Small-Town Life Gone Forever

There was a time when one of a city’s chief bragging points might be how quickly it was growing, when nothing could make a burgeoning municipality happier than to reach the fabled 1-million mark.

But, at least in San Diego, that time has long since passed, and few are still inclined to encourage growth for growth’s sake. So the news out of the California Department of Finance that the City of San Diego did, in fact, pass 1 million residents somewhere around January of this year is less a cause of celebration than of a deep sigh.

By the state’s reckoning, the city has grown to at least 1,002,895 residents and the county to 2,102,502. The San Diego Assn. of Governments estimates that, by the year 2000, the county will be home to nearly 2.7 million people.

The debate over whether local governments should actually discourage people from moving here flares from time to time, and it’s not our intention to rekindle it now.

But out of respect for those who have been here since this really was a sleepy, out-of-the-way spot with few aspirations to cosmopolitan status, it seems appropriate to at least pause for a moment and salute the passing of what may be the last vestige of San Diego the small town.