By: Svetlana Babaeva

We’re thrilled to once again showcase the impressive work of a GIS student from Santa Monica College! This time, we spotlight the exceptional talents of Svetlana Babaeva, whose dedication and analytical skill shine through in her latest project. Svetlana has taken on one of the most urgent and complex issues facing Californians today: the dramatic and ongoing rise in rent across Los Angeles County. With a sharp geographic lens and a commitment to uncovering meaningful insights, she’s mapped and analyzed this crisis with clarity and purpose. In her own words …

Los Angeles, often seen as a land of opportunity and the embodiment of the “California Dream,” drew me in 2019 with its vibrant cultural energy. However, I soon encountered the city’s harsh reality: a crushing housing crisis that personally affected me and nearly a third of my neighbors who spend over half their income on rent.

Understanding the Housing Crisis Through GIS

After five years of observing this crisis and studying geography at Santa Monica College, I realized my personal struggle was part of a larger issue impacting over 60% of Los Angeles County residents. This led me to create Rent Pressure in Los Angeles, a story map using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to pinpoint areas most affected by severe rent burdens. My spatial analysis highlighted central and downtown Los Angeles County as particularly vulnerable, prompting questions about the sustainability of living here. This project has significantly deepened my understanding of how geographic thinking and GIS can illuminate and address critical real-world issues beyond just housing. These patterns clearly warrant continued investigation within this area of study.

Acknowledgements

I am incredibly grateful to the Santa Monica College Geography Program for their exceptional guidance. Special thanks to Professor Jing Liu, whose five GIS courses and unwavering support were instrumental in developing this project and my forthcoming Geospatial Technology certificate. I also extend my sincere appreciation to Professor Robert O’Keefe for introducing me to critical geographic thinking, Professor Pete Morris for his insightful, multidisciplinary approach to California geography, and Professor William A. Selby for his inspiring presentations. Their combined contributions have provided an invaluable foundation and continue to inspire my geographic explorations.

Showcase Your Geographic Work on Rediscovering the Golden State: California Geography

Are you passionate about California’s landscapes, communities, or pressing challenges? Have you created maps, visualizations, research projects, or multimedia presentations that explore the geography of the Golden State? If so, we invite you to contribute to Rediscovering the Golden State: California Geography — an online platform dedicated to telling California’s story through a geographic lens.

We’re looking for student and faculty contributions that connect clearly to California — whether you’re examining climate change impacts, housing and rent patterns, water resources, wildfire dynamics, transportation systems, cultural diversity, immigration, or any number of issues shaped by place and space. Submissions can be analytical or creative, visual or written, but they must offer geographic insight into the state’s dynamic human or physical landscapes.

By sharing your work, you not only gain professional exposure but also help inform and inspire others to better understand California — its regions, its people, and the challenges it faces.

If you’re interested in being featured, or have a student whose work deserves a wider audience, we’d love to hear from you! Let’s rediscover the Golden State together, one geographic story at a time.

The post Rent Pressure in L.A first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

The development and use of affordable renewable energy and our increasingly more efficient use of resources is keeping tons of pollution out of our air, water, and soil, while saving Californians billions of dollars in the long run. Millions of people and entire ecosystems are healthier as California helps to lead the nation and the world toward a cleaner and more promising energy future. As the state’s per capita energy use and greenhouse gas production continues to decline, individuals, households, and businesses have discovered a treasure trove of long-term savings that can be routed to improve the quality of our living and working environments. But since the devil is often in the details, what are these sources of energy and how reliable are they?   

The Golden State is progressing toward a challenging goal of 100% “clean” electricity by 2045. But it is important to note that, by 2022, such “clean” sources (according to the California Energy Commission) included all renewables (39+%), large hydropower (≈11%), and what remains of nuclear (≈11%) in the state. Solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and small hydropower are considered renewables. But there’s something missing here that I’ll call small solar power (often referred to as passive), though it isn’t small at all, since it’s working for us everywhere on every day and it is the source of almost all the energy that surrounds us. 

The energy industry often divides active solar into two categories: solar thermal and solar photovoltaic. The larger projects have generated tons of controversy. For instance, the Ivanpah solar thermal facility, with a price tag of more than $2 billion, was touted as the world’s largest. You can’t miss it if you are driving through the Mojave Desert along Interstate 15 just before crossing into Nevada. This is where once wild open desert has been covered with giant mirrors to focus intense sunlight toward 450-foot towers where high temperature steam turbines generate electricity. The electricity is sold to you through companies such as PG&E and SCE, but millions of dollars of electricity are lost through wires transmitting it to distant urban centers. Meanwhile, the desert along Interstate 10 to Arizona is being covered with photovoltaic panels on BLM land that is now known as The Riverside East Solar Energy Zone. This includes the sprawling Chuckwalla Valley, which has become a sea of solar panels that has also been advertised as the largest such project in the world. In both of these gargantuan solar energy “farms”, enormous expanses of open public desert ecosystems have been sacrificed to gather and concentrate solar energy and convert it to electricity that then must be sent out to urban areas more than 100 miles distant.  

As with other major power plants, these solar “farms” come with plenty of baggage. Habitat destruction haunts each project. Thousands of birds and other wildlife have been unintentionally killed each year by these behemoth projects. Precious groundwater supplies have been threatened. Desert dwellers and cultures that include Native Americans have also been impacted.

Desert devotees wonder why more solar panels are not being installed on top of existing warehouses, parking structures, homes, and businesses, in urban areas where the energy is being used. Even when the cost of storage batteries is added to solar installations, the payoff time is often less than 10-15 years, when consumers begin getting their solar energy for free for the life of panels that can last more than 30 years. And when homes or businesses with existing solar systems are sold, the seller gets more than their investments back from the added sales prices. Those who don’t want to pay upfront costs and take responsibility for owning and maintaining their solar systems are enticed by lucrative leasing arrangements; customers benefit from less expensive energy after paying a monthly fee to the companies who own and lease out the systems. Millions of rooftops and other urban spaces (including those for vital battery storage) are still waiting to harvest and store otherwise wasted and increasingly competitive solar energy for the taking. So why aren’t more families and businesses being encouraged to make such smart investments in otherwise underused urban spaces that can guarantee long-term profits?

You can see why the chorus of concerned citizens and energy experts advocating for more efficient, local energy production is growing louder. They argue that many of the most competitive sources of future energy can be found on our roofs and in our cities where energy is used and that destroying distant public lands and ecosystems is not sustainable. They also argue that local energy issues and problems can be more efficiently addressed with local solutions that help consumers gain control of their power sources. Similar controversies have swirled around some of the ubiquitous wind turbines that have sprouted above rural and remote regions across the state. I address some of these issues in my new book, The California Sky Watcher.   

And that leads us to the simpler and more pragmatic sustainable energy solutions sometimes known as passive solar. They often involve common-sense and time-tested planning with nature in practical ways that will allow us to save money, gain control of our energy destiny, and improve the quality of our living and working environments. Such solutions have been under our noses and calling out to us all this time.  

Many of us have already discovered the advantages of greenhouses, skylights, sunroofs, and sunrooms that allow natural sunlight in, rather than relying on artificial energy-consuming light and heat sources. And this reminds us that almost all the energy surrounding us is direct or indirect solar. It’s the energy plants use to grow and that animals store as they eat. Whether you are a vegetarian or an omnivore, you are using indirect solar energy to read this page and walk across the room. As covered in stories from my new book and on this website, solar energy creates temperature gradients that build pressure gradients that propel the wind. The sun’s energy evaporates water and lifts moisture into the air to fuel storms that provide life-giving precipitation. There it is, always surrounding us. Because there’s far more solar energy than we will ever need, we need to continue to find more efficient ways of harvesting, storing, and using it.

The simplest acts include opening windows during the day and closing them before sunset during the cool season. During warm summers, keep them open at night through early mornings and then close them when daytime temperatures rise outside. You will keep fresher, healthier air circulating during the comfortable open times and prevent sick building syndromes that can develop in closed spaces. Investments in efficient ventilation systems also cut AC costs in the long run. Plant deciduous vegetation along south-facing walls to shade the hot side of the house during summer; they will lose their leaves to allow more light in during winter. Follow the source of light and heat by keeping track of the sun’s location in your sky as it changes during the day and the seasons. Eaves and overhangs can be just the right length to shade walls and windows from high summer sun during summer afternoons and then allow direct sunlight to warm those surfaces when sun angles are lower during winter. Think of the dozens of other ways you can reconnect to the natural world in and around your own living and working spaces, relieve nature deficit disorders, reap the physical and mental health benefits, and save money in the process. After all, we are fortunate to live in plein air California, not Chicago.

The best California architects know how to design smart buildings with more sophisticated passive solar features. It might take a little more planning ahead, but such short-term investments will lead to long-term rewards that just keep on giving. Double-paned energy-efficient windows (with Energy Star ratings) and doors and improved insulation have become the standard for good reasons: these upgrades cut energy costs as they allow you to better regulate the air in your home or business when temperatures become uncomfortable outside.  Here is just one website from the U.S. Department of Energy that summarizes passive solar strategies. Here is another good introduction. You can also encourage efforts to become more efficient by supporting nonprofit organizations such as Sustainable Works. They have helped thousands of students, residents, and businesses save money while they also cut pollution and save our valuable resources.

We all use energy that can have negative impacts. But we are rediscovering how to create more comfortable, healthier living environments that will limit those impacts and save money in the long run. Sometimes it’s as simple as going back to nature. But it also requires that we work together. And in the bigger picture, that’s where Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) has made major progress across the state. At least 25 CCAs serve more than 200 communities in California that work together to pool their electricity loads, increase efficiency and grid resilience, and encourage renewable energy projects. The combination of simpler solar solutions outlined here, CCAs, and countless related efforts are moving the state toward a much greener and cleaner energy future … and proving how every Californian can make a positive difference.    

Check out these sources for more:

Community Choice Aggregation (CCA)

Inside Climate News reports on groundwater stresses from desert solar projects.

California Energy Commission

Passive Solar

A Passive Solar General Intro and Summary

NOAA Solar Calculator

Sustainable Works

California Academy of Sciences
The Academy’s Green Roof

California Air Resources Board Greenhouse Gas Inventory

US Green Building Council

One Architect’s Top 15 California Showcases

The Guardian Article

The 2023 Annual Global Climate Report summarizes how California is just another example of more general temperature trends around the globe.

The post Simpler Solar Solutions first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

As of July 26, the state was reporting more than 7,000 new cases per day, six times higher than a month before, with a 161% increase in just 14 days. The 3,200 patients hospitalized had doubled in just two weeks. What fueled this spike? About 97% of those hospitalized were not vaccinated. Though coronavirus vaccinations have proven exceptionally effective by any measure, about ¼ of all eligible Californians had still chosen not to take the shots. When including those not yet eligible, only 61% had received one dose and only 53% were fully vaccinated, leaving the state vulnerable to this new variant. The results were predictable; COVID illnesses and deaths surged in regions where vaccination rates were lowest.

By mid-September, many Central Valley hospitals (particularly in Fresno County and the San Joaquin Valley) were in crisis, running over 100% standard capacity, forcing COVID patients to wait days for limited ICU surge beds. Overwhelmed hospitals brought in National Guard medical team reinforcements. Human interest stories about the unvaccinated crowding local hospitals and sometimes dying were tragically repeated in local media, such as the 40-year-old San Joaquin County woman who publicly fought against masking and vaccines until she was also infected and then left four children behind.

Meanwhile, as if to accentuate the division between the two Californias, infection rates plummeted in the cities with highest vaccination rates. By September 20, 2021, the CDC reported that California’s 95 COVID cases/100,000 people (seven-day case rate) was the lowest in the country and 66% of the state’s population had received at least one shot. Average statewide rates were more than two times lower than bordering states and more than three times lower than Texas and Florida; still, rates in those few local Golden State hot spots, tragically, resembled the sickest states. Geography (location) had become one of the most important factors determining who might become seriously ill and die.

And so this disease continues to ravage all of us and slow our recovery, but now with avoidable and self-inflicted wounds. As we look back at the positive language in our story below, showing trends from early this summer, we are haunted by the quick recovery that could have been, if only vaccinations were taken more seriously. Instead, by September, consumer confidence was dropping again and hopes for robust economic growth were dampened, especially in the hard-hid services sectors that included leisure and hospitality industries, while total hospitalizations and deaths of the unvaccinated continued to accumulate. Now that we have updated you with this mix of bad and good news about short-term trends, note how the long-term effects remain the focus of our original story.        

From mid-June, 2021…

The Golden State, along with the nation, seems to be nearing the end of an historic war. As of the middle of June 2021, the Coronavirus enemy had killed nearly 63,000 Californians and about 600,000 Americans, and it had permanently injured many times more. Nearly 3.8 million California cases and at least 33 million U.S. COVID-19 cases have been confirmed, though there have been many more undiagnosed illnesses. Casualties range far beyond the lives and parts of families that have perished. Thousands of businesses have been destroyed, along with the life savings, investments, and dreams of their owners. Thousands more have been crippled. Millions of households have suffered from lost jobs and incomes and some may never recover. The pandemic crept into every household in different ways and then spread staggering collateral damage to nearly every sector of our economy. We will never be the same.

