Los Angeles Spills Into The Mojave
Residents of the largely rural communities along the Cajon Pass, which connects the desert plateau to the Inland Empire and the rest of Los Angeles, lament the region's accelerating growth and loss of open space.
Growth is spilling beyond suburbs and up and over the San Bernardino Mountains and into the Mojave, with more than 300,000 people now residing in the so-called Victor Valley. They come for big houses on big lots that cost about $300,000 --dirt-cheap by Southern California standards -- and to flee dystopian life "down the hill" in the Los Angeles Basin.
But development has triggered a new kind of sagebrush rebellion. Progress has brought sushi bars, Starbucks and chain restaurants to what was once jackrabbit country." Residents of ranch style communities worry "that development is subverting the reason many of them moved there in the first place", and are fighting the construction of new subdivisions.
"Growth is also creating new urban problems that high desert residents thought they left behind when they moved here." Crime is up, and traffic congestion has increased dramatically due to commuters heading to jobs in Los Angeles and Orange County.
"There are people who live in our city who don't see their homes in daylight except for the weekend," said David Reno, principal planner for Hesperia.
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This isn't new news
The spillover through the Cajon Pass into the high desert of urban Los Angeles has been going on for about 25 years now. It's the same pattern of sprawl associated with that metropolis that consumed other rural communities long ago - starting with the foothill cities of the San Gabriel Valley and the citrus centers of Orange County.
Portland, Oregon is looking at another way, and has been for the past 25 years as well. I would suggest that the rest of the country, and the people of the Victor Valley, look to the north, to stop the continuation of the land use carnage of Los Angeles.
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