[quote=bearishgurl]
CA coastal counties were never “set up” in the first place to attract the country’s masses of low and moderate income residents. That’s what CA’s inland counties (and NV/AZ?) are for.
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I’m pretty sure that no modern city was ever set up to handle more than 2 million people except for Brasília. Cities evolve and adapt. Some better than others.
I understand your hate of CFD’s and that process. I can’t argue with you, you know a lot more about it than I do. (Though I think you believe that it is a primary cause of California housing problems, and that can’t possibly be true. If it was, Vegas, Phoenix, and much of Florida wouldn’t have had any problems.) There have been countless mistakes by city planners with respect to CFD’s, but I think blaming the process is misguided. In theory, they still make a lot of sense. It’s the practice that need improvement.
I’m a bit surprised by your elitist attitude. The growth of San Diego during the 2nd half of the last century was driven by median income homeowners. They filled Clairemont and created the commercial district in Kearny Mesa, and then Allied Gardens and later San Carlos, as well as the bedroom cities of Chula Vista, National City, La Mesa and Lemon Grove . That wasn’t an accident. It was by design, to attract moderate income homeowners.
You can argue that many of the newer developments in the last 30 years in Chula Vista, in the north county coastal cities, in north county inland in RB & Poway and PQ targeted some higher end buyers, but none of those areas were exclusively higher end (with the exception of CV). RB if you recall, was originally planned as a retirement community. That pretty quickly fizzled, but if I remember correctly it included the first PUD in the state.
You can whine about growth all you want. I grew up in San Diego. I remember when there was almost nothing but cows in Mission Valley. And where Fashion Vally Mall now stands, there was a brand new 8,000 seat baseball park. A lot has changed since then. But San Diego and other CA coastal cities aren’t attractive to people as a destination by accident. People WANT to live in SD. You can’t keep them out unless your goal is to drive major employers out. And that bus left a long time ago.
