California Dreaming . . . NOT!

Growing up in San Diego in the ’50s and ’60s, I developed a pretty significant level of contempt for Los Angeles.

We San Diegans viewed California’s largest city as a vast wasteland comprised of hundreds of neighborhoods, suburbs and connected cities that, as the song goes, “are all made out of ticky-tack and all look just the same.”

Los Angeles had gangs and ghettos; it had gridlock and crowded… everything; it had big government and big business; and it had smog.

When you looked up “urban sprawl” in the dictionary you found a map of “the Southland.”

From our vantage point 120 miles to the south— the land of blue skies, open roads, diverse neighborhoods and friendly people— our communities and our lifestyles were as different from Los Angeles as night and day.

Fast-forward a half-century.

Today, distinctions between San Diego and Los Angeles are rather subtle. Camp Pendleton continues to provide a buffer, at least along the coast, but it now separates very similar landscapes.

From San Ysidro to Oceanside and then from San Clemente to Ventura, we now see a repeating urban pattern reflecting little or no creative planning for commercial or residential development. And this makes up just the southern third of what has been projected to become a solid block of communities stamped out of the L.A. mold— a block extending from the Bay Area to the Mexican border: “San-San.”

Today, I’m 850 miles north of the City of Angels— in the heart of a state that has gone so far as to warn their neighbors to the south, “Don’t Californicate Oregon.”

Strong sentiments. Perhaps the author of this crude admonition took note of what has happened to San Diego over the past half-century.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The world outside of Southern California has not been unaffected. The inevitable collection of name-brand eateries and other places of commerce have invaded intersections throughout the nation— and evidence indicates that the impact is worldwide.

And the huge homebuilding corporations that have made so many billions of dollars along California’s south coast are applying the same design and building techniques to the far corners of the nation – perhaps of the world.

The mall wasn’t invented in California, nor were other elements of city planning (perhaps more properly labeled “non-planning”) that have created that “been-there, done-that” feeling that seems to repeat every 20 blocks or so.

No doubt many of the influences that have transformed the landscape have origins outside the Golden State and simply multiplied more quickly in that consumer-rich Petri dish.

This point can be supported by mentioning a single company: Starbuck’s. Query to Oregon: How’d you let that little rascal slip through to California?

Well, if I’m sounding a bit defensive for my home state, don’t be deceived. I’m on the side of the traditionalists. When towns and cities look different from one another, they’re more interesting— and it’s easier to tell them apart.

I’m hoping that the farther I travel from La-La Land the more different things will seem. By the time I get to Montreal the transformation may be complete.

So, hooray for Central Oregon! Though inroads have been made by the MacWhosits and the Bed, Bath and Whatevers, here differences are still more common than are similarities.

Vive les différences.