Why isnt Santa Barbara more populated? (San Diego, Santa Monica: live in, zoning, price)

[Tex?Il?]

I'm sorry, but why in the world does everyone think that population distribution and density is dependent on how popular or pretty a place!!??? As a professional, geography teacher, this freakin drives me insane! I'm sorry to go on a rant like this.

Don't people realize that cities are a product of the specific natural features that are resources and features?? None of this stuff, is anything people have control over! The Inland Empire is a strategic flatland, that ships a lot of the goods, and historically grew a lot of oranges that were shipped across country via the Cajon Pass, that come through the LA harbor/port, a physical feature that Santa Barbara could never have.

The only reason why Santa Barbara is more pricy and desirable is that is sits between a beautiful ocean and beautiful mountains, with no real good passes across the Santa Ynez mountains. The Inland Empire is hot, but actually is more strategic for America, and therefore more industry, transportation, railyards, etc.

Not to be rude or condescending, but threads like this remind me why I pursued a career in geographic education.

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by mateo45

The few folks I know who live there fit this description exactly, and are mostly older, white and affluent with incomes independent of the area. You can tell that SB is kinda like their little Mediterranean ''Shangri La'', and they wanna keep it that way. So if they wanted to ''grow'', there's more than enough money, power and influence there to make it happen, and all the other explanations just make good ''excuses''.

That very well maybe true, yes there is a lot of NIMBYism. (but who cares, it means there are wonderful places to go for the weekend, great romantic places to take your lady).

But it still doesn't get around the fact that it did not have the INITIAL advantages that say LA had that would make it become big. Once a place is big, nearby places can't get big (unless they absorb are within commutable distance to jobs. Another reason why it didn't get big. People have to work. Theres more growth in places within COMMUTABLE distance from jobs! Meanwhile Santa Barbara being relatively close, meant that it became a resorty type of place for the wealthy to retreat to, which sometime evolves into NIMBYism.

Stop thinking that where people live A place being nice, desirable, and pretty, usually have very little bearing as to how many people there in the big picture.

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by Harrier

Because it has rattlesnakes on one side and jellyfish on the other.

That is a problem.

(paraphrased from Joel Garreau's 1981 book The Nine Nations of North America in a chapter where he explained why Miami couldn't expand - because it had sharks on one side and alligators on the other, or something like that).

Edit: I just realized that the Garreau quote may have been from his book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier.

Both are excellent books.

Thank you!! I love Joel Garreau. I own that book, and it IS among my favorites. I use his stuff in my geography classes I teach.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by Tex?Il?

I'm sorry, but why in the world does everyone think that population distribution and density is dependent on how popular or pretty a place!!??? As a professional, geography teacher, this freakin drives me insane! I'm sorry to go on a rant like this.

Don't people realize that cities are a product of the specific natural features that are resources and features?? None of this stuff, is anything people have control over! The Inland Empire is a strategic flatland, that ships a lot of the goods, and historically grew a lot of oranges that were shipped across country via the Cajon Pass, that come through the LA harbor/port, a physical feature that Santa Barbara could never have.

The only reason why Santa Barbara is more pricy and desirable is that is sits between a beautiful ocean and beautiful mountains, with no real good passes across the Santa Ynez mountains. The Inland Empire is hot, but actually is more strategic for America, and therefore more industry, transportation, railyards, etc.

Not to be rude or condescending, but threads like this remind me why I pursued a career in geographic education.

I think you're being overly simplistic...I see your point....but lets face it....if they built more housing there (either sprawling out or vertically up) more people would want to live there and would move there. Ultimately, the people who live there don't want any population growth (or at least not much), which is why there are lot of restrictions on building new housing stock, on enrollment at UCSB, and on not being part of the state's water system, as has already been covered in previous posts.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by RobertNassry

It's too expensive for most families.

It's too expensive by design, as has been covered in several posts.

[mateo45]

Originally Posted by Tex?Il?