Indelible Scars
Finally, after 15 months of trying to understand the invisible enemy and debating how to fight it, we have gained the upper hand and are reopening California. We are haunted by our mistakes and informed by our lessons learned as we ask if we won or lost this war. As is often the case with war, the answer depends on who you are and how you were impacted, especially for those who lost loved ones or spent weeks recovering. As with so many other crises, the most vulnerable and low-income residents have been hit the hardest, while those with the resources have largely weathered the storm with less damage, further exacerbating that gap between the wealthy and working classes.

Documenting the War
We have documented many of these battles on this web site with two substantial stories that covered parts of the state from north to south. Our first story asked a lot of questions as we hunkered down in our communities during a bewildering period last spring, just after the attack began. Our second story covered a frustrating period into the summer of 2020, when we knew more about the enemy, but engaged in fierce debates about how to respond to the pandemic. We illustrated the astounding range of reactions and the impacts on our people and landscapes that reflect our diversity; you are encouraged to scan back to these lengthy stories, chronicles that appeared months earlier on our web site.

War with an invisible enemy presents unique challenges and it is unfortunate that some Californians, as with many Americans, spent more time and energy arguing over how to wage the war, rather than joining together to fight it. While some favored draconian restrictions with crippling lockdowns and stringent shelter-in-place, others completely ignored the enemy as if it didn’t exist, allowing the virus to spread, kill, and maim unchecked, prioritizing economic concerns over health consequences. And as with much of the nation, California’s official response was somewhere in between. We all struggled and fought to find the most rational and effective middle ground that could save lives AND the economy.

Our results have also been mixed. But with per capita infection and death rates below the national average, our state is now leading the nation out of the crisis with some of the lowest numbers throughout spring, 2021. As of our reopening on June 15, 2021, California boasts some of the lowest case rates and highest vaccination rates in the nation. Our positivity rates consistently remain below 1% and more than 70% of eligible Californians have received at least one vaccination. (You can see updated data in the links near the end of this story.) Beyond all the suffering and business failures, one of the biggest economic surprises came at the end of the pandemic with an astounding bounty of money in the form of another historic state budget surplus (several tens of billions of dollars), partially thanks to a flood of tax revenue from wealthier and healthier residents. Now, rather than pointing fingers, it is a time to examine what remains and what we learned from this war, for there will certainly be others, and we hope our worst enemies won’t be us.

Here, we celebrate putting COVID-19 in our rearview mirrors as we finally and officially reopen the Golden State. Now that the virus seems to be under control, we offer what we hope will be this last pandemic story from California on our web site. For those of you not from the Golden State, the three stories combined now provide an historic account summarizing how Californians weathered the pandemic, from its start and hopefully, to its finish. This last story examines a few enduring lessons and some imprints the Coronavirus pandemic stamped on our state’s people and landscapes. Since it would be impossible to cover all the remarkable and lasting changes, we will pick out several notables from a geographical perspective. We encourage you to use your experiences and lessons to make your own list, always imagining how we could have worked better together to find the sweet middle ground that would have saved more lives and lessened the personal tragedies and economic suffering in the long run.

A Very Different War in the Two Californias
First, we note that infection and illness rates remain particularly high among those who are not vaccinated and have refused to take precautions. The pandemic lingers on within those groups. In contrast, data show infection rates dropping dramatically in groups with a larger percentage of people who are vaccinated. It is clear that the war is being fought and won by the vaccinated. These trends have become evident on the maps comparing vaccination and infection distributions. And though the state has recently made great strides toward distributing vaccines to the least healthy, low-income communities, these populations remain most resistant with the lowest vaccination rates… and far more vulnerable. Surveys showed the poorest 25% of zip codes with only about 43% of their populations fully vaccinated, while 68% of the people within healthiest and wealthiest zip codes were fully vaccinated going into June, 2021. Put in other words, zip codes where folks already struggle with lower life expectancies and levels of education and less access to reliable housing, transportation, and medical care continue to suffer with lowest vaccination rates and highest number of infections and hospitalizations, in spite of the state’s aggressive attempts to reach out and in to such communities: https://covid19.ca.gov/vaccination-progress-data/

We can see how Californians have reacted to these Coronavirus threats and historic changes to their surrounding environments in a variety of ways that will have lasting impacts on all of us. We’ll start an abbreviated list here, making just a few notable observations, so that you can continue your own list and conversations.

Reconnecting to Science for Survival
We have reconfirmed how viruses spread and how to stop them. Those who applied lessons learned from previous pandemics (such as the 1918 influenza that infected about 1/3 of the world’s population) implemented common sense methods of social distancing and masking in crowded public settings. Their infection, illness, and death rates were dramatically lower, slowing the spread. In contrast, those who ignored these long-established medical precautions, or were forced to work in dangerous environments requiring closer public contact (such as health care workers and service workers), suffered the highest infection rates, illnesses, and deaths. These life and death survival lessons have forced us to become more aware of our relationships to our surrounding environments. The pandemic encouraged us to hone our observation skills and use the scientific method to reassess our lives and our places in this world. We are now using this knowledge to repel the mutating variances that threaten to interrupt our recovery. The science is further confirmed when we recognize how our cautionary pandemic behavior changes also suffocated the annual cold and flu season before it could get started.

Redefining “Attendance”
We have redefined attendance expectations at many work, school, and social events. The good news is that most folks with child care and home health care responsibilities and challenging commute issues have been able to attend work and school on line. Motivated people with the technological skills and resources are finding abundant opportunities and more time to improve and progress. The bad news is that some less skilled, mostly lower-income folks haven’t gained adequate technical support to compete. Additionally, some students and employees who may have required more supervision and encouragement have been abandoned within a culture that was supposed to celebrate inclusion. Now that we have learned how certain tasks can be efficiently accomplished on line and within hybrid formats, we are challenged to bring the forgotten back into our village. Showing up still matters, whether in person or on line, and we now must reach out to this too often hidden, disenfranchised population that may have been left behind in the pandemic dust. 

There’s No Place like Home
After the crisis hit, we spent less time and fewer resources commuting. As the pandemic eased, nontraditional and confusing transportation patterns emerged that include people travelling by choice at any time. We also spent less time and resources on clothing, personal hygiene, and the styling required to leave home, as professional and social meetings moved on line. This has also allowed us to spend more quality time tending to important personal and family responsibilities. More folks have discovered that there is no place like home, adding the camaraderie of new pets and the pleasure of domestic activities such as outdoor barbecue events.

Competing to Escape
As we reopen, some of the money saved and accumulated vacation time is now being spent soothing cabin fever. As example, the startling 2021 Memorial Day rush to travel on land and by air sounded a big post-COVID alarm. As domestic travel exploded, many lodging reservations and car rentals doubled in number and costs over the last year at the same time. In some cities, Uber and Lyft rates doubled during peak times, thanks to fewer drivers and the sudden swarm of rider demands.

Help Wanted
Furloughs, lockdowns, and idle factories have interrupted global supply chains. As the pandemic wanes, temporary shortages of goods and services and workers have conspired with sudden increases in demands, resulting in market imbalances, leading to some of the highest inflation rates in more than a decade, as of June, 2021. Some employers are offering return-to-work incentives that include partial school tuition pay and one-time bonuses, necessary business decisions that drive prices even higher.

Exposing New Vulnerabilities
Temporary shortages have become especially evident in meat packing and distribution and other intensive food industries. The global shortage in microchips has stifled production and infected huge segments of the economy, from advanced technologies to car manufacturing industries. The pandemic has revealed our evolving vulnerabilities. A few decades ago, the U.S. controlled 90% of semiconductor manufacturing; it now only accounts for about 10% of global semiconductor production as demands increase. The pandemic-driven shortages exposed how we have fallen behind in our R&D investments into essential manufacturing and technology industries and how California can play a leading role in reestablishing the leadership that is crucial for our economic security.

As an example of the power of ripple effects, these supply chain shortages have also caused dramatic spikes in demand and prices for used products, such as cars. Increasing demands for rental cars have exacerbated the problem as rental companies are less likely to shed their older models into the markets as long as they can command top dollar on rental contracts. No person knows how long these imbalances will last or what changes may become permanent. But, the pandemic highlighted our vulnerabilities and that should encourage us to shore up our supply chains, partly by encouraging more manufacturing and R&D in California for Californians. Just as we have learned lessons about how we might react to the next virus threat to save lives, we have no excuses for ignoring the economic warning signs raised by the pandemic and the inevitable traumatic ripple effects that can follow.   

Housing Market Chaos as Example
California’s real estate and rental markets exhibit remarkable examples of enormous pandemic-fueled upheavals that few experts could have predicted. Here is where we can use economic geography to help us understand some of the powerful and recent changes that connect all of us. We started with a pre-pandemic state that was already reeling from skyrocketing real estate prices and rents, particularly in coastal cities. Record low interest rates encouraged more home buying, further escalating record-high prices. Working- and middle-class residents were being priced out of gentrified, unaffordable neighborhoods, such as in those crowded coastal cities. Many fled to rural and inland communities with lower housing costs and rents. Others migrated to more affordable states. For the first time, California’s population stopped growing and even experienced a slight loss as the pandemic hit. As the pandemic grew, many more residents fled the more densely populated urban neighborhoods, escaping to the safety of suburban, rural, and resort open spaces that were also more affordable.

As real estate markets initially paused to adjust, the bottom fell out of urban rental markets. At the height of the pandemic, rents dropped up to 20% within some of the densest urban neighborhoods, such as in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Many high-income cosmopolitans were finding success working and learning on line from more remote locations.  Resort towns and rentals quickly filled to capacity with semi-permanent newcomers and the flood of B&B vacationers seeking out safe open spaces. While the pandemic evolved, a series of positive feedback mechanisms created the perfect storm for skyrocketing real estate prices.                

Those who had dreamed of owning a California home took advantage of the record low interest rates that were held lower to prop up the economy during the pandemic. Cash-rich investors joined the frenzy and lines of competing potential homeowners stormed each house that hit the market. The lure of working at home surrounded by safe COVID-free open spaces threw fuel on the real estate boom. Add a critical shortage of building supplies to the shortage of housing on the market and you can see how eager homebuyers became desperate to acquire their piece of the California Dream.

By April, 2021, we could see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, but the real estate price explosion accelerated. Median home prices for the entire state had soared more than 30% above the previous year, to more than $800,000 for single-family homes. San Mateo became the first county to break the $2 million median housing price, while median prices in the entire Bay Area soared more than 35% in one year to more than $1.3 million. Perhaps perfectly and safely located between the L.A. and Bay Area conurbations during such a pandemic, the more secluded and relatively “affordable” Central Coast real estate market experienced the highest year-over-year price increase (about 40%) by April, 2021, where median prices hit $925,000. Though housing prices soared everywhere across the state, the Central Valley and Far North markets continued most affordable with median prices around $435,000 and $367,000, respectfully.

Urban geographers and planners are debating if the moving preferences toward single-family homes in more distant, less dense neighborhoods will be lasting trends or will fizzle out after the pandemic. Will young urban professionals return (again) to our revitalized city centers to restart the smart cities movements that concentrate populations supported by urban cultures and local, public transportation? Throughout this story, we can see how the pandemic has impacted the two Californias in ways that we could never have imagined, but seem so clear as we look back.

You can see why we used rental and real estate markets to demonstrate how the pandemic accelerated shifting demographic trends and changed our world. Folks have been forced to reexamine their personal lives and surroundings, as some have rediscovered nurturing open spaces. As at least hybrid learning and working options at home have taken root, it is unlikely that we will ever return to “normal”. Continued vacant offices and empty parking spaces are among the many signals that we have turned a new corner and may never look back, except hopefully, to the pandemic lessons learned.

Jing Liu on Mapping the Pandemic

Team geographer Jing Liu has also been researching and monitoring the pandemic. The following are some of her thoughts, occasionally edited for this story:

I think the pandemic has raised great attention to the connections between nature and human society, the importance of spatial thinking and analysis, and much more! I am amazed by the new research opportunities this pandemic has opened to us! Recently, I was talking to a group of researchers at the CyberGIS Center at UIUC and learned that they have put together this COVID-19 Gateway website https://covid-19.stcenter.net/ where we could find data, research papers, and much more. For example, check out this animation to see the spread of the virus in the US from last February. 

The Pandemic has changed every aspect of our lives, including mobility in our communities. Check out Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports (https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/) and here is the PDF for California counties. It is also interesting to compare different communities (e.g. Los Angeles County (page 11) vs Madera County (page 12))!

Check out the data storefront of the Department of Housing and Urban Development at ESRI: https://hudgis-hud.opendata.arcgis.com/ Here, you could use the data to perform your own analysis based on California! Here is an application example: Location Awareness Speeds Pandemic Relief Funds to Renters

Thanks again Jing. We hope all of you are informed and inspired by our web site’s occasional pandemic coverage from the perspective of a California geographer. And we also hope this will be our last pandemic story. We end this one as we have the earlier two stories, with a few links where you will find a wealth of pandemic information from California and beyond. Finally, as the war ends, it’s time to officially and safely celebrate the reopening of the Golden State. Here’s to a summer of 2021 with health and freedom!   

