REAL ESTATE

Boom and Gloom: Take heart: In 20 years Riverside and San Bernardino will probably be as unpleasant and as hard to get around in as Orange County is now.

That’s one of the conclusions of a construction market forecast of the next 20 years by Kitchell Contractors, an Irvine builder.

Riverside and San Bernardino will cease to be bedroom communities for Los Angeles and Orange County. They will continue to develop their own industrial base and presumably will become as difficult and expensive places to live as Los Angeles or Orange counties.

Kitchell says the aerospace and defense industries are likely to decline further as defense spending slows. In the construction market, that means there won’t be as much demand for industrial buildings.

The aging of the baby boomers means fewer homes are likely to be built, since nearly 60% of Southern California’s population will be over the age of 45 early in the 21st Century. Hospitals, however, will need to expand. And more retired folk with time on their hands means more demand for leisure activities and more stores and shops.

The quality of life almost certainly will be lower, the report concludes, or at least such a problem that it could inhibit economic growth. But the forecast is basically upbeat: California non-residential building permits totaled more than $14 billion last year, or a staggering one-fifth of the nation’s total, and that’s not likely to change much.