The Meth of the Environmentalists

The LA Times recently wrote an article about the effect that No-Growthers and their beliefs have had on Santa Barbara County. In a nutshell, housing production has been severely limited in the past two decades in order to preserve the view, the environment, etc., with the net effect that housing prices have skyrocketed, poor people have been either forced out of the county or compelled to double up (or triple up) in rental units, while slowly turning the Santa Barbara demographic into rich geriatrics. Only 6% of those who live in Santa Barbara County would be able to afford a home there right now if faced with the choice to buy. Another side effect of this is that the poorer people in question (working in the county's service industries, agriculture, etc.) must commute from either Ventura County or San Luis Obispo County, thus choking the highways and producing more pollution.

No-Growthers value environment above people, but it's interesting to note that the policies they push actually promote pollution and road congestion.

In my own home county of Monterey, the No-Growthers are hard at work pushing the same policies that have crippled Santa Barbara. Hopefully, we who are sane will have better luck fighting them off here.

One interesting factoid is that about 5% of California has structure on it (structure = roads, buildings, homes, etc.). Roughly 95% of California is open space. If you don't believe me, take a night flight north from Los Angeles and look out the window. It's all pretty dark down there. You'd figure 95% of a state would be enough open space for anyone, but maybe it's an addiction...

Open space is the meth of the environmentals.