The Death Of Our Coastal Towns

When you grow up along the sparkling Southern California coastline, one of the most difficult things you can do is attempt to solicit sympathy from anyone in the world. Beautiful beaches, moderate temperatures, amazing quality of life, and a pretty chill attitude across the board, all make everyone in every other part of the world think you’d never have a care. For some, it is a life of economically based privilege, but for most, it is a life of hard work that yields worthwhile rewards.

But, when you grow up in the beautiful little coastal towns of Southern California, one of the most-desired places to live in the world, one of the saddest things you witness year after year is the eventual and permanent transformation of those towns into a place that is unrecognizable from the one you loved so dearly while growing up.

Towns grow, landscapes change, small businesses close and city governments change from focusing on maintaining an enjoyable life for citizens to attracting more tax revenue and tourism dollars.

Local, long-time residents are pushed out as they seek to re-find the quaint little towns that have been pulled out from underneath their feet by the passage of time. Streets and neighborhoods are transformed from sleepy, cozy, little burgs with character to bustling, big box, trendy cities with urban flair. And sadly, avoiding busy areas filled with tourists grows from a summertime chore to a year-round endeavor.

But perhaps the worst aspect for those who grew up in this paradise is watching these beloved towns commit cultural suicide. You see quaint downtown streets lined with small houses and mom-and-pop shops where locals congregate turned into multi-story urban apartment complexes with underground parking garages and first-floor brand name retail outlets. Cultural uniqueness and flavor is slowly and methodically replaced by uniformed, trendy urbania.

So, if it’s not the residents who want this change, then why is town after town falling victim to this urban sprawl? It is a two-pronged attack from the government-industrial complex. City governments that need to bring in more revenue to support a growing population and urban developers who want to make the most profit from increasingly valuable coastal land are joining forces, and there is no doubt that, willingly or not, they are destroying the character of Southern California’s coastal towns.

I call it cultural suicide because residents of the community that serve in local government or own or work for the development companies are committing the act of destroying these cities from within. Whether knowingly or not, these people are killing the culture and character of the communities that surround them.

The suicide starts with one or two local businesses, spreads down the street, begins to consume entire neighborhoods, and then, eventually spreads throughout the entire town. Local governments seeking more revenue raise the rents on government properties, forcing the local businesses that occupy those government properties to shut their doors or move. Increased rents on government property lead to increased rent on private property, and the local businesses that occupy those private properties shut their doors or move. The government land is sold to make even more revenue and the private buildings are gutted and torn down, then replaced with bigger, more sterile buildings with less culture but more space that can be rented at a higher cost to larger corporations that can afford the higher rents. This urban sprawl spreads like an incurable virus until its host no longer resembles its former self.

I recently read a fantastically written article from a locally focused online news and interest rag called Thrillist that really drove this point home. The article was about a well-known restaurant at the Santa Monica Airport that was forced out of business by the City of Santa Monica as part of that local government’s efforts to close the iconic general aviation airport and its businesses. The forced closing of the airport and its businesses, like this restaurant, will deal a definitive blow to the local culture and long-time patrons of these businesses as the city guns to fill up its coffers with the inevitable millions it will gain by selling the land on which the airport sits to developers who will no doubt sweep in and build yet another array of those multi-story earth-toned, wood and metal accented, five-story apartment buildings with underground garages and first-floor name brand retailers that I mentioned earlier.

And much like the Los Angeles of old that we only see in movies, old photographs, and our dreams, the airport that has served local aviators from Hollywood stars to the most anonymous among us, will soon be just a memory. The restaurant, called Typhoon, had a single owner, a local businessman who spent a good portion of his life serving amazing cuisine, supporting the local jazz scene, and providing a place that pilots around the world will still talk about for years now that it’s gone. Why did is this restaurateur call it quits, even while his establishment flourished? The City of Santa Monica raised his rent by 200% because they wanted him, his long-time patrons, and the culture and flavor of the Santa Monica of yesteryear gone. To them, it is a small price to pay to keep the city government afloat.

The city needs money and urban developers are chomping at the bit to get that airport land, and sadly, in Southern California these days, that is all that matters to city government and urban developers. Local culture, flavor, long-time residents, long-time family businesses, and the heart and soul of the communities can all be damned!

And this is just one establishment inside one historic Southern California coastal town and iconic location. This is just one of many thousands of places that are, or soon will be, long gone, never to return.

One such other iconic feature of these costal towns that is changing forever is the pierside main street that once housed local mom-and-pop restaurants and a slew of boutique specialty and surf shops. And nowhere has Main Street and its surrounding area gone through a more gut-wrenching overhaul than in Huntington Beach, or Surf City as it is called in the onslaught of tourism marketing materials.

Those of us who grew up in Huntington Beach from the 50s to the 80s enjoyed a colorful and diverse row of one-story shops and restaurants that lined a quiet little street that was overly busy only a few select hours a week and during the peak of summer traffic. We enjoyed small mom-and-pop shops and a quiet local scene of local surfers and beachgoers. But then, the big construction cranes and land developers came in and the Main Street and surrounding area that we knew and loved was changed forever. Today, the quaint little pierside area we loved is gone, replaced by multi-story condos, brand name retail chains, and sprawling hotel complexes.

