Why are California cities lacking in college graduates? Central Valley cities Stockton, Modesto, and Fresno are joined by a three-way tie between Riverside, San Bernadino and Ontario in Southern California.
The data comes from this interactive map from The Brookings Institution.
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The Effect of a Poorly-Regulated Transect
The problem with the Inland Empire is the effect the cars, the oil, and the freeways have had on suburbanizing and polluting what were originally self-contained cities. San Bernardino was the urban core in the region until Los Angeles and, to a lesser extent, San Diego sapped economic vitality from the area, which, during the latter half of the 19th Century and the first half of the 20th, was the home of choice for wealthy Easterners. Riverside, in fact, was the most affluent city in the entire country during much of that time.
Now, it's up to SCAG, the metropolitan-planning organization for the six-county region, to: better regulate the rural-to-urban Transect; implement Senate Bill 375, the landmark legislation that ties land-use planning, transportation policy, and transportation investment in order to reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled; regionalize air-travel demand and venture-capital availability; sharply reduce emissions, especially from activity at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach; and, subsidize better educational attainment, especially among residents who agree to live in the region and in the state for a specified period of time.
200-year-old San Bernardino, the oldest and densest city in the Inland Empire, is now pursuing a strategy developed by Vaughan Davies and a team from EDAW-AECOM to reposition the municipality to compete in the category of first-tier cities and to, thereby, regain the city's status as the primary economic engine for San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.
The plan is a well-conceived expression of New Urbanist principles on a scale unlike anything currently available in southern California, and the addition of the equivalent of two Chicagos to the SCAG region over the next 25 years offers many intriguing opportunities for fixing all six counties through Smart Growth investments in high-quality transit and infill development.