Posted on 08/11/2004 2:13:23 AM PDT by Lorianne
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Richard Nixon was born 22 miles from this historic, graceful city. As president and a Southern Californian, Nixon saw the threat posed by a rapidly growing population. He warned Congress in 1969 that if America continued to expand at current rates, the nation's "social supplies — the capacity to educate youth, to provide privacy and living space, to maintain the processes of open, democratic government — may be grievously strained."
It's probably just as well that Nixon isn't around to see what has happened since. The population of California has grown 70 percent. Here in Riverside County, it has tripled. And the Riverside-San Bernardino area ranks No. 1 in Smart Growth America's sprawl index. The Southern California Association of Governments expects the region to add 1.56 million people between 2000 and 2020 — rivaling the growth expected for all of Georgia or Washington state.
It's also a good thing that Nixon isn't hearing today's political debate. While the people of California, Colorado and other fast-sprawling states obsess over their population explosions, neither President Bush nor John Kerry has a word to say on the matter.
In Nixon's day, most population fears centered on how many children the massive baby-boom generation would have. Today, the key factor in population growth is immigration. Both parties think an honest discussion of the subject will cost them the Latino vote (even though Hispanics themselves are highly conflicted on the issue).
Besides, environmental groups are not pressing them. The Sierra Club, for one, remains frozen in cowardice. Its official position on immigration is that it has no position.
In Southern California, a surging population has aggravated congestion and forced housing prices to astronomical levels along the coast. This has set off an amazing movement of working people out of Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties. Some have gone to Colorado, Nevada and the Northwest, causing new sprawl in those places. And many others have simply moved inland.
Newcomers to the "Inland Empire" do get a break on the coast's high house prices, but certainly not on its bad air. On most days, a brown haze darkens the mountain views. And commuters to Los Angeles and San Diego face harrowing traffic jams. Meanwhile, suburban development now threatens to cut off the wildlife in the Joshua Tree National Park from the surrounding mountains.
There are "smart growth" advocates who think that better land-use policies can help the nation accommodate more people while controlling sprawl. But even good planning — and there's precious little of that — can't hold back sprawl when people arrive in tidal-wave numbers. Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, has worked really hard to control growth, but its efforts are crumbling under the onslaught of people leaving Los Angeles.
For voters who care about this, the choices are pretty dismal. Benjamin Zuckerman, vice president of Californians for Population Stabilization, finds both Kerry and Bush to be "about equally bad" on immigration. However, the UCLA professor of astronomy prefers a Kerry presidency for strategic reasons. A lot of conservative Republicans who want less immigration have held their tongues, lest they be seen opposing their president, Zuckerman explains. "It would probably be better for Kerry to be in office, because that would give some Republicans a chance to say what they actually believe."
And on global population, Zuckerman sees Kerry as head and shoulders above Bush. Kerry would reverse the Bush administration's "gag rule," whereby the United States denies funds to international family-planning groups that offer abortion services, counseling or referrals.
Whether they call themselves conservative, liberal or other, Southern Californians generally subscribe to a strong environmental ethic. It must pain people here to look upon their jammed-up freeways and ugly sprawl-scapes and see new losses pile up daily. But on the occasional good-air day, they can still gaze over the city's lovely old Spanish-style buildings and see the San Bernardino Mountains shimmering in clear focus. They still have much to save.
Richard Nixon said 35 years ago: "When future generations evaluate the record of our time, one of the most important factors in their judgment will be the way in which we responded to population growth." Nixon's contemporaries failed to act. That leaves Americans with one last chance to control the nation's population and preserve their quality of life.
Providence Journal columnist Froma Harrop's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is fharrop@projo.com
I'll take the BIg Apple any day over LA LA land.
Here is an idea: Let the people decide where to live and how many kids to have.
If you think the city is too big, move.
If we spaced everyone in this country out evenly we could fit everyone inside the state of Texas comfortably. Its a stupid idea, but it shows that there is a ton of empty space in this country.
Where do they get this from? The hispanics are flooding into this country and not one hispanic leader, and most of the all the rest, are saying anything against the unbridled illegal immigrants invading our country. In fact, Bush's proposed policies are encouragin it.
