You should see it now. Back in the 80's there was one parking lot (with meters), one place to hang out and have a beer overlooking the runway (singular), and you had to walk out to your plane.
Now it looks like LAX, and the planes come screaming in over the 405 freeway. It looks sometimes like they're going to puddle jump off the tops of cars, they're so close.
I love flying out of John Wayne.
Its noise restrictions are fun, the people who bought houses near the airport don't want noise (of course they should know..). The take off consists of sitting on the end of the runway, full brakes, engines in full rev, then you zoom down the runway, take off at a much higher angle than at most airports till you get a few thousand feet, and then.....
The engines throttle way back, for a moment you feel almost weightless (we would put our hands out in front and watch them go up), and you just lose altitude till you get over the ocean, and bam! Engines go back on, and you are on your way.
Best felt in the last row of an empty 757!
Both sides of that airport are right by the street. The far side has an industrial park where you can drive right up to the fence and watch them land. The runway is very close to the terminal.
Actually now that I think about it the end of the runway fence can be seen from the street that goes by there, I can't remember the name any more. There's not much they can do to change that either except move the airport. And, they have tried that already. It was proposed to move it to El Toro when the Marine Base closed, but the citizens of Mission Viejo won the battle and that area will become houses/condos/offices/shopping etc.