I'm sorry, but why in the world does everyone think that population distribution and density is dependent on how popular or pretty a place!!??? As a professional, geography teacher, this freakin drives me insane! I'm sorry to go on a rant like this.

Don't people realize that cities are a product of the specific natural features that are resources and features?? None of this stuff, is anything people have control over! The Inland Empire is a strategic flatland, that ships a lot of the goods, and historically grew a lot of oranges that were shipped across country via the Cajon Pass, that come through the LA harbor/port, a physical feature that Santa Barbara could never have.

The only reason why Santa Barbara is more pricy and desirable is that is sits between a beautiful ocean and beautiful mountains, with no real good passes across the Santa Ynez mountains. The Inland Empire is hot, but actually is more strategic for America, and therefore more industry, transportation, railyards, etc.

Not to be rude or condescending, but threads like this remind me why I pursued a career in geographic education.

OK, so remind us again why places like Las Vegas or Phoenix, or even Palm Springs and Temecula exist, let alone thrive... virtually out in the middle of nowhere, and totally dependent on outside sources of water and revenue? Money, people, communication, and resources no longer travel by rail, telegraph and stagecoach you know. And BTW, you teach where again...?

[Fontucky]

Three pages of posts and nobody asked the OP why he keeps comparing an exclusive coastal community that features rugged mountains dropping straight down to the beach, with a mainly working class inland valley that's 35 miles from the beach as the crow flies? Maybe I missed something.

[mateo45]

Well, it might be for some folks that those are just the only places in the the state that they know enough about to compare!!

[Senno]

Originally Posted by mateo45

OK, so remind us again why places like Las Vegas or Phoenix, or even Palm Springs and Temecula exist, let alone thrive... virtually out in the middle of nowhere, and totally dependent on outside sources of water and revenue? Money, people, communication, and resources no longer travel by rail, telegraph and stagecoach you know. And BTW, you teach where again...?

You left the magnificent founding of Fresno out of that equation.

Whoever founded us wasn't even smart enough to locate on the river...

(I know it was the railroad. But why not locate up 10 miles north at the water or something...)

And the silly people didn't even orient North south east west for their first streets. Our downtown is cockeyed cause it's oriented off the old railways.

History of Fresno

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by mateo45

OK, so remind us again why places like Las Vegas or Phoenix, or even Palm Springs and Temecula exist, let alone thrive... virtually out in the middle of nowhere, and totally dependent on outside sources of water and revenue? Money, people, communication, and resources no longer travel by rail, telegraph and stagecoach you know. And BTW, you teach where again...?

Palm Springs is smaller than Santa Barbara, and the Coachella Valley has about the same population as Santa Barbara county. Palm Springs originally got its water source very literally from the natural desert oases that one can still see today, the native palm groves on nearby reservation land. You get these springs when you are at the base of a very high mountain like San Jacinto. And there is/was a river that flowed past the town into the Salton Sea. Obviously it all stripped that, but as the town is almost at sea level, you can direct a canal quite easily. (even as far away as the Owens Valley/Mono Lake is from LA, it goes down elevation very gradually the whole way).

Temecula has reservoirs fed from mountain streams all close by.

Vegas' water source, is almost a stone throws away: Lake Mead/Hoover Dam. And Vegas, is the biggest city between LA and Denver. Even if it weren't the whole gambling empire, you need a big city like that, to be the commercial center for the state and regions mining and military industry.

Phoenix actually was a major Native American town, well before the spanish arrived. The Indians knew how to build canals and direct water to feed their towns. Phoenis lies where the Gila and Salt River come together in a lowland.

Of course money, people, communication, and resources don't travel by rail, telegraph, and stagecoach, however the initial growth long ago era did set a trajectory. Once a town has an locational advantage, it will get bigger, then even when that advantage is not longer relevant that town is already bigger and will attract for business and industry, which will then in turn by the logical place for universities, other corporations and banks, etc.

I'm tired now, and will be going to bed soon. Don't mean to sound like a know-it-all, but the point is that there are always specific reasons, why one place become bigger than another. And its not just because its more popular or whatever.