Consensus Elusive on Central Valley Growth

Residents of the fast-growing Central Valley are largely content with life in California’s agricultural heartland, but voice sharply different views over how to manage a development boom poised to continue for decades, according to a poll released Tuesday.

Three out of four residents said they are happy with life in the sprawling region from Redding to Bakersfield, but they can’t agree whether it will remain a desirable place to live.

Valley residents also are far from any consensus on what to do about growth, favoring policies that limit housing construction on farmland but also supporting an expansion of water storage capabilities, which could help accommodate a continued building boom. One in four had no opinion on what is the most important issue facing the region.

The poll, sponsored by the Public Policy Institute of California and the Great Valley Center, is the most extensive survey to date gauging sentiments in one of the state’s fastest-growing and most politically pivotal regions.

The Central Valley “has a great deal of economic and social importance to the state, but it’s really not very well understood,” said Mark Baldasarre, who conducted the poll. “In many ways [it is] a new frontier, and it faces some hard choices in the years to come.”

Already home to more than 5 million residents, the 18-county region is expected to triple in population by 2040. As it has over the past decade, the continuing development boom will probably be fanned by an exodus from more expensive and crowded communities in Southern California and the Bay Area.

“That’s a huge amount of growth we need to plan for,” said Carol Whiteside, president of the Great Valley Center, a Modesto-based nonprofit public policy foundation. “When Los Angeles grew, I don’t think anyone saw it coming. But we can see this. And this survey should help us plan.”

The poll, a telephone survey of 2,016 residents with a sampling error of 2 percentage points, revealed a population that is sanguine about the present but a bit worried and confused about the future.

Although the region has recorded double-digit unemployment amid economic good times elsewhere in the state, 55% of those polled rated the economy as good or excellent.

Solid majorities of valley residents feel that they have good police protection, libraries, parks and public schools. They also are satisfied with the availability of colleges, leisure activities and affordable housing.

Three out of four expect the region to continue growing rapidly. But they are divided over what that will mean for the quality of life, with 37% saying life will be better and 33% suggesting things will get worse.

They ranked air pollution, traffic congestion, crime and gangs as bigger problems than growth.

Asked how to improve the region’s quality of life over the next decade, about half gave protection of agricultural lands and preservation of wetlands the highest priorities. Only one-third said restriction of development to existing cities would be effective.

One in eight use the valley as a bedroom community, driving long distances to reach jobs in coastal metropolitan areas. Whiteside said that finding underscores a need to work toward diversifying the Central Valley economy to bring jobs closer to neighborhoods people can afford.

On politics, in which the valley has been a key swing area for statewide candidates and initiatives for more than a decade, nearly six of 10 people identify themselves as middle of the road or somewhat conservative.

The poll also found evidence of a “digital divide” between whites and the region’s fast-growing Latino population, with the latter about half as likely to use a home computer or log on to the Internet.

“In terms of preparing people for the job market,” Whiteside said, “those sorts of issues need to be addressed.”