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Location: San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties
6,390 posts, read 9,679,297 times
Reputation: 2622
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You just changed your thesis, originally you wanted to make the town wealthier, I demonstrated that it is very very wealthy.
So.
You changed it to Santa Maria's problems.
A strong economy does not require a diverse economy. America is replete with wealthy single industry areas.
Neither a large insurance provider nor a pharmaceutical company has jack to do with a hospital, large or small.
You for some very strange reason are driven to seek ways to destroy towns, very odd.
No matter what is done with Santa Maria, it is going to be filled with relatively poor agricultural workers. Unless of course you advocate taking land that produces food and building factories and home on it.
You just changed your thesis, originally you wanted to make the town wealthier, I demonstrated that it is very very wealthy.
So.
You changed it to Santa Maria's problems.
A strong economy does not require a diverse economy. America is replete with wealthy single industry areas.
Neither a large insurance provider nor a pharmaceutical company has jack to do with a hospital, large or small.
You for some very strange reason are driven to seek ways to destroy towns, very odd.
No matter what is done with Santa Maria, it is going to be filled with relatively poor agricultural workers. Unless of course you advocate taking land that produces food and building factories and home on it.
A strong and diverse economy will make Santa Maria wealthy. Look around Santa Maria and the whole downtown is very impoverished. Farm workers don't get payed enough and if they are undocumented workers they might avoid paying their fair share of taxes. You need a workforce in Santa Maria other than the farm workers who will pay for taxes and then use the taxes to revitalize parts of the city. Add a biking trail and a an area near the river where people can enjoy nature. Redevelop parts of downtown to add art galleries, coffee shops, and restaurants.
Highnlite I'm not sure if you have spent alot of time in Santa Maria, but I do and have gone to college there for a couple years and talk to people to know many people want to see some change.
The expansion of the hospital, Allan Hancock College expanding, a movie theater coming to the mall, and the recent addition of Trader Joes are all major improvements. Now all the city needs to draw some skilled workers who can pay taxes to bring in improvement to areas that need help.
Location: San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties
6,390 posts, read 9,679,297 times
Reputation: 2622
A strong and diverse economy will make Santa Maria wealthy.
As I demonstrated, Santa Maria is wealthy
Look around Santa Maria and the whole downtown is very impoverished.
It is impoverished only because the downtown was ripped out years ago and malls, the sociological equivalent of deserts were put in, it destroyed a vibrant downtown. It is impoverished also because of White Flight, the whites have moved south, the tax base of the city has moved south.
Farm workers don't get payed enough and if they are undocumented workers they might avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
They are paid what they earn, and undocumented or documented makes no difference they pay the same taxes as any worker. There seems to be this idea among some that some how the illegals don't pay their fair share of taxes, which is nonsense.
You need a workforce in Santa Maria other than the farm workers who will pay for taxes and then use the taxes to revitalize parts of the city.
As I mentioned before, the city moved south. If the Council and Planners had wanted to revitalize downtown Santa Maria, Betteravia Road would not look like it does.
Add a biking trail and a an area near the river where people can enjoy nature. The biking trail is there, historically "nature" near the river has been a sandy waste, just like today.
Redevelop parts of downtown to add art galleries, coffee shops, and restaurants.
First you will have to move the hispanics out, are you ready for that?
Highnlite I'm not sure if you have spent alot of time in Santa Maria
Look, I know Santa Maria, I was born there, my father was born there, my grandfather built his house in Santa Maria in 1924, our family name is stuck up all over the place, The family economic base is in Santa Maria. If I told you our name, you would say, "well, I'll be darned, it is stuck up all over the place"
Just for the fun of it, Marian Hospital was named for a good friend of my Grandmother's (who gifted the money to build it), Preisker Park was named for a good friend of my Grandfather's, Twitchell Dam, ditto, KCOY and the Santa Maria Inn were started by Frank McCoy, an old friend of my Grandfather's.
It's great to want to improve your hometown, but if what you are proposing would change the character of it? That might not go over so well with your fellow citizens.
Seriously, if it's important to you to live in a wealthier and more diverse economy, you might consider moving. Santa Maria is what it is, and lots of people love it that way - but if you don't?
It's great to want to improve your hometown, but if what you are proposing would change the character of it? That might not go over so well with your fellow citizens.
Seriously, if it's important to you to live in a wealthier and more diverse economy, you might consider moving. Santa Maria is what it is, and lots of people love it that way - but if you don't?
People don't like Santa Maria having an impoverished downtown and that the crime rates are too high in certain areas and that there aren't enough jobs.
The character of Santa Maria? Has last since the city had 50,000 population and from today when it has 100,000 population. The Santa Maria tri-tip hasn't gone anywhere and its old traditions are still around.
A strong and diverse economy will make Santa Maria wealthy.
As I demonstrated, Santa Maria is wealthy
Look around Santa Maria and the whole downtown is very impoverished.
It is impoverished only because the downtown was ripped out years ago and malls, the sociological equivalent of deserts were put in, it destroyed a vibrant downtown. It is impoverished also because of White Flight, the whites have moved south, the tax base of the city has moved south.
Farm workers don't get payed enough and if they are undocumented workers they might avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
They are paid what they earn, and undocumented or documented makes no difference they pay the same taxes as any worker. There seems to be this idea among some that some how the illegals don't pay their fair share of taxes, which is nonsense.
You need a workforce in Santa Maria other than the farm workers who will pay for taxes and then use the taxes to revitalize parts of the city.