Actually, among the Hispanic rank and file, the author is correct. Talk to some who are long-time citizens or who took the trouble to come here legally. Many of them worked hard to learn English, build a business or learn a trade where they were earning, say $15 or $20 per hour. They are highly resentful of the line-jumpers who waltzed right in here to underbid them with the help of crooked employers and government benefits. I am personally acquainted with some right here in PA who left California for that very reason.
Unfortunately, it's too late to do anything about California. Personally, I'll make a last stand in Idaho.
Without immigration, the population of the USA would be about stable. In theory, that means not one more wooded lot or farmer's field would be needed to have a house or parking lot or street built on it. The Sierra Club cares more for their liberal democrat masters than they do about the environment...
Exactly. You're correct.
Sprawl is another stupid eco-fascist scare tactic to cram people into eco-concentration camps so they can be more easily controlled. Meanwhile, the Marxists will build dachas for themselves on the hills, mountains and lakes surounding the crammed cities.
The latest census lists only 3 to 4% of US land as urban.
Anyone who falls for the sprawl propaganda, including some freepers, are suffering from collectivist stupidity.
ping
Yes, but let's not. ;-)
What gets me is that developers in the High Desert have adopted the tactic of cramming as many houses on a parcel of land, as allowed. The houses are so close, you can hear your neighbor sneeze. No backyard to speak of. People are buying these houses, then commuting for 4 hours round trip, sometimes more, to get to work.
The land that people are talking about is Federally protected. It will stay barren and empty to protect kangaroo rats and desert tortoises. BLM, the AQMD, and others are preventing industries from locating their plants there. So, you still get pollution from the commuters. Ah well, just more idiocy.
Help, I'm suffering from collective stupidity. It's not just about enough space to house people, it's also about enough arable land needed to support meat and vegetable requirements for every individual. We also have to protect a certain percentage of forests to maintain a balanced, self-cleansing atmosphere, especially important while the Amazon forests continue getting cleared to provide areas to grow coca plants (did you know those people down there are using unprocessed cocaine as currency? It's true.). Clean air doesn't come from nothing, it's recycled.
The environmentalists do us all a terrible disservice with their exaggerations because the backlash leads us to disregard the basic scientific maintenance of our resources. The Sierra Club knows fully well how much damage the illegal immigrants are wreaking on the land - not only while getting here but also by their tendency to litter and trash once in place. This behavior is like an acquaintance borrowing your car - he won't take proper care of it because it's not his. I, for one, have no use for creatures so willing to foul their nests (and mine by proximity).
How many thousands of acres would you like to grow veggies and crops on? Tell me and I'll set up a meeting with willing sellers of fallow farmland.
The Brazilian Amazon rainforest is not in danger of extensive deforestation. Only 5% of the Amazon has been deforested and legislation is in place to control the type of development that took place a decade or more ago. It's all eco-fascist propaganda.
http://www.greenspirit.com/key_issues/the_log.cfm?booknum=6
ps - Cancel your subscription to Sierra Club magazine. You're wasting your money. And the trees used to publish their propaganda could be better used as a wood product by someone building a house or business.
It's not as empty as it might look. For one someone owns all that "empty" space --- much of the empty space is actually ranchland --- if you eat meat you should appreciate that. Some of it is quite arid --- for example in West Texas, there is a serious problem with not enough water for the extremely fast population growth.
How much of our population growth is now with welfare mothers or those parents who have no health insurance? In Texas child poverty rates are very high and growing and there are heated battles going on about "robin hood" school funding and all that.
Free markets, if the people go there, the water etc will follow.
That's not happening --- they're prohibiting lawns and thinking of outlawing swimming pools. Apparently rivers and lakes don't understand that free market idea and the people who are coming are poverty stricken from Mexico.
Oh really?
Then send that water to Arizona. We (in the West) are smack in the middle of a 10 year drought and are hard pressed for water. But it hasn't deterred the unbridled growth here.
The free market of housing and growth has been spinning out of control here for at least 10 years, and our desert resources are running thin. You have a secret you want to share?
I seriously doubt that this is in the majority.
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