SPECIAL REPORT: Putting Down Roots : The Times Poll : How Rooted Are We? : Feeling Settled, But Not Tied Down

By TOM GORMAN

April 25, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Despite the area’s dizzying pace of growth, 86% of North County residents are satisfied with their communities and nearly that many--79%--consider themselves “rooted” to them, the Los Angeles Times Poll shows.

The satisfaction with community and sense of rootedness is broadly based--it includes those who’ve just moved into the area, those with high and low incomes, Anglos and Latinos, owners and renters, young people and old. Most say that the attraction that brought them to North County in the first place still holds true.

But, while eight out of 10 describe themselves as having put down roots, the other two in 10 have “found it difficult to become a part of the community” where they live.

“Americans like the idea of being rooted, but not of being stuck,” said Richard Madsen, a professor of sociology at UC San Diego. “They’re inclined to settle in where they’re comfortable, where they’re happy.”

And North County has proven itself an attractive place to seek out and settle into. Although the Times poll found the same high level of feeling rooted throughout the nation as is found in North County, few areas have experienced the same boom in growth: 36% of its population has lived in North County five years or less.

Of North County’s residents who consider themselves settled, two-thirds say they have no plans to move out of their immediate community in the next five years.

For those who are considering moving out of North County during that time, the destination for one in ten is out of state altogether. North County, for many, is the final stop on their California tour.

The poll, which queried 1,574 residents of North County in late February, has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

(A separate story in this section reports the results of a nationwide Times poll that posed three of the same questions asked of North County residents.)

Among the North County poll findings:

* Two-thirds--64%--have lived at their current address five years or less.

* Half don’t expect to be moving at all in the next five years; 13% expect to move but stay within the same community; 14% expect to move elsewhere in San Diego County.

* Among those in the work force who feel rooted, two-thirds would stay put even if offered a better job elsewhere; the other third would pick up and go. Of those who feel unrooted, two-thirds would go and a third would stay.

* About half--53%--don’t socialize with their neighbors; 21% socialize with their neighbors often or count them among their closest friends.

* Nearly half--48%--participate in some community activities. Church-sponsored activities are the most common.

* About three-quarters of workers--74%--are “entirely” or “mostly” satisfied with their jobs; 5% are mostly or entirely dissatisfied. The rest--20%--are somewhere in the middle.

* Going out to dinner is the most widely chosen entertainment of 58%. Going to the movies--named by 43%--is the second most frequent choice.

* One person in five is settled enough to say he or she has a regular hairdresser, auto mechanic, doctor and restaurant in the community where they live.

San Diego State University sociology Professors Gordon Clanton and Bud Bloomberg said the Times findings suggest that North County residents are a happy lot--but that they may be more concerned about their own lifestyle than the welfare of the entire community where they live.

The Times Poll found that nationally, community participation levels were higher than in North County. Locally, 48% participate; nationally, 63% do.

“Historically, ‘rootedness’ was defined by the level of participation in a community,” Clanton said. “In the 1950s, sociologists were saying the suburbs were a place for a lot of volunteer participation. But in the ‘60s, maverick sociologists who went into the blue-collar suburbs found virtually no voluntary associations, and that concept (of volunteer community participation) has since continued to be nibbled away at.

“We’re supposed to be a culture marked by volunteer associations. But this is becoming less true every year and now it’s largely lost,” Clanton said. “The suburbanite today is a minimalist. Instead of involving himself in general, community-based things, he’s more narrowly defining what he wants to involve himself in--lifestyle enclaves.”

So instead of donating time or energy to traditional civic ventures--community fairs and parades, local politics, chambers of commerce and the like--more people are participating in single-purpose activities for their own pleasure, or for the sake of their own families, Clanton said.

“It’s easy to feel part of the community if it’s a nice place to live,” Bloomberg said. And, he added, the feeling that people have of being rooted doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve married themselves to their community.

Bloomberg said that people are inclined to say they feel “rooted” or “settled in” because they face no significant obstacles in their day-to-day living.

Still, virtually all respondents--rooted or not--could name problems that face North County. The most frequently mentioned one was growth, 32%. Other often-named problems facing the area: traffic, 21%; cost of housing, 20%; illegal immigration, 19%; and drought, 18%.

But the poll findings also suggest those problems haven’t been so overwhelming that they’ve discouraged satisfaction overall.

The poll found that even among people who consider themselves rooted, 46% do not participate in any community activities, and another 22% participate in only one activity.

The poll’s question allowed a respondent to mention as many as 10 specific areas of community participation, and was open-ended so that any notion of “community participation” could be registered.

The four most popular answers, in order, were “church-sponsored activities,” “charity work,” “youth sports” and “neighborhood crime watch.”

About one person in 20 said he or she participates in four or more community activities.

When participation was examined by subgroup--renters, homeowners, coastal residents, inland residents and the like--participation in “church-sponsored activities” was named most often.

Bloomberg observed that while some areas of community involvement cited by the respondents, such as adult sports, may be personally fulfilling to them, they do not, on their own, feed the community’s well-being.

* Among people who have lived at their homes two years or less, 38% participate in some sort of activity; among those who have lived at their current residences more than 10 years, 56% participate in something.

* Among single people, 40% participatee in some community activity; after church, the second most mentioned was “charity.”

* Among married people, 52% participate in some community activity; after church, the most mentioned was youth sports.

* Among 18- to 25-year-olds, 12% participate in some church activity; 11% neighborhood watch; 10% adult sports.

* For 26- to 44-year-olds, 23% name church activities; 18% youth sports; 13% PTA.

* For 45- to 64-year-olds, 23% name church activities; 15% charities; 14% local politics.

* Of people 65 and older, 22% name church activities; 15% charities; 11% neighborhood watch.

“Settling in,” for many people, simply means feeling comfortable where they live at the moment--but not feeling so deeply rooted that they wouldn’t move if a more attractive option was offered, suggested Madsen, the UCSD sociologist.

“As a whole, Americans tend to be on the run,” he said. “If they don’t like what’s going on, they will tend to pack up and go somewhere else. They’d rather escape problems, versus stand and deal with them. This is an American problem.”

For the most part, though, residents of North County have stopped running--72% say they expect to continue living in the area for at least the next five years.

Among those who describe themselves as settled in, nine in ten are satisfied with their community. As a group, those who describe themselves as rooted are more likely to be older, married, have lived in North County longer, have better jobs and make more money and own their homes.

The two in ten who don’t feel rooted, are as a group more likely to be renters, younger, single and make less money. However, even among these groups, most people feel they have put down roots.

How North County’s Rooted & Unrooted Compare Source: Los Angeles Times Poll

Have Put Down Roots in North County Source: Los Angeles Times Poll

A North County Profile

AGE What is your age?

18% 18 to 25 years

41% 26 to 44 years

23% 45 to 64 years

18% 65 and over

FAMILY Does most of your family live nearby so that you can conveniently visit them?

46% Family nearby

45% None nearby

8% No family