L.A. Versus Bay Area
As one who lives in the middle (San Luis Obispo County) and looks both ways, it is hard to see what causes On California columnist Peter King to be sanguine and complacent about the position of the Los Angeles area versus the San Francisco Bay area (Oct. 3). The Bay area clearly is ahead on many fronts and Los Angeles needs to organize and assert itself if the number and diversity of its people are to be adequately served economically and politically.
In the political arena, both U.S. senators are from the Bay area; the dominant state leader for the last 10 years, Willie Brown, is from San Francisco; the most important water issue of the decade, the shift of stored water from agriculture to environmental uses, was pushed through by a congressman from Contra Costa County.
On the economic front, the headquarters of the dominant bank in California is in San Francisco; the Bay area has a rapid transit system, BART, that works; the Silicon Valley, with its emphasis on high technology in all of its applications, appears to have weathered the recession better than the Southern California defense and aerospace complex.
DON TALLEY
Arroyo Grande
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