Erosion of Rural Lifestyle Worries Many, Defies Simple Political Fixes

After more than a century of quiet rural existence, this small Central Valley farm town finds itself surrounded.

Just up California 99, the 2-year-old city of Elk Grove has swollen to 80,000 residents. To the south, the burgeoning community of Stockton has crept to within four miles of Lodi’s border. To the southwest, Bay Area commuters have doubled Tracy’s population in the last decade.

In this tiny corner of Old California, where agriculture was once king, talk of the newest suburban incursion now mixes with conversation about the latest grape harvest. And people in Lodi are finding their country-hewn libertarianism colliding with a desire for government to help preserve their way of life.

“The dirt in this valley is sacred,” said Lodi farmer David Phillips, whose family has been tilling the sandy loam soil for five generations. “It feeds the world. To cover it up with strip malls and poorly planned tract developments--well, something needs to be done.”

Lodi is caught in the same pincers bearing down on many rural California communities. Once-prized agricultural fields are more valuable as new housing lots. And former city dwellers are jumping at the chance to buy spacious homes with large yards at a fraction of the cost of urban real estate.

Decades ago, the same push of development felled the citrus trees of Southern California. Later, subdivisions and technology firms overtook the prune orchards of the Silicon Valley.

But Lodi, the heart of California’s wine grape industry, is resisting the suburban onslaught. The 11-square-mile town of 60,000 people has a strict 2% annual growth rate limit and deeply rooted objections to turning farmland into suburbia.

“You start pulling out grapevines around here, and you’re considered a terrorist,” said Tony Goehring, the town’s economic development coordinator.

Sprawl is the No. 1 political issue in Lodi--but one that people say they have heard little about from the two major party candidates for governor.

Folks in Lodi trend conservative, and most say for that reason, they’ll vote for Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon Jr. in November. Few can cite what he stands for, but they say he’s better than the alternative.

“Gov. Davis hasn’t shown any initiative or any desire to help our situation here,” said 79-year-old Ed Olson, owner of Robinson’s Feed and Farm Supply, where the air is laden with the musty smell of leather cowboy boots. “Maybe Simon, being more conservative, would do something.”

All the same, Lodi residents said they would like to hear someone address their worries about the air pollution drifting in from the Bay Area, the economic difficulty of surviving as a farmer, and the neighboring cities encroaching on local vineyards.

The conflict between Lodi’s agricultural past and its developing present is evident on a drive through town.

Hand-lettered signs advertising “Fresh strawberries ahead” hang on telephone poles near ubiquitous chain stores like Staples and Wal-Mart. Stucco subdivisions press up against fields of gangly grapevines. And in February, Lodi got its first Starbucks.

Anxiety is just as present. Over in the Pine Street Pub, which claims “the coldest beer in town,” Gary Smith complained on a recent afternoon that he pays only $20 less in rent here than he did for a two-bedroom apartment in Agoura Hills five years ago.

“That’s why I came up here,” the 38-year-old bartender said. “I thought that I would have a better standard of living.”

At the Phillips Farm roadside cafe, a dozen elderly women wearing fanciful red hats and purple blouses bemoaned what is bearing down on their town.

“Why, look what’s happened in Elk Grove and Galt,” clucked 78-year-old Boots Barber, whose Red Hat Society meets for lunch once a month. “There are too many people and too much traffic.”

Over at Tillie’s, a sandwich shop down the street from City Hall, Diane Tonn is worried that Lodi will lose its small-town quality.

“I just don’t want to see all the farmland between here and Stockton and here and Sacramento taken up with housing,” said the 61-year-old bridal shop employee. “I don’t want it to be one big city.”

That’s the Phillips brothers’ worst fear. Their family helped shape Lodi. Their paternal grandfather laid the sidewalks downtown, while their mother’s family grew the giant watermelons that made Lodi famous at the turn of the century.

If development continues, the Phillipses said, Lodi will blend right into all the other nearby towns.

