Din of Hammers, Oil Wells Signal Bakersfield Boom (CA)

ABC News ^ | December 29, 2012 | TRACIE CONE Associated Press

[Mark]

For most of its existence, Bakersfield has inhabited that awkward in-between place. Not as sophisticated as Los Angeles, just over the Tehachapi Mountains to the south, not as wealthy as its longtime economic rival Fresno, equidistant to the north.

Cheap land, affordable housing, proximity to Los Angeles, a location that's within a three-hour drive of 90 percent of the state's population, and a planning department that doesn't throw up roadblocks are driving the region's economic revolution, business leaders say.

[Mark]

a planning department that doesn't throw up roadblocks are driving the region's economic revolution, business leaders say.

[umgud]

Bakersfield and surrounding Kern County find themselves in lofty positions on key national lists measuring economic vitality: No. 1 metro area for long-term private sector job growth, No. 1 county for construction gains and No. 1 large metro area for annual economic growth.

Number 1 in issuance of CCW permits. Nearly shall issue. You can't get elected to county sheriff if you don't publicly campaign that you'll continue issuing CCW's.

[Argus]

We here trapped on the wrong side of the LA County line can only look to Kern Co. with envy.

[sheana]

I live in Kern County, Bakersfield specifically. This article is BS. Almost everyone I know has been laid off at least once in the last couple of years and every one I know that is working works for a company that is cutting back. The cost of living here is cheaper than LA but still expensive. My nephew was just laid off from an oil coompany. If he wants to continue working for them he has to move to Texas. They shut down his crew.
We are overrun with Mexicans and illegals. Parts of town look just like Mexico and you really shouldn’t go there. If you do be ready to duck. We have a huge gang problem and the police are so busy they won’t even come out unless someone is dieing. We are looking to get out ASAP.

[Mark]

Thanks for that info. It’s been a few years since I was visiting there and I was not impressed then.

[null and void]

ping

[Seizethecarp]

To bad the Brown gov’t will try to kill this oil industry expansion because it will cause “global warming”!

“Much of the boom Bakersfield is enjoying is because high oil prices and new technology for extraction have revived the $10 billion industry that seemed dried up 25 years ago when Kern County set out to diversity its economy and expand its tax base. Some estimates place up to 80 percent of California’s oil under Kern County soil, with an estimated 12 billion barrels trapped in shale, the largest deposit of any county in the nation. Today’s $100-a-barrell prices have inspired the innovation needed to extract it.”

[Argus]

We have all that plus high taxes.

[sheana]

Yep!

[tubebender]

Cheap land, affordable housing, proximity to Los Angeles, a location that's within a three-hour drive of 90 percent of the state's population, and a planning department that doesn't throw up roadblocks are driving the region's economic revolution, business leaders say.

The money line in Bold...