Additional COVID-19 Pandemic Sources.
If you are interested in details, statistics, and some informative maps, here are some updated sources we have listed in previous California COVID-19 stories. Good luck!:

L.A.Times tracks the virus in California:

https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/

John Hopkins University national maps show confirmed cases and deaths by county. Zoom in to California counties:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map

National Geographic:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/graphic-tracking-coronavirus-infections-us/

Google data:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=covid-19+maps+California

We also encourage you to read more personal COVID stories on the California Historical Society web site at: https://californiahistoricalsociety.org/exhibitions/tell-your-story-california-during-the-time-of-covid-19/

The post Reopening California: Lessons from our Historic Coronavirus War first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Recently, developing geospatial technologies have revolutionized how we research these issues, trends, and problems. New maps join our old maps to inform and encourage us to view our cities and neighborhoods through clearer lenses and with fresh perspectives that we could only have imagined years ago. In this story, we have selected a few recent sources shared by geographers Jing Liu, Pete Morris, and Rob O’Keefe.  

The tsunami of data and maps that are being reexamined and produced for us to peruse and interpret can be overwhelming, so we will try to narrow our sources to a handful of recent projects and organizations whose efforts can be tied together. This is an exceptional story for our web site since we are not so much interpreting or analyzing the data here. Instead, we are sharing the work of other researchers and scholars by linking you to several sites that might help all of us understand how our neighborhoods and cities are evolving with their own histories of successes and failures. Our story ends with a short photo essay.  

We will remind you to be careful about oversimplifying and accepting popular interpretations of these maps and studies. Our cities are as complicated as the people who work and live in them. We have been forced to reconsider and adjust some formerly accepted theories and assumptions about how they evolve and change. We must admit that future researchers may discredit some of today’s popular theories, assumptions, and overgeneralizations about how past landscapes, people, and policies might explain what we see today.

Ours are perplexing urban landscapes of sequent occupance, continually remodeled by countless forces that we struggle to understand. Cities and neighborhoods we see today are products of the past, but they also reflect our recent decisions and policies, requiring us to accept responsibility for them. When wearing his historical geographer cap, Pete Morris correctly warns us about the rhetorical power of maps, especially when they use color-coded jargon to support popular belief systems. We should also be careful to make what may first seem to be convenient links between past and current urban geographies when such relationships may be much more complicated. In other words, more cautious micro-scale analyses might challenge assumptions we have manufactured from overgeneralized maps that may have supported our presumptions.  

With these cautionary thoughts, we invite you to use the following links to expand your knowledge of how redlining, segregation, gentrification, migration, displacement, and affordable housing might leave their imprints on California’s urban people and landscapes. You are encouraged to construct your own informed interpretations while pondering each of the following outside sources.       

This educational video traces the historic policies that set the foundations for today’s conflicts over gentrification. Though it is intended for a nationwide audience and discussion, neighborhoods in Los Angeles and San Francisco are highlighted, especially toward the end; it was produced by the UC Berkeley Urban Displacement Project, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and Great Communities Collaborative, an Initiative of the San Francisco Foundation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0zAvlmzDFc

Consider San Francisco’s Legacy of Redlining, produced by the UC Berkeley Center for Community Innovation at the Urban Displacement Project:
https://www.urbandisplacement.org/redlining

Here is a more detailed map from the Urban Displacement Project showing gentrification, displacement, and exclusion in the Bay Area, but with a rich choice of relevant layers to add:
https://www.urbandisplacement.org/san-francisco/sf-bay-area-gentrification-and-displacement

This more detailed map from the Urban Displacement Project covers southern California’s most populated coastal counties: Mapping Neighborhood Change in Southern California: Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego Counties: https://www.urbandisplacement.org/los-angeles/los-angeles-gentrification-and-displacement

ESRI has published a wealth of redlining and gentrification maps that cover the Bay Area with thorough explanations and interpretations. (A few may require sign in to ArcGIS online):
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=1832f7860d634b83877475144748908e
Don’t miss the series of seven ESRI Bay Area diversity maps (from above) that illustrate how the percentage of whites in the population has changed since 1920; watch on their page 6 as neighborhoods evolve with their redlining and gentrification imprints. 

You will find redlining maps and detailed neighborhood descriptions and data from the 1930s for Sacramento, Stockton, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, Fresno, Los Angeles, and San Diego at Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal in America. Simply click on one of the California cities at
https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=6/36.43/-121.553
However, you might want to read through the introduction that describes the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), their grading criteria, and the time frame: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=6/36.752/-119.861&text=intro

Here is a KQED article about attempts to recover from redlining, focusing on Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood:
https://www.kqed.org/news/11648307/has-oaklands-fruitvale-neighborhood-recovered-from-redlining

Gentrification and displacement were impacting California’s people and cities long before researchers were using scholarly terms to describe these trends. This remarkable video about Bunker Hill in 1956 examines the struggles of another vulnerable and relatively powerless (mainly elderly) population in a thoroughly segregated Los Angeles. Interestingly, it was filmed just after the nearby working-class Mexican American neighborhood in Chavez Ravine had been acquired by the city through eminent domain. Dodger Stadium would soon rise to replace that ravine and its neighborhood in a saga that would be remembered as one of the most controversial and debated displacements of an entire community in the city’s history. Back on that languishing old Bunker Hill in the 1950s, you don’t have to imagine local residents (many retired) watering their lawns, visiting neighborhood bars, and shopping at Angel’s Flight Pharmacy on yesterday’s relatively sleepy hill; in this film, they are threatened with displacement just more than 60 years ago. If today’s collection of steel and glass skyscrapers representing the center of a world-class super city was the developers’ intention…mission accomplished: https://vimeo.com/332916635

You can find many stories about how the growth of L.A. Airport encouraged or forced displacements in surrounding neighborhoods during past decades, as flight patterns rendered them unlivable. Here is a more recent video highlighting such transitions and displacements, this time in Manchester Square, at the hands of L.A. World Airports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhNLQKHYjXk

Exploring some California Examples

The following photos will take us into the field to apply some of the concepts and observe some of the trends we have explored in this story.    

We end our story with just one more image from just one more San Francisco district that evolved from despair to stardom in recent decades.    

A Portion of South of Market becomes The East Cut
By the late 1800s, this once up-scale San Francisco neighborhood had declined and “lost its cachet”, becoming a “gritty swath of industry and commerce.”  Following the 1906 earthquake, it was described as “warehouses and large business operations catering to seafaring and other industries”. Such descriptions carried through the decades until signs of change began to sprout in the late 1900s. Boosters eventually broke traditional links to its South of Market past and some of its working-class neighbors. By the 21^st Century, it was being remade into a high priced mixed-use neighborhood in high demand. It is now (rebranded as “the East Cut”) home to The City’s tallest skyscraper, just a short walk from this intersection. Note how the language used by today’s developers and boosters sounds similar to movements that have been gentrifying neighborhoods in cities across California:

“The East Cut is San Francisco’s fastest-growing and most exciting new neighborhood. For years prior to its rebirth, our area was lumped in with SOMA, South Park, South Beach, the Financial District, or the Embarcadero. But as our neighborhood has redeveloped and come into its own, residents, businesses, and community organizations are embracing a new identity to distinguish our home from the rest of the City.”

“This unique part of San Francisco has experienced significant change and growth in the past few decades, including the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway, the most dense concentration of new home construction in the Bay Area, and the creation of thousands of new jobs. The East Cut is a local effort to unite the Rincon Hill, Folsom Street, and Transbay areas under a new banner and identity befitting our neighborhood. While building a sense of place and pride today, the East Cut also harkens back to a time when our community was an indelible part of San Francisco.”
https://www.theeastcut.org/about-us/

The post Connecting Yesterday’s Redlining to Today’s Gentrification and Displacement first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

It was dinnertime when serpentine seismic waves suddenly began rippling and then rolling through our creaking house. We watched and braced ourselves as the light fixture hanging above the trembling dinner table began swaying, as if to dance in choreography with other objects that were not solidly secured. Seasoned Californians who have experienced too many tremblors over the decades recognize these seismic waves, lasting several seconds or more, as eerie messengers propagating from a strong but distant earthquake, perhaps hundreds of miles away. This version of California vertigo is quite different from the short jolts and lurches of smaller quakes originating from nearby epicenters. Thankfully, the undulations subsided several seconds later, leaving little or no damage here, so that we could connect to the best media to answer our questions: How big was this one, who and where were the latest distant victims, and could we expect more or even greater terra convulsions? Thanks to technologies scientists have developed in recent years, and we have explored in previous stories on this web site, the answers came within minutes, a mere instant compared to the hours of anxious anticipation that would pass after sizable earthquakes in past decades. 

Though some shaking was felt as far away as Sacramento and San Diego and Las Vegas, the epicenter and greatest damage was located in the sparsely populated desert about 120 miles (195km) north of major southern California cities. Their seclusion could not spare the victims of small communities around Trona and Ridgecrest or the Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake from violent shaking that cracked buildings, set fires, crumbled walls, threw mobile homes off their foundations, and destroyed infrastructure until more than $1 billion damage was done. It would be recorded as another powerful earthquake, but perceived as another case of how most Californians dodged the dreaded “Big One” bullet. 

This was the largest (M7.1) in a series of earthquakes that fractured and violently shook the mostly remote desert floor of Searles Valley and the adjacent rugged desert mountains to its west during the first week of July 2019. It was also the largest earthquake to hit within the borders of California in two decades. Interestingly, the Hector Mine earthquake of 1999 and the Landers quake of 1992 were similar temblors just above magnitude 7 that also sheared dramatic cracks and horizontal and vertical displacements of several feet on the desert floor to the south; they also tore through remote desert regions, sparing distant population centers from major damage. An image in our publication shows this author standing next to a vertical fault scarp of more than 6 feet (2 meters) high, lifted in less than 30 seconds by the Landers earthquake. These major seismic events in our remote deserts contrast with the disastrous and deadly 1989 Loma Prieta quake (M7.0) in the Bay Area and the 1994 Northridge cataclysm (M6.7), two of the most costly natural disasters in U. S. history up to those times, both with epicenters under or near major cities, but both leaving less conspicuous surface fissures that were a lot more difficult to find and measure. 

Scientists named these more recent July 2019 tremors the “Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence”, including that largest July 5^th M7.1 event described at the start of this article. It was preceded by a major foreshock of M6.4 about 34 hours earlier, which had likewise been preceded by a series of smaller foreshocks. That first big M6.4 tremor on July 4, and its foreshocks, activated a southwest-northeast-trending fault across Searles Valley, causing noticeable left-lateral displacements. The larger M7.1 main event and its aftershocks spread along a northwest-southeast-oriented fault with dramatic vertical and even more dramatic right-lateral displacements on the desert floor that were locally greater than 12 feet (>3.5 meters). These two perpendicular faults cross in Searles Valley; the complexity of these displacements resembles major geologic structures in the region. They are all part what geologists have labelled the Eastern California Shear Zone.

Just to the south of Searles Valley, the east/northeast-trending Garlock Fault (transverse to most other California geologic structures) is the most dramatic left-lateral feature on the state’s landscapes. A series of aftershocks were measured along this Garlock Fault as part of this sequence that started with left-lateral faulting in the Searles Valley. In contrast, north and northwest of Searles Valley are the numerous Basin and Range horsts and grabens of uplifted rugged mountains and down-dropped desert valleys cut along more common right lateral and vertical faults that trend north into the Basin and Range’s Death Valley, Panamint Valley, Owens Valley, and their adjacent mountain ranges. The main 7.1 earthquake (more aligned with tectonic activity and geologic structures common to the north) was followed by aftershocks that eventually rippled all the way up toward Olancha and the Owens Valley, which is also being dropped down below the dramatic vertical faulting that lifts the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains. You might imagine how extensional forces are tearing at the crust in this region as the Pacific Plate to the west shears toward the northwest and away from this western edge of the North American Plate. And so, there is Searles Valley, at the northern edge of the Mojave Desert and the southern edge of the Basin and Range, being broken by tectonic forces common to two major physiographic provinces.

Such recent and ancient tectonic activity has lifted adjacent and more distant mountain ranges above a downwarped Searles Valley. An amazing mélange of rock formations many millions of years old have been exposed on these desert mountain slopes. Those rocks with their assorted chemistries continue to weather and crumble into smaller pieces that can be transported by wind or the rare downpours that will deliver mud and debris flows through desert canyons and into the valleys. These materials are further broken down into finer sediments and dissolved chemicals that can be deposited on valley floors. With no outlets to drain these inland basins, they are stranded and often baked into desert playas with their high concentrations of salts. 

But it hasn’t always been so dry here. More than 11,000 years ago, when the climate was cooler and wetter and glaciers were carving the distant Sierra Nevada, a chain of Pleistocene lakes connected many of these desert basins. You can also learn more about them in our publication. Searles Valley filled with more than 600 feet (about 200m) of water. These inland lakes would eventually vanish as conditions evolved into the warmer and drier periods that ended the Ice Ages and characterize today’s climates and landscapes. Thick layers of minerals were precipitated as the trapped waters evaporated over thousands of years. Brief wetting and shallow flooding during occasional wet periods delivered and concentrated more minerals into these desert basins to be dried and baked. These carbonates, sulfates, borates, and halides rich in sodium and potassium have encouraged commercial mining operations here ever since prospector John W. Searles recognized their value. Searles established the San Bernardino Borax Mining Company in the 1870s and gained attention for using his mule teams to haul borax out of Searles Valley, through Salt Wells (AKA Poison) Canyon, so that it could eventually be delivered all the way to San Pedro.  

