Troubling Attitudes Surface

Surveys can be seen as snapshots of opinion that tell what the public is thinking at one particular time. The 1986 Orange County Survey released last Monday is not a pretty picture.

Economically, the county is healthy enough. Its residents enjoy a median household income of $41,000, almost twice that of the rest of the nation. Despite all the affluence, money hasn’t bought happiness. For the first time since the annual survey started in 1982, a majority of the residents think that the county will become a worse, not a better, place to live in the future.

Judging from other attitudes expressed in the annual poll conducted by Prof. Mark Baldassare of UC Irvine, a lot of residents not only have become disenchanted with conditions in Orange County, but also harbor resentment, if not outright prejudice, against immigrants, and have quite self-centered thoughts about the county’s social needs.

This year’s survey disclosed that 47% of those contacted thought that the county will become a worse place to live in the future. Only 28% believed it will be better.

Another negative attitude that first surfaced in 1985 and became even stronger this year is the increasing alarm being shown over the influx of Asian and Latino immigrants. Baldassare, an associate professor of social ecology at UCI, said he couldn’t pin down any one factor responsible for residents’ fears, but he reported a “snowballing of public concerns on growth and immigration.”

Several other studies released earlier this year reported the same troubling trend. An 18-month survey of Orange County needs last April noted a sense of deteriorating race relations, and last August a state advisory committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was told that racial tensions in Orange County were at an all-time high.

The community’s social conscience also seems to be wearing thin. People who have so much should be willing to share with others less fortunate. But concerns are turned inward. Baldassare reported that only a minority of residents believe that it is “very important” to give money to the poor or volunteer time for community services.

Residents continue to see traffic congestion as the county’s No. 1 problem. That’s not surprising. Neither is the public concern over the potential damage of too much growth. Those factors certainly lessen the quality of life in Orange County.

But the negative and self-centered attitudes the annual survey uncovered regarding the county’s future, race relations and the importance of helping those less fortunate, can be even more damaging. The survey has brought them out into the open. The community and its leaders dare not ignore them.