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Having interviewed not a few of the very first urban planners (from UC Santa Cruz) in California, several well established developers, and real numerous estate people while writing my book, I learned that they all think that they are using each other. It's a constant struggle for control with the landowners in the middle, and eventually becomes a lose/lose game for all concerned. The longer it runs, the more corrupt it gets as the tax base shrivels, employment disappears, and a srinking cadre of the very well connected plays musical chairs with what is left.

The budget of the County of Santa Cruz is now over $400,000,000 for a county of 250,000 people, and they think that they are a poor county! Much of it goes for mental health and disability. The phone book of departments reads like a swill of every politically correct fantasy imaginable. You should see the infrastructure, the place is falling apart (especially roads). The forests are a firebomb. The meadows are over-run with weeds. It's pretty for now (as long as you don't know what you are looking at), but the piper will have to be paid eventually and it won't be cheap.