After Searles’ death and throughout the 1900s, mining companies that operated in this valley evolved through good and bad times with different owners and names. The small company town of Trona also grew as the railroad made it more accessible since the early 1900s; the highway (today’s 178) made further connections. By the mid-1900s, Trona had become a mining boom town with a population soaring over 6,000. Today, Searles Valley Minerals continues to pump brine from below the mostly dry lake so that it can be processed into an astonishing variety of tons of valuable mineral products that include borax and boric acid.

And it’s not all about work. More than a thousand mineral and geology enthusiasts flood the valley during the annual October Gem-O-Rama, when Trona and surroundings are packed with excited visitors who participate in field trips sponsored by the Searles Lake Gem & Mineral Society. The few small local museums, stores, and eateries become the center of at least 36 hours of fame when folks show and share their rock and mineral and lapidary arts collections, and venture out on the playa. They are guided to collect spectacular crystals that include some of the finest samples of six-sided hanksite in the world and beautiful specimens of pink halite that have been stained by salt-loving bacteria. These annual gatherings are advertised as the most exciting mineral collecting field trips in the U.S. (After more than 75 years of tradition, these treasure hunts were temporarily cancelled in 2019 due to lingering infrastructure damage from the earthquakes, and scratched again during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.)  

We can appreciate that had it not been for the tectonic activity that has been dropping and isolating these desert basins and lifting surrounding mountain ranges, these mineral-laden desert playas would not exist. It is more than ironic that the seismic activity of July 2019 we examine here had visibly damaged one of the tall Searles Valley Minerals chimneys that erupt as dominant landmarks above this valley, as if humans were trying to recreate the nearby Trona Pinnacles.

The July 2019 Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence even knocked a few of the more precarious rocks and boulders down from those Trona Pinnacles across the valley. This is a roughly 15-square-mile accumulation of tufa spires that rise over 100 feet above Searles Dry Lake. These towers that define natural landscape oddities were forming more than 11,000 years ago as underground springs transported calcium up to meet the carbonates that were becoming more concentrated in the evaporating inland lake. Algae bonded to these calcium carbonate deposits, growing the tufa reefs that emerged as the drying and warming climate finished off the lake. (You might notice some of the stranded ancient shoreline contours, or strandlines, along slopes that ring the valley.) As a National Natural Landmark, the Trona Pinnacles have earned recognition from landscape admirers and gained attention in the numerous movies and TV productions that have exploited them, often as background scenery to simulate the topography on other planets, at least in our imaginations.

We can also blame tectonic activity for building the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada Mountains to the west, as they have been blocking moist air masses that would otherwise invade from the Pacific and bring precipitation and accumulated runoff that might dissolve and dilute these mineral deposits.  As with other California desert basins, air masses can only invade Searles Valley by flowing down the very mountains that have already wrung out moisture from otherwise promising storms, resulting in more compressional heating and drying by the time they reach the valley floor, at about 1,700 feet above sea level. With average annual precipitation below 4 inches (<10cm), exceptionally low specific humidities, and relative humidities frequently below 10%, this alkaline dust bowl remains nearly as dry as Death Valley and one of the driest places on Earth. You can also thank the dry continental air masses for summer daytime high temperatures that average well above 100 degrees and overnight lows in winter that average around freezing. Winter’s coldest storms can even deliver a rare dusting of “dry” snow. Abundant sunshine rules year round, but radiation escapes quickly and temperatures usually plummet after sunset. Add the occasional fierce winds and you have classic desert extremes that many people, plants, and animals may consider hostile.

And so it is not surprising that the plants and animals that survive around here must be adapted to extreme aridity and the wild variations in radiation and temperature. Although you may encounter Joshua Trees and other high desert woodlands while climbing into cooler and more moist surrounding mountains, the valley is only decorated with the most resilient desert scrub (such as desert holly) and brief spring wildflower blooms. As you approach the floor of the valley, limiting factors multiply, as only the most salt-tolerant plants can survive in what becomes an increasingly toxic soil. Parts of this desert erupt with activity during the brief spring blooms that can attract many animal species. These include a wide variety of insects, various herbivores, and their predators. Ravens, prairie falcons, and peregrine falcons may soar above horned lizards, desert iguanas, kangaroo rats, desert tortoises, coyotes, and kit foxes. Some species, such as falcons and tortoises, are highly sensitive to human disturbances in these fragile ecosystems. Please remain especially distant from falcon nests, as they are often built in the very cavities that people enjoy exploring.

Beyond social media, today’s Searles Valley and its Trona is connected to the world mostly through the many human passersby on Hwy 178 who are headed for Death Valley National Park or other popular ecotourist hot spots. Still, more powerful global connections exist that may not, at first, be as evident in this isolated desert town. The dominant company (Searles Valley Minerals) is a subsidiary of a major international corporation as it ships tons of mineral products each day to California ports and then to at least 52 different countries. The community is dependent on this company that provides necessities for its residents and employs more than 700 people. Many of the other families are anchored by workers who provide essential services in this company town.

After the July 2019 earthquakes hit, Trona’s people (less than 2,000 within census-designated Searles Valley, but thousands more in surrounding communities) and its schools and its cultures were thrust into the national and global spotlights. Clamoring for the latest compelling stories, national media converged on and then unveiled what some popular culture urban observers considered foreign or unimaginable, as folks weighed the advantages and disadvantages of living in such seclusion. For instance, it was shown that roughly 250 students populate the Trona Joint Unified School District that includes one elementary and one high school. When the local high school (The Tornadoes) football team gained praise for training on the only known all-dirt field in the nation, the power of limitations quickly became apparent. The harsh climate and high salt content in the soils and the lack of financial resources eliminated traditional turf options on what became known as “The Pit.” Unreliable attendance from the small pool of young athletes necessitated 8-man football. As unlikely students and other locals were interviewed, a common thread emerged: the kids and adults here are tough and their resilience would carry them through earthquake recovery in this place that requires adaptations to limitations.

The power of social media continues to add to the push and pull factors that tempt young people and others to move out and on, toward what they may perceive as better and more exciting opportunities. It certainly is not the booming mining community that grew to over 6,000 people in the mid-1900s. But you will also find great pride within the people and cultures that have developed in this community. You don’t see locals running on the endless treadmills that torture California city dwellers struggling just to make ends meet so they can pay rents or mortgages that rank highest in the nation. Here, the average cost of a home is well below the national average; you can still buy a modest house on a large lot for less than $100,000. There are multiple apartments and small houses around the greater region (that includes Ridgecrest) renting for less than $1,000/month. Seismologists and engineers have already used some of them as examples of how modern earthquake building codes kept damage and losses in the region much lower in the relatively new construction, compared to the oldest structures. The result is more housing inventory remained after the earthquakes so that fewer people were tempted or forced to move on to those other horizons and opportunities. 

This dusty, solitary place feels perfectly separate and disconnected from the mild climates and overcrowded, unaffordable giant urban centers closer to the coast, on the opposite sides of the great California ranges. Searles Valley may even appear other worldly to urban dwellers celebrating their popular cultures. Here is where primary extractive industries fuel a different kind of economic system where the cost of living and household incomes remain well below the state average. It’s easy to find peace and quiet, there are more than enough bright stars to count at night, and a wealth of desolate, crystalline desert and mountain landscapes call out to the adventurer. Life is slower paced within these more traditional cultures where neighbors know one another and people may live and celebrate “Trona Strong.”

Searles Valley and other remote places may define the other California, but they are powerfully connected to the world and to rest of us by a lot more than natural resources, the chemicals we use each day, and social media. These connections become especially evident when seismic waves ripple through our communities from another distant and different place. They will announce the latest earthquake that is building mountains and rearranging landscapes and creating new victims of the very powerful forces that continue to sculpt such a spectacular and diverse California. Nature will connect us whether we like it or not. We wonder: which landscapes are soon to be rearranged and who might be the next “victims”?

This story was informed by scientists from the United States Geological Survey, Seismological Society of America, Southern California Earthquake Center, California Geological Survey, Bureau of Land Management, and the Searles Lake Gem and Mineral Society. 

A few other sources:

View this short video about Trona, created by ghost towns and mines enthusiast Ray Dunakin, just three weeks after the earthquakes:

Here is the Bureau of Land Management introduction to Trona Pinnacles: https://www.blm.gov/visit/trona-pinnacles

Here is information about the Searles Lake Gem and Mineral Society’s Annual Gem-O-Rama Field Trips: http://www1.iwvisp.com/tronagemclub/General-info.htm

Check out the Kim Stringfellow’s Mojave Art Project and her coverage of the annual Gem-O-Rama on KCET:
https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/gem-o-rama-mojave-playa-interventions-part-ii

The post Desert Quakes and Ancient Lakes: Geopostcards from Searles Valley first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Here, we transport you into some of the iconic landscapes that help define the Golden State, places where Californians have been trying to escape the grasp of this virus throughout the summer and into the fall of 2020. Data to support the text in this story has been gleaned from recent and relevant research, publications, and direct observations throughout the year as we try to summarize California’s pandemic predicament. The snapshots will transport you from the southwest corner to the northeast corner of the Golden State, combining to create a colorful pandemic picture book.

Geography of the Pandemic
The pandemic continues to at least indirectly impact nearly every landscape and person as it carves widespread lasting imprints on the human geography of California. Particularly hard hit are the densest urban neighborhoods on one end and rural farming communities on the other. Long-term health care facilities, prisons, and labor-intensive industries such as food packing plants have also become epicenters, or what might be considered producers of virus clusters and super-spreaders. The results, geographically, have predictably followed many of the trends we outlined in our spring update from  half a year ago. Throughout the centuries, geographers and people who think like geographers have contributed their perspectives and expertise to help us better understand and help control such pandemics and this one is no exception.

Two-tiered Risks and Impacts
Near the beginning of the year, COVID-19 may have been initially introduced into some middle- and upper-income circles by those who could afford international travel. But it quickly spread and has since been infecting, sickening, and killing much larger percentages of working-class populations living and/or working in more crowded environments. These include a larger percentage of people of color working in blue-collar jobs, such as service workers, who are in direct contact with the public and cannot fulfill their duties on line, but are exposed beyond the safety and comfort of their homes. These laborers are first pushed back into what could be risky work environments by personal economic pressures and then confronted with inadequate and/or budget-busting medical care when they contract the virus. These infections were often tragically spread to their elders in a state where about 74% of all COVID-19 deaths have been people age 65 and older. The data show that a much larger percentage of working-class people first lost their jobs to the epidemic, then were forced to return to work, and finally caught the virus. Those with greater education and higher incomes suffered much lower percentages and losses statewide (up to three times lower) on all three fronts.   

Concentrated Clusters and Super Spreaders
Other super-spreader events have erupted when some Californians have chosen to ignore scientific evidence and to dare nature’s statistical probabilities. These clusters of choice have sent out super spreaders that have locally and dramatically spiked infection rates and further slowed our recovery. So, we have learned that the geography of COVID is less about widespread infections blanketing the land and more about specific, concentrated clusters and super-spreader events that radiate beyond the confined spaces where they started: workplaces, neighborhoods, extended families, social gatherings, or congregations of cultural groups.

Learning from our Mistakes
Some of the most fascinating and tragic lessons we are learning from COVID-19 focus on our flawed psychology. It’s as if COVID is teasing us into looking into our mirrors. We not only see how particularly inept we have become at dealing with such a pandemic, but we are forced to reevaluate our lives and the world around us with probing questions and solutions that could lead us down more innovative paths, potential epiphanies toward improvement. Our first mistake was ignoring the power of science, the importance of understanding and using the scientific method, and the consequences of being ignorant about it. Our second mistake was retreating – often encouraged by the poison on social media – into our particular cultural and political tribes with blinders in place. We are now experiencing the pandemic fatigue that naturally follows our failures to stop the spread of this virus.  

Entrenched Beliefs and Politics versus Facts and Science
How have we allowed the politics to overcome the science and why do some people trust the words of their favorite uninformed demagogue over the scientists that have dedicated their careers and lives to finding solutions and saving lives? Had fatality rates from the virus been greater, say 20%, we would see bodies being dragged out of homes and carried away, repeated tragic scenes that would compel everyone to take extreme precautions. At the other extreme, if ICU admissions and fatality rates were similar to the common flu, there would be little need for extra precautions. But this COVID-19 continues teasing us with a dangerous in between, as every time we let our guards down to open up and dismiss what may seem to be an invisible threat, infections, serious illnesses, and death rates spike. Too often, entrenched belief systems become more powerful than overwhelming evidence, science, and facts, particularly when people within our narrow tribe are not negatively impacted and victimized.

Smart Personal Geography
How do we decrease the statistical probability of getting infected? That’s a pretty straightforward scientific question that means life and death for tens of thousands of Californians and many billions of dollars in income for millions more. And it’s mostly about geography. Like all things science, we must modify our understanding of COVID, and hopefully adjust our behavior and decision-making, to fit the available evidence of the day. This moving target, as we gather more scientific evidence, has been a difficult concept for a large percentage of the population that has ignored nature and science for too long. The destruction and suffering resulting from this ignorance is enhanced as we retreat into our tribes instead of working together to understand and respond to the threat.