“It would lose its distinctiveness, the ag feeling,” said Michael Phillips, David’s older brother. “And if we lose that, it’s gone forever--like L.A. and Orange County and San Jose.”

No one is sure how to stop the sprawl. Farmers like the Phillips brothers are not eager to welcome government intrusion in their affairs.

“Farmers just want to make their living, be good stewards of the land and keep the government out of our lives as much as possible,” David Phillips said.

But the fear that agricultural land will be paved has prodded many to look to government for a solution. Many locals would like to see a repeal of the inheritance tax, which they say unfairly burdens the children of farmers, and other financial incentives for farmers to keep farming.

Michael Phillips said he hopes that if Simon wins, he will do something to protect agriculture.

“In general, Republicans are more farm-friendly, I think,” he said. “We definitely could use the governor’s support to limit some of that growth.”

For now, however, Lodi politicians are stuck with immediate development conflicts.

The most urgent issue is to the south, where Stockton, four times the size of Lodi, has been insistently annexing unincorporated county land. The city’s northern city limit now reaches Eight Mile Road--practically bumping into the backyard of its smaller neighbor.

“If this had been 500 years ago, there probably would have been a war,” joked Lodi City Manager H. Dixon Flynn.

Instead, the town is trying to create a buffer zone between the two communities--setting aside 15,000 acres of open space and farmland that will be protected from development. Talks about the greenbelt have stretched on for three years, and recently Stockton slowed the process further by insisting that the issue be studied countywide.

There’s no guarantee that everyone in Lodi will back the concept, either. Though many farmers in the area say they need the greenbelt, some chafe at the thought of the government legislating what they can do with their land.

Jerry Fry said he is tired of finding joggers in his vineyard when he’s about to spray the crops, and of teenagers riding their motorcycles through his cherry orchards. But nonetheless, he is nervous about losing control of his land if his 280-acre farm becomes part of the buffer zone.

“Our family has been farming since 1855, so that’s the direction that at this time we hope to keep going in,” Fry said. “But you don’t know what other things can affect you. How do we know in 30 years we can still raise grapes here and compete with the rest of the world?”

With that in mind, many farmers in the Lodi area are trying to dictate their own destiny by introducing a new industry to the area: agritourism.

The 75,000 acres of vineyards surrounding Lodi produce more grapes than Sonoma and Napa combined, and 37 local wineries now make more than 100 vintages with Lodi labels. Two years ago, the local wine grape commission built a visitors center to showcase the industry, next door to a newly renovated bed and breakfast.

“We want people to think about [the wine industry] when they see the land beginning to clear for another housing development,” said Mark Chandler, executive director of the commission.

Winemaker David Lucas, whose self-named winery was the first boutique to put Lodi on its label, believes the town can become “the Carmel of the Central Valley.” But the government needs to help preserve agricultural space, he said, by giving farmers financial incentives to sell to other farmers instead of developers.

“Agricultural land should be looked at in the same light as our national parks,” Lucas said.

Lodi officials are trying to carve out a middle path, hoping to allow just enough development to keep the local economy strong. A few new companies are making their home in Lodi, including a hot dog and sausage plant. The town recently invested $25 million to revitalize its downtown, adding a 12-screen movie theater and Lodi’s first parking structure.

But it is a constant struggle to balance economic growth with self-preservation. Many locals view the imminent arrival of a Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse as another sign that Lodi is morphing into Anytown, USA. The ambivalence toward development affects even the newer residents, who echo the worries of old-timers that the town they love is changing, its fate out of their hands.

Zsa-Zsa Nunez moved to Lodi when she was 7 after her mother left San Jose for the quiet refuge of the country. She lives in one of the new subdivisions, and enjoys Lodi’s new stores and movie theater. But she fears that, inevitably, development will draw the urban problems she left behind.

“We used to fall asleep in San Jose to the sound of sirens,” said the 19-year-old, sipping a white chocolate mocha outside the new Starbucks on a recent afternoon. “When we came to Lodi, we had to get used to the silence. But now that it’s expanding, everything is going to change.’