Locals once spent lazy weekend mornings beachside having breakfast and enjoying early dinners. Now, if you’re a local resident, there is a good tourist-filled four or five months in which you don’t even bother trying to get down there, if you even bother trying at all. For those of us who grew up in the area and spent a good chunk of our childhood there, it is so sad to no longer be able to enjoy the places you love because they are either so crowded, or worse, just gone.

Locals who have had enough can do little but move on to quieter areas or quieter towns and hope that the government-industrial complex will not overrun their new home just as quickly. And this pattern is going to continue to spread and grow. Trendy urbanites will rush in and the long-time residents who built our coastal towns with years of hard work will rush out, heading north, south, or inland, attempting to recapture their quaint little towns somewhere else.

For now, we watch the mom-and-pop shops come down, and watch the ever-taller, ever more sprawling hotels, retail centers, and apartment and condo complexes go up, remembering a time when our towns belonged to us, the folks that built them.

Photo by William L. Savastano

Obama Deserves A Little Praise, But Let's Not Get Carried Away Here...

Polls show 47% of Americans agree with America's action in Libya. I, however, would like to have seen a number of things done differently. I would like to have seen the President and the world community act just a little sooner, though in the end, I do not think this is going to have made a significant difference, but a life saved by earlier action is just that.

I also did not agree with the fact that we were not publicly calling for the ouster of Qaddafi from the start, but were simply saying that we were in the action to save civilian lives. This created some confusion and served to inspire Qaddafi and his loyalists early on in the engagement, most likely leading to additional fighting that may have been avoided.

This morning it is being reported that both the U.S. and U.K. have said officially that we are willing to accept the exile of Qaddafi from Libya without him standing trial for his terrorist activities and his brutal rule of the Libyan people over the past 40 years. I must admit that I find myself disappointed at this news. While ending the conflict earlier is a great thing, we also should be mindful of letting someone who has committed such atrocities simply retire and grow old somewhere; something his victims never got the chance to experience.

And while the Fence-Sitter-in-Chief is actually garnering some decent numbers on Libya, there is still a lot for him not to be smiling about. Oil prices are on the rise because of speculation in the market driven by Middle East "turmoil", the U.S. housing marketing is still in the shitter (sorry, there isn't a nicer way of putting it), and while we may be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, the economy as a whole is still in really bad shape.

The country is in debt way ABOVE our eyeballs and we are continuing to borrow more and more. The dollar gets weaker and weaker, buys us less and less and the cost of everything is going up. Don't get me wrong, good job on standing up for Libya and way to show some strength and some pride, and maybe even a slight belief that America should be leading the world towards democracy and freedom, but after two years in office, I still feel that we have seen some pretty lackluster results for the most part.

Will Negative CPI Result In Lower Property Taxes? Not If Taxifornia Can Help It...

Whether or not you are a homeowner, you probably hear quite a bit about Proposition 13. Did you know that Prop 13 says your property tax cannot go up more than 2% per year, no matter how high inflation gets? Since Prop 13 was passed in 1978, inflation has usually been higher than 2%, so California homeowners have come to expect their 2% per year increase in their property taxes.

The only divergence from 2% was in 1999 when the Consumer Price Index (CPI) went up 1.85% and in 2004 when the CPI went up 1.86%.

We may, however, be looking at brand new ground for Proposition 13 this year. The CPI calculation year runs November to October, and is currently running a negative amount for the year so far. While the language of Prop 13 does not address negative inflation, logic would dictate that if a 2% gain results in a 2% increase, a 2% decline should result in a 2% decrease.

Good news, right? It would be except, everything that I am reading is saying that the State of Taxifornia is just not going to allow that to happen. There is no official word from the State Taxislature or Board Of Taxilization at this point, but be ready for some property tax controversy once the CPI year officially closes at the end of October.

Back In 1904...

Back in 1904...

...the average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.
...only 14% of U.S. homes had a bathtub.
...only 8% of U.S. homes had a telephone.
...a 3-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.
...there were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
...the maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 miles per hour.
...Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.
...California was only the 21st most populous state with a mere 1.4 million residents.
...the tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
...the average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour.
...the average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
...a competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
...more than 95% of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
...90% of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard".
...sugar cost four cents a pound.
...eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
...coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
...most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
...Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.
...the five leading causes of death in the U.S. were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza, 2. Tuberculosis, 3. Diarrhea, 4. Heart disease, 5. Stroke.
...the American flag had 45 stars.
...Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.
...the population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was 30.
...crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented yet.
...there was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
...20% of U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.
...only 6% of all Americans had graduated high school.
...marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
...18% of households in the U.S had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
...there were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.
...letters could take months to travel the world. This information came to me in an "electronic" mail, "copied and pasted" by me into a "software program" on a "computer" and delivered to you via the World Wide Web that involves no paper, writing, or teamsters (who drove horses in 1904), in just a couple of seconds...try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years...