Sensing our Spaces and Places
We must first confront the geographic term that COVID forced into every household: social distancing. Super spreader events that produce clusters of cases have included large and small congregations of people with only one or a few infected persons, who then transfer the virus to the others so they can spread it on to their families or cohorts. This results in dramatic, concentrated, local spikes in infections and deaths. The good news is how people are being forced to become better geographers, sensing their environments as they become more aware of whom or what surrounds them.

Reevaluating our Built Environments
Countless practical geography lessons rise to the surface. For instance, many years before COVID, especially coastal Californians were demonstrating how poorly ventilated enclosed spaces can be replaced by healthier, more productive, naturally-ventilated living and working environments that cost a lot less to keep reasonably comfortable. Those who reevaluated their spaces and places to reconnect to their surroundings are now reaping the benefits. Those who ignored these realities are now stuck with the most dangerous, deadly, and expensively-maintained closed COVID spaces that understandably make us all uneasy and anxious, and sometimes sick. Closed indoor malls, sealed office spaces, and confined classrooms in California are examples of the flawed public spaces left behind by this archaic thinking.

Sensing Your Air
Geographic awareness also helps us safely navigate our more open, outdoor spaces. Your 6-feet or 12-feet distancing rules only apply in relatively calm air. Sense the wind direction and speed. If you are upwind, the contamination from a potentially infected person is being transported away from you, but if you are downwind, twelve feet might not be far enough. Furthermore, your motion in relation to others could easily transport you into or away from their plume of contamination. Add more distance if you notice coughing, sneezing, singing, or shouting. For those of us who have always been cognizant of these people, spaces, and places, our senses have become sharpened. For those who had previously checked out on your screens and ear plugs and dismissed your relationship to your surroundings, welcome back to Planet Earth. The most geographically aware are more likely to increase their probability of surviving with their health.

To Mask or not to Mask: That is often a Geography Question
And speaking of aware, how have masks become political in California and across the nation? For decades, surgeons, doctors, nurses, and other health care workers have protected themselves, their patients, and their colleagues from spreading sickening and deadly diseases by using masks that provide barriers to countless pathogens. Pathogens and masks don’t care about your politics. It’s weird that we even have to mention this. More recently, every COVID-19 study of masks has shown their benefits and discounted suggested negative health impacts. And for the other extreme, the virus comes from infected people who get too close, not from fresh air. Here are just two examples of how fear can overcome the science. A friend of mine tried to shame me for not wearing my mask, after I stopped on my bike to say hello, across the street from her, on a street with no other people around. My mask remained in my pocket and I was not hesitant to set her straight with the geography and science. While walking her dog on a completely empty street at 6am, another friend of mine was scolded for not wearing her mask; the lone complainer felt the need to yell at her from nearly a block away. We’ve seen enough studies and had enough experiences to know better and to behave smarter by now. Wearing masks or not wearing them should never be likened to political pins or slogans or emotions, but how and when we use them may signal our knowledge of science and our connections to nature and reality.

Two Californias Stumble Forward
In a frustrating COVID world where we are discouraged from behaving in our most fundamentally intimate and human ways, where we have lost the magic of a human touch, we are constantly challenged to redefine personal space and our relationships with one another. Too often, our personal geographies and behaviors begin to reflect our entrenched beliefs and politics. For instance, as a larger percentage of urban dwellers have been protecting themselves and those who surround them, a larger percentage of rural and inland Californians, who may have always lived and worked somewhat socially distanced, have often resisted rules and ignored precautions that they believe might conflict with their more traditional, conservative, or libertarian values. And so, you can still watch these two Californias expressing themselves with masked or unmasked faces; this behavior has resulted in some very interesting and even confounding infection and death clusters that are ripe for research.

Geographic Distributions are Moving Targets
By November, California’s recorded infections (nearing one million total) and deaths (approaching 18,000 total) kept our state’s per capita rates (out of 40 million) slightly below the national average. Ranked by new cases/100,000, the state’s top ten (worst) counties in October were mainly rural, economically dependent on primary industries, and mostly in central and northern California. Ranked in order, they were Shasta, Kings, Tehama, Sonoma, Glenn, Monterey, Alpine, Tulare, San Bernardino, and Imperial Counties. All urban counties ranked below (better than) them, but were not the lowest. Perhaps the most notable stand out was San Francisco; at 44^th, it was, by far, the urban county with the fewest number of new cases. Little Sierra County ranked last (or best) of all counties, though only a few new infections could drastically change the ranking of counties with such small populations. We are reminded that infections, deaths, and rankings are changing by the day as each new cluster emerges. (And this December update: It is not surprising that the best and worst counties had shuffled a bit by late December, when infections and hospitalizations had exploded again across the state to new all-time highs. Cases even spiked in San Francisco and other Bay Area communities that had previously gained some control of the numbers. By the end of 2020, the suffering in California had grown to more than 2.2 million total cases and more than 25,000 deaths, with rates rising to about one death every 3.5 minutes or 400/day.)   

More Positive Probabilities
Of course, savvy geographic awareness and rational behavior doesn’t guarantee that you won’t get infected with COVID-19 or any other pathogen. But the science informs us how you can greatly decrease your probability of getting sick or dying. This is why most people try to eat well, exercise, avoid smoking, and don’t drive recklessly; those with healthy lifestyles who drive safer will greatly decrease (but can never eliminate) their chances of dying a painfully slow death or being killed in a car accident. Likewise, recognizing accumulating facts about COVID-19 encourages smart personal behavior that is likely to protect you and greatly decrease the chances that you will infect or harm others. 

Weighing the Evidence, Finding Our Balance
So, our debates should not be about the obvious scientific evidence, but how we respond to the realities and threats that confront us, and how our public responses and policies can either ease the pain or cause a lot of inconvenience and discomfort. Each of us has our personal, unique comfort zone as we try to navigate these dangerous waters. Some have isolated themselves, terrified to leave their homes. Others have been cavalier and even reckless, behaving as usual, pretending as if there were no COVID-19 filling the ICU’s and killing people. Most of us continue to search for that personal sweet spot between the two extremes that allows us to live our lives the best we can without getting sick, or worse yet, infecting our loved ones. In such a free society, finding this balance becomes more difficult while making public policies that can impact, sicken, or kill such a diverse population.

Science and Facts Must Drive the Response and Policies Debates
So we also struggle to find that public sweet spot that will protect the greatest number of people from the virus, while doing the least amount of damage to our lives and our economy. This response debate is healthy and should be carried out in an open atmosphere of respect for those who might see things differently. But, if we are to survive COVID, we are required to come to some general consensus that finds the best balance. Otherwise, we are plagued between the dueling extremes that proclaim, “I don’t want to be around people who want me to wear a mask no matter the situation” and “I don’t want to be around people who don’t wear a mask no matter the situation.” Or, consider the contrived conflicts between those who want to shut everything down and shutter everyone at home versus those who want to remove all restrictions and let the virus have its way with us. The potential inconvenience of proposed responses and policies should never change our understanding of the science as we find a rational middle ground between the extremes.

Public Images and Personal Stories
This brings us to our images of California’s COVID landscapes that demonstrate how diverse people from different parts of the state have been impacted and are responding through the summer and fall of 2020. How have folks been searching to find balance and how have their behaviors changed the human geography of the Golden State? We focus on local scenes, mainly from smaller cities and towns within iconic landscapes across the state. Our snapshots begin in the southwest corner of California and transport you toward the northeast corner of the state. We know that, even with all these images, we have missed many locations and have just scratched the surface.

As we travel along, we must remember that each Californian has a personal story to tell. One of the best ways to learn about these personal COVID experiences is from the best and most credible sources. The unprecedented nature of this pandemic encouraged the prestigious California Historical Society (CHS) to launch an informative project, Tell Your Story – California during the time of COVID-19. Here are just three excerpts from their project that continues to gather a wealth of diverse personal stories. We encourage you to visit the CHS web site for more: 

Adriana, Age 37, of Sacramento:  “My son asked me a little while ago what it was like when I was a kid and my school shut down for coronavirus, and I had to tell him that this is the first time something like this has happened in a hundred years, that it never even happened to his great-grandma.”

Natalia, Age 24, of North Shore, Salton Sea: “We live in the unincorporated city of North Shore with a majority migrant/immigrant population who are mostly farmworkers. COVID-19 has hit our community hard as most farmworkers cannot afford to stay home. Those who were laid-off or had to stay home to take care of children are in great disparity from being evicted, starving, zero access to clean water, and/or are high risk for contracting COVID-19. The line to get free food from the local food bank stretches over a mile, easily.”

Sean, Age 44, of San Francisco: “I am a massive extrovert, so the ‘shelter in place’ felt suffocating immediately. I don’t thrive working from home but had already been doing it for 10 days straight. Once Mayor Breed put in the order my trainer canceled on me, my gym closed, my barber canceled and so did our yard service. Nearly all businesses and human contact came to a halt within hours or days. It has been 4-5 weeks already and although I am lucky my job is fine and my family is healthy, I am starving for human connection beyond Zoom calls and 6 foot distances.”

Urban Center Pandemic Landscapes
The most dramatic changes continue to transform the densest downtown districts within our major cities. Though some recovery from the more severe lockdowns earlier this year is evident, there remains an eerie quiet and lack of activity in businesses and on city streets with no sense of excitement. One resident of downtown L.A. described it well, noting how the construction and long-term resurgence that you can see and hear in the background continues to erect buildings that were planned years ago. But this assembly of new buildings is now occurring in the absence of an assembly of people, as if someone has pushed the pause button.  And you can see the strain on people’s faces and the tension in the ways they interact with one another.  These more extreme pandemic scenes tend to radiate out like a wave that is propagated by the impact of a rock in a pond, usually becoming less evident as we move away from the urban cores. Even the infamous freeways and public transportation networks that connect these urban centers and their suburbs, and their exurbs beyond, continue to exhibit unusual and sometimes unpredictable traffic patterns that generally flow more freely compared to the vicious commutes of pre-pandemic gridlock.

Coping with COVID in California Cities
There are many examples of how neighborhoods near denser downtowns such as San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, L.A., and San Diego are finding creative and even ingenious ways to cope.  In San Francisco, a program called North Beach Delivers was formed by North Beach Neighbors to simultaneously save local restaurants, distribute food out to the community, and offer exercise opportunities for locals. In their own words, they are… “neighbors who care about supporting the backbone of our community – our neighborhood small businesses. Each week, we walk, ride, and (sometimes) run up the hills of the northeast corridor of the City to provide free delivery for our featured restaurant. We believe in the importance of supporting neighborhood businesses and spending our money locally.” And, “Since we’re volunteer-driven, North Beach Delivers runs with help from neighbors, like you. Whether you’d like to help make deliveries or find out about the restaurants we’re featuring each week, sign up to stay in touch!” You might try connecting to similar initiatives and programs that are springing up across the state in hopes to save your cherished neighborhoods and businesses.   

Reinventing Cityscapes
We – from larger to smaller cities – have also reinvented our street spaces. Many businesses, previously hesitant, are now eager to give up parking spaces in business districts, especially with the decrease in traffic and abundant empty parking. Decades ago, retail businesses discovered how the combination of dining and entertainment experiences increased foot traffic into stores. Suddenly, COVID eliminated those options and attractions, such as theaters. Now, restaurants have been converting one or two or more parking spaces into dining areas. This may be just enough to keep some local restaurants and retail afloat until the COVID turbulence calms. One geographic glitch emerges with winter weather, especially in northern California. What happens when outdoor heaters aren’t warm enough and umbrellas aren’t large enough to protect diners from inclement weather?

Working around COVID in Two Californias
We are reminded that those city streets and office buildings are quiet partially because it is so much easier for white-collar and gold-collar professionals to work remotely. COVID’s economic ripple effects are far more pronounced for the blue-collar working class. As white-collar jobs have mostly rebounded, blue-collar jobs are coming back much more slowly, often casting lower-income workers into more COVID-contagious environments. Now, economists warn that we may continue to experience what is known as a K-shaped economic recovery that will exacerbate existing inequalities. This occurs when well-educated and highly-skilled professionals (such as in high technology and software services) and investors enjoy prosperity and growth out of the COVID recession, while those with less education and skills (such as in the travel, entertainment, hospitality, and food services industries) suffer continued decline. Economic data supports these assumptions as workers earning more than $60,000/yr. have been recovering more rapidly than those earning near minimum wages and less than $28,000/yr., who are recovering much slower or not at all. And, as if the pre-COVID job market wasn’t already unsettled and transient enough, there is a growing number of roaming pandemic workers (usually younger and without families) who are willing or desperate to move around the state to find work.

Finding Healthy Learning and Working Spaces
Inequalities have surfaced in so many other spaces and places during our partial and spasmodic openings and recoveries.  One of the most striking can be experienced at home, within the quiet and order of spacious private rooms where some students can concentrate on their on line classes and assignments, versus the confined students crammed into small, shared living spaces, often with other siblings taking different classes, sharing whatever technology and screen might be hanging on by a thread. Homeless kids and their parents face even more obvious and extreme challenges while schools are closed. We will all pay a high price for letting some of these students, with the potential to excel, succeed, and make their own contributions, slip away from us without proper supervision or mentoring. And health officials are already measuring increasing problems within our younger populations that include obesity, particularly among those who relied on their schools’ playgrounds, physical education classes, and sports programs to invite them outside and keep them fit. Again, the physical and mental health problems appear more severe in denser, working class urban centers where people were already suffering from growing nature deficit disorders.