As I mentioned before, the city moved south. If the Council and Planners had wanted to revitalize downtown Santa Maria, Betteravia Road would not look like it does.
Add a biking trail and a an area near the river where people can enjoy nature. The biking trail is there, historically "nature" near the river has been a sandy waste, just like today.
Redevelop parts of downtown to add art galleries, coffee shops, and restaurants.
First you will have to move the hispanics out, are you ready for that?
Highnlite I'm not sure if you have spent alot of time in Santa Maria
Look, I know Santa Maria, I was born there, my father was born there, my grandfather built his house in Santa Maria in 1924, our family name is stuck up all over the place, The family economic base is in Santa Maria. If I told you our name, you would say, "well, I'll be darned, it is stuck up all over the place"
Just for the fun of it, Marian Hospital was named for a good friend of my Grandmother's (who gifted the money to build it), Preisker Park was named for a good friend of my Grandfather's, Twitchell Dam, ditto, KCOY and the Santa Maria Inn were started by Frank McCoy, an old friend of my Grandfather's.
This is just the start of the list.
And yet, you, a white wealthy rancher, have moved into Arroyo Grande away from Santa Maria.
The mall and the big box centers did not kill downtown. The lower-income housing killed downtown. Downtown became less safe, so people moved away from downtown and so did businesses.
Santa Maria is not wealthy. Look at how much money SLO and Santa Barbara have. If that city was rich they could put alot of money into revamping downtown and cracking down on crime. That city only has enough money for the wealthy part of the city and that is the southern area all the way down to the bedroom community town of Orcutt.
I have a friend whose family has lived in the area for 30 years. Before that they were in Lompoc for years more than that. My friend is apart of the generation that wants Santa Maria to be a place where people can say "Oh yes, Santa Maria that's where I did business last Winter" Oh Santa Maria is where I have my cousins who love it there!"
Location: San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties
6,390 posts, read 9,679,297 times
Reputation: 2622
Quote:
Originally Posted by the city
And yet, you, a white wealthy rancher, have moved into Arroyo Grande away from Santa Maria.
No, I am not a white wealthy rancher, and I did not move to Arroyo Grande from Santa Maria, actually I moved to Arroyo Grande from Truckee, where I retired from NDF with a pittance of a pension. Notice I use the term "the family" not the personal pronoun "I" when referring to business.
The mall and the big box centers did not kill downtown. The lower-income housing killed downtown. Downtown became less safe, so people moved away from downtown and so did businesses.
You don't know what you are talking about.
Santa Maria is not wealthy. Look at how much money SLO and Santa Barbara have. If that city was rich they could put alot of money into revamping downtown and cracking down on crime. That city only has enough money for the wealthy part of the city and that is the southern area all the way down to the bedroom community town of Orcutt.
I find your lack of understanding of wealth, while talking about wealth, naive. Downtown Santa Maria was destroyed before you were born. It is clear that the council and planners gave up on downtown 30 years ago.
I have a friend whose family has lived in the area for 30 years. Before that they were in Lompoc for years more than that. My friend is apart of the generation that wants Santa Maria to be a place where people can say "Oh yes, Santa Maria that's where I did business last Winter" Oh Santa Maria is where I have my cousins who love it there!"
Santa Maria is Fresno on the Pacific, that is all it is, and all it can be. No one is going to put money into fixing up the part of town that is majority hispanic. The money and power shifted south years ago, and will continue to spent there.
Two things happened that wrecked the town. In the middle 1950's it was a decent little place, about 15,000 people.
Then Camp Cooke was transferred to the Air Force, renamed Vandenburg Airforce base, thousands of cheap slab floored homes were built in new subdvisions, by 1970 they population was near 50,000.
Prior to 1964 Mexican immigrant workers primarily lived in labor camps on the farms away from town. The ending of the Bracero Program resulted in an great increase in illegal immigration while the camps began to close. We had no residents in our camp after 1964.
Family began to come in illegally and legally, and wanted to live in town. Today Santa Maria has 100,000 people, split nearly evenly down the middle between hispanics and whites.
That demographic will inhibit any effort to revitalize the downtown that was destroyed with "urban renewal'
Two things happened that wrecked the town. In the middle 1950's it was a decent little place, about 15,000 people.
Then Camp Cooke was transferred to the Air Force, renamed Vandenburg Airforce base, thousands of cheap slab floored homes were built in new subdvisions, by 1970 they population was near 50,000.
Prior to 1964 Mexican immigrant workers primarily lived in labor camps on the farms away from town. The ending of the Bracero Program resulted in an great increase in illegal immigration while the camps began to close. We had no residents in our camp after 1964.
Family began to come in illegally and legally, and wanted to live in town. Today Santa Maria has 100,000 people, split nearly evenly down the middle between hispanics and whites.
That demographic will inhibit any effort to revitalize the downtown that was destroyed with "urban renewal'
And how is the city wrecked? Since you just said it was a wealthy city.
I am wondering can happen to change this community. I know some cities have changed in the past years to be better cities. Look at Oxnard, Long Beach, Santa Rosa, etc...
Santa Maria is in a very wealthy county and is stuck with a farming economy, but I feel like Oxnard, Santa Maria can attract some good companies. Santa Maria has a very nice area on the south section. Santa Maria is growing fast, and I want the area to grow to be something nice.
The mall in downtown, is adding a movie theater. But downtown needs some more help.
Anyone else have ideas for Santa Maria?
What makes you think Santa Maria needs or wants the change?
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