Give Foothills’ Teens a Place of Their Own : * Planners Would Be Wise to Create a Youth Center

A century ago, historian Frederick Jackson Turner wrote that the periodic land rushes and western expansion influenced the nation’s institutions and character, making Americans individualistic, mobile and optimistic. There is less land and more people these days, but there are still pioneers, people seeking to pull up stakes for newer communities that hold the promise of a better life for them and for their children.

Recent years have seen a building boom in the foothills of southern Orange County that brings Turner’s thesis to mind. Earlier waves of migration brought people from Los Angeles across the county line, and then from North County to South County. Now mobility and optimism are at work again, sending families to brand-new communities where you can still sometimes see deer and coyotes and there are promises of a better future.

Despite long commutes and a lack of some amenities, the feelings of hope and satisfaction in the foothill communities are remarkable. Eighty percent of the respondents to a recent Times Orange County poll of residents of the Foothill Ranch, Portola Hills, Robinson Ranch, Rancho Santa Margarita, Dove Canyon and Coto de Caza said they had very favorable views of their communities. Throughout Orange County, only 58% hold the same view.

Mark Baldassare, a UC Irvine urban sociologist whose firm conducted the poll, said the suburban dream appeared “alive and well” for the new enclaves’ 40,000 residents. He found these latest pioneers trying “to separate themselves from the crime, gangs and urban ills” they perceived elsewhere in the county.

A key characteristic of the foothills residents is their devotion to family. Many are in their 30s and 40s, mothers and fathers of young children. They picked their new homes in large part because they were promised their children would receive good educations. And two-thirds say they are very satisfied with the public schools, far higher than the countywide total, 41%.

But there is a problem with those a little bit older, the teen-agers. And the residents of the new communities need to solve it soon. Most of those surveyed said they intend to stay where they are for the foreseeable future; that means their own elementary school children will be teen-agers before long, and they need to fit them into the picture.

The Santa Margarita Co. has been a major developer of the new communities. A spokeswoman for the firm said the company has not ruled out a teen center for Rancho Santa Margarita. But she said that while teen centers elsewhere do provide activities for teens, they also create a place where teens who gather sometimes cause trouble. That may be true, but the community would be wise to give teens a place to be active. Learn from the other teen centers, too. See what causes the trouble there and take steps to prevent it in the foothills.

These are still raw, young communities. Traffic problems can be horrendous, though solutions are in sight with freeway widenings and a new toll road. Developers should also continue trying to attract light industry and other job-creating enterprises to negate the need to commute for some residents. A large degree of self-sufficiency is a laudable goal for a community, but it has many dimensions, including jobs and recreation, churches and schools, a good quality of life for everyone from toddlers to seniors.

The problems that invariably crop up in new communities cannot be ignored, lest the foothills wind up suffering from the same conditions that prompted residents to leave their old cities behind.