All of these “interconnected” problems all at once! The report doesn’t state why this is happening to Southern California specifically. I wonder if there is some factor not mentioned in the report?
Posted on 02/04/2005 2:47:02 PM PST by television is just wrong
SoCal's report card not golden
By Kerry Cavanaugh, Staff Writer
With soaring housing costs, bad schools, horrendous traffic jams and a dearth of well-paying jobs, Southern California's once-golden lifestyle continues to dim, a scorecard released Thursday by the regional planning agency shows.
The seventh annual State of the Region report by the Southern California Association of Governments ranks the quality of life in the region as a D-plus --potentially failing.
Housing and air quality worsened in 2003, while the grades for traffic, education, household income and public safety remained static. And while the number of jobs in the six-county region rose by 14,000, personal income for its 17.7 million residents stayed flat.
"The fundamental issue this region faces ... is the income issue. Without an increase in wages and per capita income we're not going to have the resources to deal with these issues," said Mark Pisano, executive director of SCAG.
The report details a slate of interconnected problems plaguing Southern California.
Students perform below the national median on reading and math test scores, while 76 percent of residents do not have a college degree -- elements that limit their ability to get high-paying jobs.
Meanwhile, an exodus of well-paying manufacturing jobs to less-expensive areas have been replaced by lower-paying service jobs. With less wealth, residents have to travel to far-flung suburbs to be able to afford a home, which then worsens congestion and pollution.
"How do you get out of this Catch-22?" asked Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Burke. "We need better schools (in urban areas) so people won't have to move so far away and housing people can afford so they don't have to move so far away."
Southern California's housing earned a D: the worst score since the SCAG report card was launched.
The value of construction permits hit $15.5 billion in 2003, but still didn't keep up with growth and demand. From 2000-03, the region issued 200,000 building permits, but the population grew by 1 million.
That led to dramatic increases in the cost of housing, with prices jumping up to 30 percent in 2003. The median price at the end of that year was $417,500, according to the California Association of Realtors, and had soared to $474,480 by December 2004.
Only 26 percent of households in Los Angeles and 20 percent of households in Orange County could afford a median-priced home in 2003. Even the Inland Empire became more pricey, with only 38 percent of households able to buy a median-priced home compared with 43 percent in 2002.
"The issue of housing affordability, availability and accessibility goes to the core of our long-term economic health and quality of life," said Toni Young, who sits on the Port Hueneme City Council and is SCAG's first vice president.
"Virtually nothing is more sacred than the home, which in Southern California, is becoming more and more difficult to attain each year."
SCAG officials said they are trying to tackle housing and related issues of traffic and air quality with the "2 percent strategy" -- a planning vision adopted last year that calls for more condominiums, townhouses and denser development close to transit lines.
analyzing development opportunity along major bus and train corridors, SCAG officials estimate they could build 400,000 more units.
Their goal is to move jobs closer to homes and homes closer to jobs. So far the cities of Ontario, South Pasadena and communities along the Gold Line have expressed interest in adopting that plan, Pisano said.
-- Kerry Cavanaugh can be reached at (818) 713-3746 or by e-mail at kerry.cavanaugh@dailynews.com
To think this is the state that USED to be Republican and was home for the Reagans. It makes me sick. The golden state is TARNISHED. Cannot go to the beaches anymore, crime is too high, gangs run rampant, and with Special order #40 thanks to Los Angeles City council, Immigration haven it is.
With apologies to Yogi Berra, "Nobody wants to move to So Cal these days... cuz everyone is moving there".
Thank you so much, leftists.
Get rid of the homebuilding regulations and the traffic will get worse (if that is possible). If things are so lousy why are housing prices going UP? Maybe not a great deal to be in SoCal, but for all you folks dealing with snow up to your booties - enjoy it! I'm going to the beach. Schools are lousy, but IMO, the biggest reason for that is that 40% of the students don't speak english as a first language. Who is minding the borders GW? Our president wants California to have a foreign aid program for Mexico. GRRRRR.
You think high housing prices are good ? Wait until the next next housing downturn or the next earthquake. So many people are going to be upside down in their mortgages it is going to make your head spin. Buy low, sell high !
All of these “interconnected” problems all at once! The report doesn’t state why this is happening to Southern California specifically. I wonder if there is some factor not mentioned in the report?
"..Students perform below the national median on reading and math test scores,.."
Not good to be underqualified, yet want a highly paid job.
The secret to living in such an area, is to not have to commute. Ideally one would work and live in the nicer areas.
And there are many of them, often near the Pacific Ocean. Also many of the inland hill communities.
How you look at housing prices depends a lot on your situation. I own several homes and bought them years ago. I do have a LOT of sympathy for the younger folks - it is very hard for them to buy now and in many cases impossible. How do we fix that? Reduce demand (maybe possible on the margin if we are willing to send our resident Mexican citizens home) or increase supply (I can get behind that if done right).
It is not politically correct to state the obvious cause - GW and his DemocRATic buddies want the US to import poverty in the form of low wage workers from Mexico. The decline in California's economics has many causes, but a major factor is illegal immigration - and not politician left or right is going to do much about it until we make it impossible for them not to. Something like 40% of all students in public schools do not speak english at home. Yikes!
hell I can't even buy a house here and I am not a young kid either, and rent's are not cheap either, and I just got a job promation and a raise, and I still can't buy a house. Need more housing not less.
Thomas Sowell has done some great writing on this issue. I understand where you are coming from - we better elect more Republicans.
I do have a LOT of sympathy for the younger folks
- it is very hard for them to buy now and in many cases impossible.
How do we fix that? Reduce demand (maybe possible on the margin if we are willing to send our resident Mexican citizens home)
Just out of curiosity, where do you see these houses going? It's not like there are vast tracts of farmland in the L.A. basin. At this point, you're looking at steep, fire-prone mountainsides, out in the desert somewhere facing a two hour commute each way, or increasing density.
More power to you. I wish folks like you would stay here to improve the politics of the PRK, but the plain facts are that at some point in your life you MUST buy a home - even if it means moving out of state to do so.
These are the same morons that wanted to charge California drivers for the amount of miles they drove per week. I wouldn't put much faith in anything they say....
The actual report: The State of the Region 2004 does detail the demographic changes, but at least in its Executive Summary doesn’t make the connection between the demographic changes and the catastrophe it catalogs.
Excerpts:
In 2003, the SCAG region continued to grow significantly faster than the rest of the state and the nation, accounting for more than 10 percent of the total population growth in the nation.
It also continued its demographic transformation. …In the year 2003, the SCAG region continued its significant growth with an increase of almost 300,000 people, reaching over 17.7 million. Total growth in the region accounted for 56 percent of the growth in the state and 10 percent of the growth in the nation, since 1998, the region has continued to grow at faster rates than the rest of the state and the nation.
As to the sources of population growth, 48 percent was due to natural increase, an estimated 41 percent from foreign-immigration, and 11 percent from domestic immigration.
…net migration to the coastal counties (particularly Los Angeles) consisted primarily of recent foreign immigrants, net migration to the Inland Empire was primarily domestic migrants.
The demographic transformation process in the region continued through 2003 particularly with respect to ethnic composition. Population increases in 2003 continued to be almost exclusively among Hispanics and Asians. During 2002 and 2003, the non-Hispanic White population share fell below half of the total for the first time in Orange and Riverside counties, joining Imperial, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.
Yes, but you can see flowers and do some outdoor BBQ during winter, or so I'm told fairly frequently.
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