Sociology of Place the California Coast Term Paper

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Sociology of California

Department of Finance reported that California had 532,000 more people at the end of 2003 (Fulton 2004) than at the start of the said year. Nothing was new about population increase in the state since the Great Depression and World War II, during which the population added half a million people every year, growing from 6 to 40 million today. There are no indications that the increase would be halted or altered.

But the noticeable changes have been in the locations and the way California's people live. Some go back to the old suburban style, while the rest of the trend shows California as continuing to grow into an urban society (Fulton). The Bay area's nine counties account for less than half (3.3%) of the entire state's average growth at 6.7% and places like Contra Costa and Sonoma counties have chosen the suburban style of growth. In the meantime, the Department estimated that the majority need more housing units in the state and that, since the year 2000, 74% of those built were single-family homes. These units were built in large numbers in Riverside County and the Inland Empire in the 90s until they were replaced by multi-family condominiums and apartment buildings (Fulton).

With more than half a million people pouring into California every year in recent years, city officials and urban designers have begun working on master plan communities as the "smart solution" to ease the housing shortage (Vorderbrueggen 2004) and to maintain land preservation. The construction of 140,000 new homes every year still fell short of the demand by 80,000 of those apartments or single-family homes on smaller lots. Master planning is based on, and consists of, a whole life set-up where people can live, work, study, socialize and find entertainment all in one good environment, affordable and convenient. It provides business services, pedestrian amenities, and that sense of place that is very important for people (Vordenbrueggen). Examples of master plan communities are the 150-acre Rivermark, Shea Homes and Lennar Communities in Santa Clara and the 865-acre Evergreen Hills in Southeastern San Jose.

A new study on the social conditions of California found that its public policies - from property taxation and development fees to planning decisions - favor sprawl over smart growth (Vorderbrueggen).

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Preferred sprawl policies included infrastructure spending that subsidizes low densities, revenue development, and low-density zoning and wasteful subdivision standards. The study recommended the elimination of artificial financial impediments for compact housing, the adjustment of local fee structures and a fair market test for smart growth projects.

There have been criticisms hurled at the development of Los Angeles as a sprawl city and there have been responses and clarifications in defense, the bottom line being that sprawl is good (Gordon et al. 1997). Among the criticisms was that urban planning should slow down and that the prevailing patterns of urban settlement should change. Defenders of sprawl replied that markets rise because they give people what they already want or need, developers do not get rich by building projects that people do not like and that a city strengthens its tax base by promoting popular, profitable and well-located developments (Gordon et al.).

They also defended the position of LA in that it is not the sprawl capital of the world, rather, its urbanized area has the highest population density in the country, according to the U.S. Census, and higher than that of New York, Chicago and San Francisco, for its small-lot sizes, apartments and high-dwelling densities for mushrooming immigrant dwellers.

The trend is for people to choose to live away from commercial areas and into private spaces where single-family homes are made available by sprawl projects and convenient by mobility and accessibility by private automobile units (Gordon). It must, however, be noticed that the lifestyle is not peculiar to California or to the U.S. Nor imposed by adverse American policies, because sub-urbanization is global. It is also happening in Canada without mortgage interest tax deductions, in Seoul with….....

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