By the fall, people of all ages were being lured back out into the open by a diversity of organizations and entrepreneurs. They included schools and youth groups that reintroduced after-school and weekend athletics to local parks, soccer fields, and other open spaces. And they included local businesses that offered beach picnic packages for couples and small families, and yoga and other group fitness classes in parks and on our beaches.

Roommate Landscapes
This brings us to the remarkably uneven impact the pandemic has had on real estate and rental markets. We’ve all seen the “for rent” and lease signs that continue to multiply as struggling renters move out and then back in with family and friends, and as offices are vacated by failed businesses and those lucky enough to work remotely. Again, our urban areas are hit the hardest. News stories such as on NPR have noted how the majority of 18-29 year-olds now live with their parents. You can see the extra cars parked on residential streets that are home to growing sandwich households. And you can see the used furniture scattered along the sidewalks in those evacuated urban landscapes, while many second-hand stores are so flooded with furniture, they are rejecting donations. The impacts are particularly remarkable in college communities that have been vacated by students attending classes on line, leaving behind many of the dorms, apartments, and businesses that served them, from communities surrounding larger campuses, such as UC San Diego, to smaller college towns in northern California.

Urban Booms Gone Bust
And just as landlords were enjoying skyrocketing rental markets in our cities before the pandemic, the bottom has dropped out, driving rents down as much as 20% in neighborhoods within hipster San Francisco, San Jose, the Wilshire District of L.A., and its higher-end, luxury, downtown apartments. California’s dense urban cores are – at least temporarily – no longer booming. The cosmopolitan lifestyles that urbanites embraced have been upended by closed nightclubs, theaters, restaurants, sporting events, and the cancellation of festivals and other events that defined our exciting cities. The great migrations and gentrifications that brought wealth and culture back to our cities during the last few decades have temporarily stopped.

Deficit Landscapes
As local businesses shut down, large delivery companies thrive, serving on line shoppers who aren’t recycling money – and taxes – within their neighborhoods. Many family-owned businesses that survive are losing their savings and incurring larger debts, pushing more businesses and real estate into the hands of the largest players with the most capital. Will our pandemic public spending continue to exceed what we earn, as funding for city, county, and state projects dries up? Will this leave neighborhood and community improvement spaces vulnerable to become more generic privately-owned properties, leading to deterioration of our public spaces in the long run? Since many of these urban landscapes will be under stress long after COVIC-19, these are questions that need our attention now.

Urban Cultures Strain to Adapt
Those who moved to the big city have temporarily lost much of their urban cultures as surrounding businesses shut down. By the fall, urban residents desperate to celebrate some form of culture had been flooding open-air flea markets and lining up at makeshift drive-in entertainment events. The sense of personal and family safety in isolation was fueling a temporary resurgence in car cultures of choice and leisure unrelated to the workplace. Public transportation systems have been crippled as fearful riders abandoned and escaped what they perceived as overcrowded contaminated spaces. Though this trend back to the car was slowed by families suffering economic hardships caused by the pandemic, it was fueled by slumping gasoline prices that lowered the costs of car trips in a recession-like pandemic world that was buying and burning less fossil fuel. Many traditional models once used to explain and predict economic trends and human behavior were being reworked by a pandemic that changed the rules and reshuffled winners and losers.

Moving to the Countryside
You will find remarkable real estate winners just about everywhere else, assuming we are talking about those who already own property. The turbulent trends have been highlighted by industry mainstays such as Redfin and Zillow. Rock bottom interest rates that were further lowered to speed recovery have fueled exploding housing prices away from concentrated city centers. Armed with their high-tech devices and communication software, many urban professionals have at least temporarily relocated to the suburbs or even farther, where real estate prices have skyrocketed. They have temporarily settled for months or longer in places as far as Lake Tahoe and other resort locations, at least until in-person contacts can resume. These remote vacation resorts have been further populated by those looking for safe retreats and short vacations to ease their cabin-fevers-in-the-city, as they try to escape urban areas gone silent. After the initial lockdown drove many vacation businesses to the brink, restrictions were lifted, opening a floodgate of B&B seekers to crash into the great outdoors. Numerous resort towns and their businesses throughout the state are now thriving. You can see the throngs of urban escapees competing for space and looking for ways to spend their time and money, especially on weekends. This leaves many resort town residents to appreciate the booming business, but worry that a few infected visitors from the city could become the super spreaders in their hometowns. 

Escaping into the Great Outdoors
This exodus from the cities also helps explain the boom in recreational vehicle rentals that became so common on our roads by summer: families and friends looking for safe, confined transport and living spaces. We can also understand how campers escaping COVID and cabin fever combined with increased homelessness and limited entry to national and state parks to force large numbers of visitors into U.S. Forest Service lands. Some of them then became victims of the worst wildfires in state history: whiplash migrations from one disaster to another.

Competing to Reconnect to Nature
Now that we have transported you from California cities to the great outdoors, we can see how COVID has changed some of our most remote spaces and places.  The initial, more extreme lockdown first closed our city, county, state, and national parks and emptied the roads and resorts connected to them. Wildlife began to fill the gaps, roaming, grazing, hunting, and lounging around in places previously crowded by ecotourists. And as we warned in last spring’s COVID update, there was no coordinated effort to reopen all of our public parks at the same time. Instead, individual parks and trails that first opened were swarmed with visitors informed by social media. By early summer, traffic jams and waiting times to gain entrance to numerous trails and parks (as far away as McArthur-Burney Falls State Park in remote northeastern California) forced visitors and unhappy campers to change plans and turn back. As summer progressed, Yosemite National Park was forced to initiate a reservations-only entry system that quickly filled weeks ahead of time and turned back disappointed escapees, who then flooded nearby National Forests.

Connecting to the Bigger Picture These inconveniences and attempts at closer encounters with nature serve to remind us about a larger, global human/nature dilemma: As the world’s expanding 7.7 billion people continue to encroach on wild areas, the increased human interaction with wildlife is likely to unleash new viruses and pandemics that follow COVID-19. Could this pandemic be a recurring new normal instead of the exception? If this rings true, 2020 could be a dress rehearsal, a dystopian view into our future world, if we don’t get our acts together and learn from our suffering. 

An Excuse to Work Together for Positive Change
One way we must cope is to rise from the ruins and find the silver linings in what we have. Are we using these unprecedented opportunities to rediscover and reconnect to our health, our environment, and to one another? Here, we harvest some inspiration and two suggestions from leading psychologists interviewed within the media during the last few months: Name three ways your life has improved since COVID hit. Name three activities you have done or new discoveries or accomplishments you have made due to COVID.

In that spirit, we also hope you are informed by our visual snapshots of California places that have been transformed by COVID-19, summer and fall, 2020. As you now see, they started in far southwestern California and will end in the more remote northeast. Though they mostly focus on smaller towns and cities and some locations of escape, they illustrate places where all of our lives and landscapes will never be the same. As we and our loved ones tend to our personal physical and mental health, we remain connected by these spaces and places.  

We encourage you to read more personal COVID stories on the California Historical Society web site at: https://californiahistoricalsociety.org/exhibitions/

Jumping North. We will now take you to the second part, or volume, in this series of COVID-19 snapshots that help document how California has weathered the pandemic storm. We will first jump into the spine of the Sacramento Valley. Then, we will explore some of the state’s least populated places in eastern and far northern California, landscapes and cultures on the opposite corner of the Golden State that stand in stark contrast to the iconic southwest coast already surveyed.

Additional COVID-19 Pandemic Sources.
If you are interested in details, statistics, and some informative maps, here are some updated sources we listed in our previous California COVID-19 story from last spring. Good luck!:

L.A.Times tracks the virus in California:

https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/

John Hopkins University national maps show confirmed cases and deaths by county. Zoom in to California counties:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map

National Geographic:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/graphic-tracking-coronavirus-infections-us/

Google data:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=covid-19+maps+California

The post COVID-free Spaces in Pandemic Places: Coping with COVID-19 across California first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Some trends could have been predicted. Our initial shelter in place and quarantine efforts that locked us down helped to keep the state’s infection and death rate curves below thresholds that could have otherwise overwhelmed our health care systems and left tens of thousands of sick patients without care. By mid May, our state with by far the greatest population still ranked only 5th in the number of cases. California has avoided the exponential curves, astronomical numbers, and senseless deaths that are too often experienced in the world’s less fortunate communities and countries. This allows most of us to feel lucky and healthy enough to express our empathy for families who have lost loved ones to the pandemic. But the reactions and results, so far, vary dramatically across the state.

After its initial introduction into the Bay Area, the virus spread throughout the state, but it is now impacting, infecting, and killing a much larger proportion of people in working-class families and communities who are also concentrated in our urban areas and some farming communities, and that includes people of color. The elderly (especially those living in nursing facilities) and those with preexisting health conditions (such as diabetes) suffering from inadequate health care are particularly vulnerable. But so are those in service and health care industries who are required to work under conditions likely to expose them to the virus. Working class people of all ages who do not have the financial and technical resources to study or work from home are further marginalized in what was already a two-tiered economy and society. The two Californias become evident again as one set of mainly blue-collar workers are required to return to what may be dangerous public-contact work places to earn their paychecks while another set of mainly white- and gold-collar workers earn their incomes from the safety of their homes. Impacts remain less evident in many more rural counties and communities in far northern and inland California, where less onerous restrictions were frequently first resisted or ignored and then lifted. Big exceptions include a few important agricultural communities and prisons that have experienced dramatic spikes in cases, such as in Tulare and Imperial Counties. 

We have also stifled the world’s 5^th largest economy and sent millions of workers into unemployment. And so, as we have saved tens of thousands of lives, some are now asking why killing this virus should require killing our economy. How do we reopen safely and efficiently? In classic California fashion, the predominately progressive coastal cities have lined up on the side of safety first, while more conservative rural communities farther inland and north of Sacramento (such as the Jeffersonians) dismiss the threats and barrel full speed ahead into traditional work and routines that will pay the bills. Polarized sides bring their arguments to the forefront, either by shaming those who ignore health risks or by criticizing and attacking government interventions that are perceived to limit their freedoms. Once again, the 40 million people in the most diverse state find themselves at the center of a classic American debate. Are we all community in the same boat that keeps everyone, even the selfish, above water, or is this another opportunity to celebrate our fierce independence and rugged individualism? Regardless, social media has helped to blur some of the geographic boundaries that would otherwise separate these seemingly disparate philosophies, cultures, and communities, statewide divisions that we highlight in our publication.

Here, we explore a popular and controversial example from Huntington Beach. Recent election results suggest that Orange County has shifted away from its ultra-conservative history to become more progressive in culture and politics. But responses to the pandemic lifted some of that traditional stereotyped OC culture back toward the surface in the form of right-leaning protestors who resent any government incursion into their economic lives. Their philosophical bonds with those rural cultures farther inland and north of Sacramento made Huntington Beach a magnet for attracting anyone who wanted to demonstrate their contempt for what they saw as government overreach during the pandemic.

The signs spoke volumes. Animosity toward the sitting progressive Democratic Governor Newsom, libertarians, white nationalists, Trump supporters promoting FOX News and conservative radio personalities, anti-vaccine groups, conspiracy theory believers, pro-gun industry supporters: it was a cast of characters you’ve seen so often in the sensationalist media that thrives on conflict, all converging into a relatively small but raucous crowd in front of the closed Huntington Beach Pier.  A couple of them even stormed the closed gates, only to be met by a team of officers who were forced to cart the troublemakers off from the end of the pier. The circus atmosphere included a cacophony of competing bullhorn and loudspeaker noise from people touting their favorite brand of right-wing politics and an army of police officers on foot, horses, and vehicles trying to calm the tension that sometimes erupts between demonstrators and counterdemonstrators. A few of the spectators cheered the protestors on, while a few repulsed passersby were overheard labeling them as “crazy nuts” through their protective masks. The images we share here thrust you into this California scene, while the surrounding activity may be even more telling.

Downtown Huntington Beach streets (especially Main Street) were packed with summer-worshiping crowds soothing their cabin fever in May without facial masks, and open businesses seeming to purposely flout all social distancing and stay-at-home rules. The “no virus threat here” spectacle spread for miles in both directions along the beach where revelers brought their families and friends to swim and surf and relax on the sand, some ignoring official pleas to encourage social distancing and to keep moving. “Surf City here we come” stood in dramatic contrast to beaches and communities in adjacent L.A. County that remained sparsely visited, if not empty, while most of their few mask-clad recreators adhered to social distancing rules and law enforcement occasionally enforced those rules. The two Californias were evident on this same sunny May Saturday afternoon in these adjacent counties during this unprecedented pandemic.

Just as the number of COVID-19 victims grew in May, impatience with the two-month-long lock down was also growing, first spreading from these early epicenters of discontent like a ripple that turned into a wave that might gradually introduce more Californians back to work and play. It is a very different kind of experiment with unknown results among the amazing diversity of communities that make the Golden State. If you are reading this long after May, 2020, you may already know the results, whether this pandemic did permanent damage or if we weathered this storm and came out stronger in the long run.

