Quality of Life is Everyone’s Business

Imagine life in Orange County if business cheerfully ignored concerns about growth management, traffic congestion and the high cost of housing. Imagine if government simply facilitated new economic opportunity and otherwise left everything alone. Well, so much for such stereotypes of the frontier in the real world of 1990. The latest UC Irvine Executive Survey shows business leaders in Orange County increasingly concerned about damage caused to the business environment by a host of problems that municipalities and ordinary citizens are trying to wrestle with.

In the four years since this regular survey of the county’s chief executives started, there has been a 21-percentage-point increase in pessimism about the county’s business climate. Only 23% of those surveyed, most from growth-dependent service industries, said the county was a more attractive place to do business than the past year. That was a substantial decline from the 36% who found the county more attractive in 1987. The important thing was the concern expressed by business leaders about problems of traffic congestion and housing for employees in the general business environment.

There were signs of optimism about new business formations in retail and service areas, and UCI forecasters found signs of continued job growth, both here and in overseas markets. But the nagging problems explain why business leaders in some parts of the country have been in the vanguard of efforts to promote regional solutions to common problems.

There comes a time when the problems that trouble individuals become part of the cost and headache of doing business. The personal experience of a worker stalled in traffic or unable to find affordable housing for a family ultimately affects the business climate. It’s one good reason for business and government to work together.

The good news from the UC Irvine study is that is that there is much optimism in the general business outlook in Orange County. But the study shows that business leaders have concerns that are shared by political leaders and ordinary citizens.