population has been shrinking for 20 years and will continue to shrink in real numbers, but the Hispanic population has been growing fast. With the city projected to grow by 20,000 people in the next 18 years, with more than 2/3rds to be Hispanic, any smart developer is going to look to the major population for business. With that in mind, it would be stupid to put such a theater in the south part of the city instead of where the major population center is.
You are proof that commenting on a town 1200 miles away that you know nothing about is a bad idea. You don't know the demographics or the economics of the Santa Maria economic sphere and that shows in every post you make.
You are thinking of Santa Maria of the past, not the Santa Maria of the future. Actually, if the anti illegal crowd succeeds Santa Maria will be a ghost town. A very substantial percent of Santa Maria's population is illegal.
I was trained by the best at University and other classes, to evaluate a town for investment purposes. To do this one has to look at the facts that are available. It is so much easier to do that it was years ago when I did it.
Facts:
Santa Maria is growing, and is estimated to grow 20% or more by 2020, or in 17 years. Following the trend line, most of this will be Hispanics.
Anglo population, is rapidly shrinking (proven over the last 10 years) and are leaving the city and the ones remaining are mostly moving south outside the city limits. The percentage of white population will keep rapidly shrinking.
Hispanic population increasing at a 20% rate, now over 70% of the population and this percentage will increase over the next 20 years.
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You are thinking of Santa Maria of the past, not the Santa Maria of the future. Actually, if the anti illegal crowd succeeds Santa Maria will be a ghost town. A very substantial percent of Santa Maria's population is illegal.
If Obama is elected again, you can expect the dream act to become law. Currently he is doing little to do away with illegals. Those in power in California are not going to do anything about Illegals in California, as the white population is too small and they want the votes of the growing minorities to keep them in power. If a state even tries to reduce the illegals as in Arizona, the Federal Government sues them to make them stop trying to pick up and deport illegals.
Santa Maria is just an example of what is happening in California.
The white population has declined from 88% of the population in the 60s, to only 38% today. Just barely ahead of Hispanic and Asian populations which will soon both exceed the White Population by percentages and by the numbers. California is the first state, where the White population is less than half of the citizens.
More American Citizens are moving from California to other states, than are moving into California from other states, as shown by the last census. The big increase in population is not Americans but immigrants from other countries which has seen a real boom that are adding to the numbers and replacing the fleeing white population.
You want to bring back the past for Santa Maria, but the business world is looking to the future and working towards the market that will be Santa Maria in 5 to 20 years. There are clear indications of where it is going and what the business needs of the future are. There are clear trends, of who the future customers will be and they will be prepared to serve those customers and their needs and desires. Remember there are stores that serve the needs of the locals in poor cities in Mexico, and Hispanics do not quit spending money because they have left and came to the U.S.
An example of the future. Wal-Mart is there, and are doing well enough they are planning for the future and opening two mini-Wal-Marts to take care of the future needs of Santa Maria and they are not building them in the South End of the town for the Anglo population. They are building them where the most customers will come from. The new theater will be located in a part of town where you do not feel safe at night, but the builders are sure enough of the potential market 5 and more years down the road they are building it where the profitable market will be. You don't build things like that for cash, but use loans. The bankers are sure enough of the future of that area, they are willing to put up money to build it.
Location: San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties
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Currently he is doing little to do away with illegals
I won't read your whole post, under the assumption that it is as accurate as this.. Look, the facts are interdictions and returns of illegals are vastly higher under Obama than, say, Bush.
The emigration of illegals out of the state is so large the Border Patrol stopped their returnee flights, not enough interdicted aliens to justify the cost.
We have half our Zucchini crop rotting in the field as there are not enough workers to harvest..
You people crack me up, Look Oldtrader, you are like Userid or The City, you find facts to post regarding subjects you know nothing about. Give it up. You have so frequently posted sheer and utter crap, you have no credibility.
I have been reading the back and forth on this thread and it is all very interesting. I do have a few questions that i will bring up in future posts. But, for now the population projected increases intrigue me. You said,,,,,
"The county governments are projecting that Santa Maria will grow to 120,000 by 2040 a lot through births. They found 2/3rds of all births are to Hispanic Mothers today, which will accelerate the demographic changes in the city. The trend for the past 10 years especially has been growth in the Hispanic population through immigration into the city. Taking the birth rates, and the immigration trends, expect about 15,000 of that new 20,000 residents will be Hispanic."
The City of Santa Maria seems very limitied in terms of housing and with the Farms surrounding the City zoned AG and has beeen noted, the life blood of the City. Where do the new people live? If the Farm workers are locked in at around 25, 000 as stated by High, it appears the City will have a definite housing crunch. Any thoughts?
Location: San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties
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The housing and population in Santa Maria is more complex than at least one of the posters has put in. Santa Maria is not limited by being adjacent to farmland. The city has taken farmland for development, which is to me, a sin. But there are at least two developments, once commercial one mixed in the planning stages. Fortunately the down turn in the economy has slowed development. Guadalupe 10 miles west too has taken farmland for development (ours), and plans to take more for additional housing.
The farm workers cannot afford new homes, what has happened in Santa Maria is "white flight" as white middle class families move south to south Santa Maria and Orcutt, their homes become rental properties for farm workers and or Hispanics who have improved their economics and can buy the modest homes.
And then, as I pointed out in my prior post. Farmworkers are leaving the area, and leaving California, returning to Mexico. Relieving housing, but, creating huge problems in California's ag industry. It is possible that Santa Maria, Salinas, et al could become ghost towns with collapsed industry and sagebrush blowing down the streets..
And then, as I pointed out in my prior post. Farmworkers are leaving the area, and leaving California, returning to Mexico. Relieving housing, but, creating huge problems in California's ag industry. It is possible that Santa Maria, Salinas, et al could become ghost towns with collapsed industry and sagebrush blowing down the streets..
I doubt that will happen. I also suspect the farmworkers "trade up" to better jobs.
California is still a draw. Mexico is undergoing huge sociatel upheavals due to the drug trade and the high level of corruption. Americans are to blame for buying those idiotic drugs that harm us in so many ways as well.
I am in favor of legalising those drugs. The drug war just reeks of the 20th century alcohol prohibition. And, we know how that went over. People still had their booze.
So, lets have real drug stores. The government will win two ways. No more wasteful and expensive drug inforcement programs and a nice tax they can levy on the now legal drugs. Look how much is made from cigarette taxes.
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