ORANGE COUNTY 1990 : A Ten-Year Almanac

Ten years from now, Orange County will be older, richer and nearly 300,000 residents larger. Planners and developers predict that people will be living in new homes with views of rolling foothills or ocean sunsets, working in new office towers overlooking freeway junctions, buying in shops in revitalized downtowns, playing in new regional parks, and getting away from it all with the help of an expanded airport terminal. In the next 10 years, more than 14,000 more people will have died of AIDS, and twice as much jail space will be needed. And as they integrate increased stresses and new technology, Orange County residents might even utter a new word or two. Here’s a closer look.

Development

New development and redevelopment--not to mention a gleaming new home for a professional sports team or two--will spring up on Orange County’s terrain during the next decade. Orange County’s largest capital improvement project--John Wayne Airport--will be completed next year. In addition, five regional parks are planned to be added to the landscape in the 1990s.

1. ANAHEIM STADIUM: Nearly $4 billion in high-rise development is targeted for the Platinum Triangle: 200 acres stretching from the stadium to the junction of Garden Groved, Orange and Santa Ana freeways. A sports arena is planned near the Big A to attract a pro basketball or hockey team, and the stadium may be the terminus of a proposed high-speed Las Vegas-Southern California train.

2. HUNTINGTON BEACH: The city’s downtown and central pier area, totaling 336 acres, will be transformed into a shopping and tourist center for west county with a $55-million waterfront hotel, set to open in summer, 1990, and a complex of theaters, eateries and night clubs. Three more hotels and several hundred luxury condominiums also are planned.

3. SANTA ANA: Redevelopment and new projects worth more than $1.5 billion will alter the look of the county seat as business and retail centers replace bean fields along stretches of Main Street and older buildings on 1st Street. A privately built sports facility also is planned, in an attempt to lure a pro basketball or hockey franchise, if the city can beat Anaheim in the arena race.

4. EAST ORANGE: Irvine Co. breaks ground in 1992 on its largest single planned community ever, a 12,350-unit residential development covering 7,110 acres along Rancho Santiago Road. It is a phased development with 2,700 acres of open space and twin business parks expected to create 26,000 jobs by its completion after the year 2000.

5. GYPSUM CANYON: The ridges and slopes of the pristine canyon south of the Riverside Freeway will be the site of either a new 6,720-bed jail or a 10,500-unit housing development proposed by the canyon’s owners, the Irvine Co.

6. IRVINE SPECTRUM: By 1990 nearly 80,000 people are expected to work in offices and manufacturing plants spread across 2,600 acres near the junction of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways.

7. Irvine Coast: Completion expected by end of decade on 2,600 homes and two major resort hotels to be built on the last remaining large undeveloped stretch of Orange County coast. About 75% of the 9,432 acres in the project will remain open space.

8. ALISO VIEJO: One of South County’s biggest planned communities nears completion by year 2000 with many of the development’s 50,000 residents expected to work in nearby offices and plants built within the project.

9. RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA: As residential building continues, construction begins by 1994 on Town Center, a mix of retail shops, offices, movie theaters and medical suites with pedestrian walkways that planners herald as the “regional downtown” for a string of communities from Portola Hills south to Coto de Caza.

Population

Each figure represents 200,000 people. 1980: 1.9 million 1990: 2.3 million 2000: 2.6 million

Buzzwords Want to be user-friendly with the 1990s? Looking for something to do while you zoom down super-streets, on your way to your flex place? Join the Smart crowd by studying expected buzzwords of the ‘90s--compiled from interviews with planners, futurists and other sources--and you can speak the language of the future today.

Hot-housing--Forcing children to mature too quickly, akin to the way gardeners force early blooms on plants. Examples would be giving kindergartners tests before they move on to first grade, taking youngsters to R-rated movies with their parents, or 8-year-olds putting themselves on diets.

Baby boomerangers--Adult children of baby boomers who return to their parents’ homes, unable or unwilling to make their own way in the world.

Latchkey seniors--Ailing elderly parents who live with their grown children because they need care but who are left unsupervised while their children go to work.

Sandwich generation-- Adults who are being squeezed in the middle, taking care of two generations. These are parents who are bringing up young or teen-age children at home while also caring for their own elderly parents, who are frail and no longer independent.

Tech head--an ‘80s term describing someone who is computer hip. It is expected to be used less often in the ‘90s as computers become more user friendly.

Alternative scenarios--A term used by futurists to say there will be a variety of courses that the future could take in a certain situation, such as what the results of the “greenhouse effect” will be.

Ice--The smokable form of methamphetamine that will be the drug of choice in the coming decade, according to law enforcement officials.

Flex place--The variable location where one conducts work, either an office, home or car.

Telecommuting--Working at home, connected to the workplace by telephone and computer.

PATH--A traffic management system being developed by the state Department of Transportation that controls vehicles with computers. It is envisioned that maps and traffic information will be displayed on screens installed in cars. The system, which stands for Program on Advanced Technology for the Highway, also could include automatically steered cars, which would “read” information in highway markers.

Super-streets-- Busy streets that are transformed into streamlined thoroughfares by constructing grade-separated intersections with ramps (akin to freeway off-ramps), synchronized signals, bus turnouts and other changes to speed the traffic flow.

Rolling corrections--An economy that will avoid a nationwide recession by having mini-recessions in specific industries or regions that are countered by good times inother sectors.

Virtual reality--A three-dimensional illusion of being in another place. This “virtual reality” is generated by wearing computerized goggles and a glove, which can simulate any possible experience. Homeowners, for example, can explore their new house before it exists and, says VPL Research Inc., a Redwood City firm marketing virtual reality equipment, the possibilities for home entertainment are limitless.

Highway advisory radio--Low- frequency airwaves--on the low side of the radio band--over which traffic information will be broadcast to drivers, like the instructions now given over the radio to people driving into Los Angeles International Airport.

Gilded ghettos--Schools and communities isolated from the nation’s changing demographics, and places where families go to escape racial tension and end up cutting themselves off from social changes.

Smart House--A revolutionary gas, plumbing and wiring system that enables total home automation via one cable and generic outlets in each room. When the system becomes available in 1991, it will be able to do everything from automatically brewing the morning coffee to alerting the household when an appliance is not working.

Smart Card--A card that looks like a credit card but which is in fact a hand-held computer with a microprocessor and memory, capable of carrying information such as medical records, car maintenance records, the password to your computer and other personal data. For example, by carrying your medical and insurance records, the Smart Card being marketed by AT&T; will facilitate rapid treatment in an emergency medical situation.

Smart Corridors--Thoroughfares managed with computers that are fed information about traffic snags and then determine solutions. For example, the computer could decide to route cars around an accident by diverting them onto surface streets and changing the timing of traffic signals to accommodate the extra cars.

AIDS Cases and Deaths 1999*: 17,918 cases 1999*: 14,877 deaths *Projected Source: Orange County Health Care Agency

Average Daily Jail Population 2000**: 9,757* *Capacity required, although the consultants say the figure could be adjusted down to 8,132 if officials take advantage of all available alternatives to incarceration. **Projected Source: Omni Group Inc. county consultant

Income Per Capita 1989: $47,741 1994*: $59,715

Percent change: 25.9% *Projected Source: National Planning Data Corp.

Median Income 1989: $47,741 1994*: $59,715

Percent change: 25.9% *Projected Source: National Planning Data Corp.

Number of Households 1989: 834,142 1994*: 915,482

Percent change: 9.8% *Projected Source: National Planning Data Corp.

Total Age Distribution

Age 65+: 1989: 9.7% 1994*: 11% *Projected Source: National Planning Data Corp.