San Diego Union-Tribune - April
17, 2008
Leaders learn how to fix
local ailments
By Logan Jenkins
he
best thing that could happen to San Diego is a 30 percent cut in housing
prices,” Los Angeles-based futurist Joel Kotkin told a breakfast meeting of
North County's only certified leaders Tuesday.
Well, happy days are near again.
A new survey shows the region's median housing price is down 19 percent
from a year ago. The bursting bubble could put us within reach of Kotkin's
fundamental precondition for renaissance.
Kotkin, author of “The City: A Global History,” dispensed a long list of
prescriptions to the freshly formed Leadership North County Alumni Group, a
diverse assembly of graduates of two local programs – the late Leadership
2000 and the current Leadership North County – that span two decades.
Highlights:
Healthy cities don't lure the middle class; they create it. If newcomers
cannot even aspire to home ownership and all that it entails, cities might
as well pull up the drawbridge and wait to die of loneliness or old age.
(Your children and grandkids may visit from someplace like Austin, Texas,
but they won't live and work anywhere near you.)
Upward mobility, the lifeblood of cities, requires an affordable American
dream, which is becoming more of a reality every day. Job One: Educate youth
for real jobs, including the manual trades. Job Two: Welcome, don't
reflexively fight, business investment, even if it's in your own backyard.
Bricks and mortar, then art. The load-bearing pillars of civilization –
roads, hospitals, schools, libraries, hotels, energy plants – precede
luxuries such as art centers. Without world-class aqueducts, no roads would
have led to Rome.
“So many hard-hit communities say, 'We're going to open an art gallery or
performing arts center and that will solve our problems,' ” Kotkin said.
“Meanwhile, schools are falling apart, roads aren't working. The arts are an
expression of prosperity, not the other way around.”
(Oh, Escondido. If only you understood then – in the 1980s – what you
fear today. Did you put the cart before the white elephant?)
Suburban villages rule. An unapologetic booster of “smart sprawl,” Kotkin
doesn't buy the trendy wisdom that a large segment of Americans wants to
move downtown and live in lofts. Ninety-two percent of recent growth has
been in the suburbs, Kotkin reminded.
Downtowns here and around the world are struggling to retain their
populations. The hip urban scene works for young singles until the baby
arrives. Even gay couples prefer square footage and a yard, Kotkin said.
The contemporary ideal is to transform suburbs into a sustainable
“archipelago” of villages with single-family homes. This is what Americans
desire, not condos and townhomes shoehorned into a congested downtown that
doesn't even offer as many jobs as it used to. Instead of fighting this
human appetite, one that includes most retirees, take heart and build on it,
Kotkin suggested.
(Consider San Elijo Hills in San Marcos. Its village square looks like a
movie set, but it sure works on a Mayberry level. Mature suburban
neighborhoods could be re-imagined with tiny Main Streets to keep residents,
many of whom are working at home, closer to home. Good for the blood
pressure – and the environment.)
Pat Brown got it right; Jerry Brown gets it wrong. In the late '50s and
early '60s, Pat Brown, whom Kotkin calls one of his heroes, initiated a host
of public projects, including the California Aqueduct. He spearheaded a
master plan for public education. He doubled the state's highways.
Since those bright-green salad days, California has been rotting from
under-investment and over-regulation, Kotkin believes. Back in the recession
of the early '90s, Gov. Pete Wilson liked to call California a “job-killing
machine.” The guillotine remains well-oiled, in Kotkin's view.
Kotkin sees Pat's son, Jerry – former governor, current state attorney
general and possible gubernatorial candidate in 2010 – as the human symbol
of the regulatory micromanaging that bleeds the state – and, by extension,
its cities – of vitality. “Jerry's jihad is coming up,” Kotkin predicted.
After Kotkin's hourlong lecture in Carlsbad, the hundred-strong assembly
of North County leaders broke into groups to identify the issues that cry
out for solutions.
First on most lists was education: how to make it relevant to every North
County student's success in life. Singled out for special praise was the
Kalamazoo Promise, a program that guarantees a free college tuition to every
qualified student in the small Michigan city.
Other crying North County needs were health care, water supply and
transportation. (Unsurprisingly, art centers weren't mentioned.)
Call it the Kotkin Paradox: With housing prices boring through the floor,
the timing may be right for North County's matriculated leaders to make –
and deliver on – promises as singular as Kalamazoo's.
“We are going to become the most powerful and influential group in San
Diego County,” Steve Kildoo, San Marcos planning commissioner and
co-chairman of the alumni event, pledged to his fellow graduates. “And we're
going to spend the next five years proving it.”
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