We have all learned that it is relatively easy to lock the state down to save lives or open it up to save the economy, but as the pandemic drags on, how can we find ways to achieve both goals? These questions and their answers are far more complicated than the shallow, oversimplified media-driven debates. Just as this pandemic is unprecedented, it will take an unprecedented wealth of creative thinking, great minds, hard work, good will, and cooperation to find common ground and move us back into the light. Even in our divisions and tribes, we continue floating together on that same boat.

There is a growing variety of active sites where you can gather information about the pandemic in California. As of May, 2020, the maps and graphics display a wide array of sometimes puzzling trends. Per capita cases are high in Los Angeles and San Francisco Counties, but also in isolated Mono and agricultural Tulare and Imperial counties. Throw in Santa Barbara County and you have the highest per capita counties to date, but the data are changing fast. Each of the following links is a moving target that may evolve, change, or disappear after this story is posted. We include the full addresses to help your research. Good luck in your endeavors to be healthy, wealthy, and wise! 

Some useful links:

UCLA Anthropologist Daniel Fessler discusses the flip side of these images by sharing his historical and intellectual perspective about our human dilemma. You’ll need an hour to digest these thoughts:

L.A.Times tracks the virus in California:

https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/

John Hopkins University national maps show confirmed cases and deaths by county. Zoom in to California counties:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map

National Geographic:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/graphic-tracking-coronavirus-infections-us/

Google data:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=covid-19+maps+California

Orange County (where the images in this story were recorded): https://occovid19.ochealthinfo.com/coronavirus-in-oc

The post COVID-19 Update: Divisions Resurface in the Golden State first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Since this story is only a quick snapshot in early April, 2020, we don’t know how much pain and suffering and destruction COVID-19 virus will finally leave in its wake. But as people (especially the most vulnerable, such as the already ill and elderly) are sick and dying, medical services are being strained beyond their capacities. Mental health experts are urging all of us to reevaluate and differentiate between what we perceive as inconveniences and real problems in our lives.

Our reactions to this pandemic are transforming the state’s people, cultures, landscapes, and economies faster than most could have imagined. How can anyone attempt to describe or predict the final extent of COVID-19 impacts on our state at this stage in the battle? We have an obligation to share at least a few relevant observations here as we continue to consider and research new ways to rediscover the Golden State. You are welcome to fill in the many gaps as we also invite you to explore with us a few iconic landscapes at this pivotal time in California history. All images (unless otherwise noted) were captured from the Malibu hills and coast to Santa Monica and Venice Beach during the first days of the lockdown. They were all taken from legally-accessible sites during early stages of the pandemic response, while adhering to all health guidelines. Some sites have since closed. We are all reminded that public officials are struggling to do their jobs, so be responsible and stay safe.

It is already clear that our state and our Rediscovering the Golden State project, at least for 2020, has evolved into two narratives: before and after COVID-19. The new Coronavirus and our responses to it are rewriting the human geography that we have researched and shared in our publication and our web page.  

An eerie, foreboding quiet has been cast over our city streets and many other private and public spaces, featuring odd AWOL-like human landscapes. It reminds us of those science fiction movies with images of hunkered-down neighborhoods waiting for the terrifying monster to stomp through. This tempts the geographer in us to rename the virus Godzilla-19. Will the monster destroy us or will we destroy ourselves and our communities preparing for and fighting it? After this pandemic spreads so much inconvenience, pain, and suffering, can a new and improved California emerge? If you are reading this after the crisis, you may already have formulated some answers.

As of the start of April, how have 40 million people in the most culturally diverse place on the planet reacted to our state shut down? At first, within otherwise seemingly abandoned cities and suburbs during daylight hours, some families could be seen walking and playing together in parks, beaches, and the other open public spaces that have become so precious to Californians, especially as we were blocked out of those meticulously planned private landscapes that were designed to encourage us to spend our dollars. More recently, officials have been closing even our shared public outdoor spaces to keep the virus from spreading, as some became overcrowded with visitors trying to escape their limited confines.

Rural Californians working in primary industries may have, at first, had to make the fewest adjustments to adhere to the temporary COVID-19 protocols. You might not have even noticed pandemic symptoms in some of the state’s more rural and remote communities where annual incomes and the cost of living are relatively low. The big exceptions include communities dependent on tourism and ecotourism, where their streets and hospitality businesses are left empty and severely damaged.

Common sense must rule as geographical and spatial epidemiologists monitor Godzilla’s destruction and work to educate us about the details. Will the monster have its way with California cities as it did NYC? Will the pandemic quickly infect the densest urban neighborhoods and gradually trickle into rural areas? Will it hit certain ethnic groups harder than others? We already know that the elderly are most vulnerable. Will the per capita infection and illness rates be higher in working class or wealthy communities, homeless or prison populations? Will changing seasons slow or accelerate the spread? Did our quick, proactive response slow (flatten) California’s per capita infections and deaths curves compared to many other states and nations, or was there something else about our geography that made us unique? There are too many questions and unknown variables in these uncharted waters during this uncertain spring, but the final maps promise to reveal fascinating mysteries and hidden tragedies.

We already declare many losers in economic geography, particularly in a state where such activities as tourism, transportation, manufacturing, international trade, entertainment, and services (each worth hundreds of billions of dollars) recently fueled our economic engines to soar over $3 billion, more than 14% of U.S. GDP. Sober fiscal realities become clear when you check the economic specifics in Chapter 10 of our publication: our state’s economy is being crippled by this devastating Godzilla. And the catastrophe is spreading faster than at any time in history: note the millions of able workers applying for unemployment.  

Past mistakes haunt us…again. While California was smart to boost its rainy day funds during the last decade of growth that built the 5^th largest economy in the world, the Federal Government debt was allowed to balloon in reckless fashion. The Godzilla-19 crisis promises to quickly deplete our once impressive state surplus, while the nation’s debt will skyrocket to historic and perhaps unmanageable or even unimaginable levels. We will all have enormous debt burdens that could last for generations and it will show in every future decision we make, from building infrastructure, to supporting education, and from funding our parks, to supplying vital social services. It is too late to encourage the discipline that could have built rewarding household and government rainy day funds. The rainy day has arrived.

Other industries, each worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually, are playing key roles in keeping us alive, sometimes literally. The global epicenter of biotechnology industries is in the Golden State, particularly from southern Orange County through San Diego County. Will treatments and cures for the COVID-19 scourge be discovered here? The high technology capital of the world remains in the Silicon Valley and has spread beyond the Bay Area, spilled in to the Central Valley, and leaped into coastal Southern California. These technologies have become crucial in supporting the schooling and working and social networking from home that has kept our economy from crashing, while guarding millions from getting sick. As just one example, it is no surprise that Zoom Video Communications is headquartered in San Jose. Other communications technologies and delivery companies have allowed millions of Californians to purchase and receive vital products without risky human contact. So it is true that if California sneezes, the nation will get sicker. All eyes necessarily turn to our overburdened health care industry.

The crash in service industries that require human contact and the inaccessibility of many technologies to low-income Californians promises to increase inequities, poverty rates, and the already record gap between the rich and poor. Those ubiquitous delivery trucks that have converged on higher income neighborhoods are serving far fewer working class households where there are people who have lost their tips and weekly paychecks and now can barely afford their necessities, much less pay for deliveries. Smaller, struggling businesses are folding or being gobbled up by those with the capital to ride out this unprecedented storm.

This pandemic offers too many opportunities to reexamine ourselves, our priorities, our neighborhoods, our landscapes, and how we evaluate the issues and solve the problems that confront us, the very topics we have been addressing in this project that has evolved throughout its more than 20 years. We are forced to consider potentially devastating impacts on the most vulnerable populations that include those stuck in poverty without adequate health insurance, more than 100,000 homeless people, and more than 100,000 prisoners in the state. We are startled to see how our living environments improve without the congestion, traffic gridlock, and air pollution that plagued many of our cities when the economy was growing full steam ahead. The pain and suffering brought by COVID-19 offers renewed opportunities to apply geography and “to place California’s human and physical resources, issues, problems, and landscapes in a geographic perspective”, as stated in the last chapter of our publication.

When faced with such a crisis, we are forced to refocus on geographic realities that we have too often ignored. In the long term, unfortunate synergies are growing from local to global scales, such as the effects of climate change, pollution, habitat destruction, the introduction of aggressive non-native invasive species, and our accelerated encroachment into wild spaces. These trends that define the Anthropocene also conspire to produce even more potent future Godzillas than the one we are fighting. And is everyone recognizing the uncanny parallels in our debates about how to handle this crises and more long-term environmental challenges such as climate change? Overreact by investing now and we might save ourselves in the long term at some short-term expense; underreact and we might allow an uncontrolled experiment with unknown consequences to run amok and destroy us. Should we ignore the scientific evidence that commands us to flatten the curve, we risk unleashing an unimaginable wrecking ball into our communities. This Godzilla has reminded us that nature is in charge no matter how we might try to ignore her. And so, as of today, most of our overreactions to this pandemic have turned out to be the proper reactions.

In a state and a world with economies that are fueled by trade and travel and other human interaction, there are many logistical reasons why we can’t erect the perfect barriers such as travel restrictions and quarantines that could quickly end future threats from the outside. But we can work to eliminate islands of inequities that exist in our health care systems, because these may be the petri dishes that nurture the next monster that erupts to produce the next pandemic. So much of our health and survival depends on our ability to – with clearer lenses – rediscover our surrounding environments and reimagine our communities as we view into this new world. Such success will require that we rely on the evidence and science-based decision making that makes us smarter and stronger so that we may better understand these complicated problems and muster the social cohesion required to solve them.    

This is more than our chance to become better prepared to fight an even deadlier biological Godzilla-20 or 21 that epidemiologists warn could attack us in the future. We might use this opportunity to reestablish healthier families and cultures, as the importance of household and neighborhood communication replaces alienation and isolation. Cooperation and community could replace selfish cynicism, tribalism, and hyper-competition for the few remaining scraps. Through it all, our appreciation and love for geography can be rekindled as we become more prepared for future disasters such as that catastrophic earthquake that is in our future. The least imaginative leaders have already forced us to confront moral and philosophical questions about the importance of money and wealth versus life and health, as if they could be neatly separated for conflict. This might be an opportunity to recognize how our economy AND public health are powerfully connected: sick workers operate sick economies; healthy Californians are more productive Californians.

While keeping my social distance in the checkout lines, I have done some rough surveys. Why were so many people hoarding products that are easily restocked by reliable supply chains, even during a crisis like this? After all, farmers must continue to bring their food to markets as it becomes edible. The California Grocers Association reassures us and demonstrates how the supply chain is intact and reliable, so what is fueling this irrational and wasteful panic buying? The other day, I asked the person in front of me why he had filled his cart with so many plastic bottles of water. He blamed it on orders from his wife, but like every other bottled water hoarder I’ve asked, his only answer was that “everyone else was doing it.” Yet anyone knowledgeable about our state’s water delivery systems knows that our inexpensive tap water is usually as good or better quality than plastic bottled water that costs as much as gasoline, except for very few neighborhoods and isolated communities suffering from locally contaminated water (especially groundwater) supplies. Still, companies pushing their bottled water have made fortunes off convincing millions of clueless Californians to waste their hard-earned money to buy something that is already offered to them almost for free, with or without a home filter. Meanwhile, the unnecessary plastic bottle waste piles up in our landfills and on our beaches while consumers drain their wallets to pay for something they don’t need. It’s another Tragedy of the Commons drama that can be eased with some knowledge of geography.

And spatial epidemiologists can tell you that riding your bike or walking with your family on the beach or a mountain trail is perfectly safe as long as you keep your safe social distance. Especially during these times, everyone can benefit from decreasing stress hormones, blood pressure, and heart rates in open and natural environments that can strengthen our natural immune systems and quell our nature deficit disorders. Enjoy neighborhood walks, find a garden, but keep your safe social distance. Still, there is pressure to close all of our calming public spaces during this crisis at the expense of our freedom to stay physically and mentally fit. Conflicts and debates quickly erupt as medical experts tell us there is no threat to anyone who observes proper social distancing in open air environments, while these activities often result in enormous improvements to our physical and mental well-being. What do you think is healthier personal and social behavior?…remaining cooped up behind four walls, or walking along an open trail in fresh air under an open sky with or without your family, while maintaining safe social distances?…disconnected inaction or engaged participation? A little bit more knowledge about diseases and our need to connect to our surrounding environments would help us make better choices.

Geography helps us understand why particular public parks and trails were forced to close after selfies and social media over-advertised them as escapes from the Godzilla drama. Parts of Marin County to Pt. Reyes, Newport and Laguna Beach, and other popular local, state, and national parks and nature trails adjacent to our largest urban areas were overrun and then first to close when the hordes were crammed dangerously closer than the social distance required. This heaps greater burdens on the fewer public spaces remaining open until they are forced to close under a cascading negative ripple effect. Unintended consequences take over. One- or half-day journeys to the open, expansive, calming places have been thwarted by closures sometimes encouraged by wealthy locals who are fortunate to live adjacent to the resources, but who might fear the crowds more than the virus. Tragedy of the Commons revisited.

We are challenged to imagine more sustainable ways of reacting and how we might eventually reopen our state and our lives, especially as this crisis carries on for months, particularly when the curve is finally falling. When the threat eases, more effort can be made to warn potential visitors about overcrowded open spaces so they can be avoided. Officials might coordinate with local volunteers to direct, disperse, and educate visitors along one-way loop trails and other outdoor experiences that encourage social distancing so that all parks and beaches might reopen. Alternating parking days permitting only odd or even license plates or birth years could cut crowds at other public areas. There are many other examples as simple as this one smart sign that read, “Our public parks are open. Please maintain safe social distance.”, until even that park was later closed. If you think these ideas are unworkable, here’s a chance to propose your own solutions instead of sitting back, watching, and complaining.

A wave of volunteers, cooperation, and social cohesion will be required to avoid dangerous congregating in our cherished open spaces so that we can conquer this monster. Our path toward freedom and sanity will require a bold vision and strategy, a labor-intensive effort that we haven’t seen in many decades. It will necessitate unprecedented coordination between local, state, and federal agencies and officials. But we cannot let this attack from nature further disconnect us from our physical geography, from what is really vital to our health and survival, the natural world that nurtures us. Without these herculean efforts, we may become the latest victims living through our five stages of grief over our many losses within our manufactured Tragedy of the Commons in a sort of Godzilla Meets the Twilight Zone landscape and culture.

Visiting any store, business, neighborhood, or public place during this crisis, you can’t help wishing that the late screenwriter, Rod Serling, could have lived to witness real people behaving as the characters in the stories he once imagined for us, the stories that could make us look in the mirror and love what we could be or hate what we have become.

You can see that there are many new and urgent reasons why we will be sharing more of our own stories about the Golden State to inform and to explore with you while we are all fighting together and finally recovering from this Godzilla-19 monster. It is a perfect opportunity to imagine how we can open a new door and live up to our potential to become the state we want to be. And as Rod Serling once declared, you unlock this door with the key of imagination. Stay tuned.

This snapshot story ends with the late Maya Angelou’s words that seem more relevant than ever: “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

The post COVID-19 Attacks California first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Here, we offer Patterson as an exhibit. It is strategically located off Interstate 5 southwest of Modesto and just more than an hour from major Bay Area cities. Patterson residents might tell you it is much more than a distant bedroom commuter community or a hub for distribution centers. Like so many Central Valley cities, it has a rich farming history; in Patterson’s case, that includes a label as the apricot capital and an annual festival to celebrate this juicy fruit. But like many of those Central Valley cities, Patterson’s farmland is being gobbled up by new developments and a population that has exploded well over 20,000 in recent years, roughly doubling since our first edition at the turn of the century. Here, you will see signs of these changes in a conflicted landscape of traditional farmland and harvests juxtaposed against generic suburban landscapes that could be almost anywhere in California.

Patterson e-Commerce

Large, open tracts of relatively inexpensive land near large population centers have made the Central Valley and attractive location for e-commerce distribution centers to be planted.

Off and On

Strategically Located

Commutable

Vacancy

Loading Docks

Not Just Amazon

Construction

Seasonal Crops

Changing Crops

E-commerce

Conveniences

Welcome to Patterson

Mixed Development

Cost of Living

Suburban Sprawl

Losing Farmland

Losing Farmland

Farm Stands

Big Box Bingo

The post Patterson Welcomes E-commerce to the Exurbs first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Some Tijuana History

By the mid-1900s, Tijuana was gaining a stereotyped reputation as a tourist town where you could find horseracing, bullfighting, cheap souvenirs, and plenty of Ugly Americans searching for their next shots of Tequila. It also evolved as the city between, as Californians traveled through it to their vacation homes and resorts in such places as nearby Rosarito Beach and Ensenada. For the more adventurous, it was the staging grounds for explorers traveling farther down the Baja peninsula. It was also the last stop before migrants from Latin America took their last step – legally or illegally – north into a promising California of their dreams. One thing is certain: it has never been your average Mexican city.

This border town of immigrants quickly grew from about 60,000 in 1950 to more than 1.5 million by 2018 and up to 2 million including the greater sprawling metropolitan area. When trade barriers eased in the late 1900s, maquiladoras erupted on the Mexican side of the border. These manufacturing industries (that some would label sweat shops) exploited the cheap labor pools that then flooded north by the hundreds of thousands, often in the form of young Mexican women fleeing the poverty that would motivate them to work hard for long hours. Mexico’s and Tijuana’s relaxed labor and environmental regulations attracted mammoth corporations from around the world that could make inexpensive products and easily ship them to the consuming masses across the porous border. To the east, Tecate and Mexicali also grew into manufacturing behemoths.

Maquiladoras Attract Immigrants

Tijuana quickly became one of the world’s great manufacturing centers, especially in electronics. It has been the world’s leading manufacturer of TVs since the 1980s. Add computer components and accessories and other electronics and by 2016, more than half of Tijuana’s formal jobs were in manufacturing. 

Just before and since the turn of the century, billions of dollars have been pumped into Tijuana’s economy in single years. Tens of thousands of new jobs were added as payrolls grew by more than 10 percent each year. Signs across the city announced “Se Necesita Personal”, especially in the Mesa de Otay industrial zone. Even U.S. exports to Mexico soared to record billions of dollars per year in the ongoing trade boom.

The impacts on Tijuana cultures and landscapes have been profound as its populations grew at more than 5%/yr. These represented the greatest migrations in Mexico since the 1960s. Hundreds of thousands of new arrivals crowded Tijuana’s streets, straining an already overwhelmed infrastructure, spreading wealth, diverse cultures, poverty, pollution, and crime well beyond city and national borders. Squatters’ barrios had no services or infrastructure, such as power, water, and sewage disposal.

Many transient immigrant workers took their hard-earned money and returned to their homelands in Mexico, while others continued their migrations into the United States. All of this activity continues to have obvious impacts on California: San Ysidro and Otay Mesa just to the east are recognized as the busiest border crossings in the world. These powerful connections that include labor pools, commercial trade, and tourism helped boost crossings from Tijuana to San Diego to more than 60 million people each year.  

Housing and Services for New Immigrants
Solutions to infrastructure and environmental problems bear costs estimated at billions of dollars/decade as Tijuana attempts to catch up with these historic economic and migration trends and stabilize its border populations. But each year, new developments challenge those efforts.

When thousands of Haitians from Brazil arrived in 2016 and 2017, an estimated 6,000 of them were placed in shelters scattered around TJ. And the more “permanent” settlement of about 3,500 Haitians has been used as a model to handle the latest humanitarian crisis. This comes in the form of the now world-famous caravan of thousands of refugees from Central America escaping extreme violence and poverty, hoping to be admitted into the U.S. While passing north through southern Mexico, the caravan was supported with food, medical care, and temporary shelter. They were followed by media from around the world. Some of them split off and diffused into other parts of Mexico. But their stories are very different form the Haitians that settled just before them.

Caravan at the Border
That humanitarian support soured as thousands approached the U.S. Border. Using terms such as invaders and criminals, President Trump sent thousands of troops to stop them. Large numbers of troops called to the Texas border with Mexico were left with nothing to do when the caravan funneled along the same paths and toward the same city as the hundreds of thousands before them: Tijuana. Some (including the Mayor of Tijuana) note how these latest Central American refugees arrive with different stories and baggage than other groups, such as the Haitians who settled just before them.

Already with limited resources, Tijuana institutions and infrastructures are being strained beyond their limits. Some locals even organized public demonstrations displaying open hostility toward the refugees. American and Mexican lawyers (the borderlands legal industry is visible throughout Tijuana) huddled with the refugees to announce the dreaded truth: only about 20% of Central American applicants are granted asylum status in the U.S. and that process can take many months. Thousands of applicants are being added to the list while only about 100 are being processed at this border crossing each day.    

Nevertheless, with the support of social media and volunteer organizations, more than 5,000 members of the caravan converged on Tijuana before December 2018. Tensions mounted in this crowded city. Tijuana makeshift shelters became overcrowded with asylum seekers who would never make it legally into the U.S. Talk turned to the legal implications for the impatient who might try to cross into California illegally. Others considered applying for more accessible Mexican humanitarian visas that might allow immigrants to seek asylum and even work in Mexico. Hope soon turned to despair for thousands of refugees who had travelled over 2,500 miles north.

Public Perceptions Evolve as U.S. Officials React
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers were seen guarding the border in full anti-riot gear. On November 25, agitators managed to incite one immigrant group to storm the border. The consequences were predictable: violent images of desperate refugees running full speed as they were met with tear gas and sounds of weapons fire. The struggle was splattered in spectacular fashion throughout popular media. After brief closures into San Diego, President Trump vowed to permanently close the entire border if threats of illegal crossings continued.  

Scholars have exposed many of the hidden tragedies in the latest circus of mistakes that characterize our dysfunctional immigration policies over the years. Harvard University professor Ieva Jusionyte has noted how the styles, heights, and locations of border walls have delivered physical punishment to immigrants who dare cross without permission. Those who illegally cross where there is no wall will face wilderness, where bandits or winter’s bitter cold and summer’s searing heat have tortured or killed thousands. Some of the more athletic may try to scale the walls, only to lose fingers at the top or to seriously injure or break feet, ankles, legs, and spines while falling down to the U.S. side. Volunteers and border enforcement officers keep emergency responders busy with the 24/7 calls after helpless victims are found. The sick and injured often require long periods of medical care for rehabilitation. Still, they keep coming.

You will find a much more detailed analysis of immigration’s impacts on California in Chapters 7, 8, and 9 within the 4^th edition of our publication. Our perceptions of immigrants and our policies toward immigration too often fall into emotionally-charged, politically-motivated good immigrant/bad immigrant debates. Demagogues on one extreme attempt to demonize them while the other far side lifts them up on pedestals of angelic innocence. But a little research and experience proves that today’s immigrants are very similar to those who came before to populate our state and more similar to all of us than we might want to imagine, sharing kindred dreams and fears, strengths and weaknesses, good and bad.            

Confronting the Sources of Desperation
Debates continue on both sides of the border about how to craft and implement effective, comprehensive immigration policies, while volunteers hope that such terms as dignified and humane will determine how we treat the latest refugees. Many don’t realize that as the number of border crossings decreased during the last decade, the number of asylum seekers have substantially increased. So if any new policies are to work, they must address the uncomfortable truth that Americans too often ignore: thousands of these refugees are fleeing violent drug cartels in Central America and Mexico that are doing business with the United States.

Those cartels are buying most of their weapons from the U.S., which is why you will find hundreds of firearms dealers locating their businesses near the border. The majority of crime firearms in Central America and Mexico are being traced directly back to those U.S. dealers in a “vast guns bazaar”: we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of firearms worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

And we know the cartels are getting most of their cash to buy our weapons by selling illicit drugs to a second-to-none U.S. consumer market that is terribly addicted. Since this ongoing and now historic deadly cycle is no secret to anyone who wants to do some quick research, we might ask why it is not getting more media and policy-making attention. It is certain we will not solve these immigration problems and the appalling human suffering on both sides of the border unless we confront and help eliminate the source of these desperate immigrants’ problems. Like so many other California problems and their solutions, our road ahead will require a lot of looking in the mirror.              

Still Crossing the Border

Those of us who have travelled from California to Mexico over the years recognize how border crossings and the Tijuana and Baja experiences have changed. The walk or drive south into Mexico remains relatively smooth and easy, no questions asked. But crossing back north and into California has become a time-consuming hassle, even for U.S. Citizens. More drastic changes appeared after the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks. Eventually, passports were required – even for U.S. citizens – to cross back into the U.S. Thousands of legal U.S. residents who were not citizens have been shocked in recent years after learning that they deported themselves simply by walking into Tijuana for a few hours. Waiting periods for vehicles and pedestrians headed back north toward San Diego have ranged from a half hour (usually after midnight on weekdays) to up to three hours (such as on Sunday afternoons and evenings).

The carnival atmosphere that once entertained lines of waiting commuters and other travelers now often turns to dread when leaving a bustling, crowded TJ, signs that border politics and policies have changed. (By 2021, repeated reversals in U.S. border policies had created a type of whiplash reactionary atmosphere of confusion, especially for those considering crossing over. This was fueled by a change in administrations in the middle of a COVID-19 pandemic that had already complicated immigration policies. And ongoing political conflicts between U.S. lawmakers continued to block the sensible comprehensive immigration reform required to introduce more stability and order to the border.) Still, powerful connections and potentials remain between these remarkable, evolving conurbations we call San Diego and Tijuana, borderlands that are home to about 5 million people. 

Walking Around Tijuana

Our images here (from a few years ago) serve to introduce you to a few notable landscapes as we walk across California’s borderlands and into urban Tijuana. We suggest you visit on your own so that you can enjoy the street tacos and rich cultures. Bring the family and friends, make sure your legal status allows your return, follow all the rules, and don’t forget your passports.  

Tijuana Border Controversy

Unmistakable Landmarks

Shopping and Entertainment

Worshiping Traditions

Catholic History

Architecture and Culture

Precious Open Space

Wealth and Poverty

Mexican Legend

Dreams on the Other Side

Squashing Against the Border

Carnival Atmosphere

Blending Cultures

Colorful Business Districts

Pushing the Limits

Center of Culture

Finding Identity

Slicing into History

Parking Abarrotado

Nutritious Options

Waiting to Cross

Pick Your California City

Last Stop/First Stop

Crossing on Foot

Legal Services

Water Pollution Knows No Border

Desperation River

Made in Mexico

The post Welcome to Tijuana: Caravans, Computers, Carnivals, and Controversy first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.