Broken
November 8, 2015 1:34 PM   Subscribe

"San Bernardino is the poorest city of its size in California, mired in its fourth year of bankruptcy. Industries left, the middle class shrank, the working poor struggle to rise and the destitute fall. Yet there are people in San Bernardino who work tirelessly to resurrect the city for the next generations. Although their paths are different, their trajectories meet at the same question — can San Bernardino be saved?"
A slow, powerful documentary by photojournalist Liz O. Baylen about a sad, desperate city not far from here.
posted by growabrain (20 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
More here, here and here.
posted by growabrain at 1:39 PM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


I was born and raised in San Bernardino. I don't know what else to say about it - the video was accurate and very hard to watch. I lived in the mountains about fifteen minutes above SB when the economy crashed in 2008 and all the dystopian fantasies I was reading always took place there. Except, I loved that place, and its culture.
posted by annathea at 2:02 PM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


Weird. Not being from California, I don't understand how a suburb of LA by the mountains bordering two national forests could fall so far.
posted by leotrotsky at 2:07 PM on November 8, 2015


Is this a story about San Bernardino or a story about Los Angeles? San Bernardino sold its future to the idea that there would be a permanent underclass to work the fields that have no water; the stores that were supposed to provide a sales tax based on employing local service workers; and people commuting to LA to work until they could afford to live in LA. SB has very few options because its services were based on a level of investment that simply does not exist and the city follows a cultural policy where only large stores and marquee brands exists. "The common urban problem of desertion by those could and should have made a difference", the ex-mayor says. San Bernardino is obviously great for teachers who want to motivate young people to be the next step for the town but how does it look that the main street won't invite them to showcase their wares without heavy external investment?
posted by parmanparman at 2:21 PM on November 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


Weird. Not being from California, I don't understand how a suburb of LA by the mountains bordering two national forests could fall so far.

You don't realize it, but you hit the problem on the head. Your sentence doesn't describe the reality, which is that SB is stuck in the bad middle.

It's not a suburb of L.A -- it's too far away from centers of commerce to allow for an effective commute. It doesn't border national forests -- the forests are high up in the surrounding mountains (and they're national forests, not national parks that people really, really like to visit). It's not industrial -- there's no base (not any more). It's not agricultural -- there's no water (not any more). It's not educational -- they have a state college, but it's the shitty CSU version. It's not commercial -- it's just a spot in the desert. And it's not the "good" desert, which is Palm Springs.

Everything SB can do well is now done better by its neighbors.

At this point in its lifecycle, there is no good economic reason for the city to exist at the size that it is.

I lived there for a year, working at the SB Sun newspaper in the mid-90s. You could see the vestiges of its notable Route 66 past, weathered and faded. Smart city planners would've noted that the closure of the air base was a death knell, not some mere blip to be papered over with optimism and can-do spirit. They needed to change in dramatic fashion, and didn't. It was a foolish confidence that if they just kept doing the same things they'd always done, they'd be OK.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:49 PM on November 8, 2015 [17 favorites]


My grandparents owned some rental property in Highland, in SBD neighborhoods that went up in the 70s and 80s. Cool Papa Bell hits at the crux, I think. When that airbase closed the tenants switched from Air Force families who enjoyed barbecues by the pool to meth clans who stripped stolen motorcycles in the dining room and filled the garage with bags of Fritos they failed to deliver during the day job.

A bit west of SBD in towns like Ontario, the answer, post real estate boom, appears to be "build big warehouses for Amazon and other shippers who haul Asian made cruft in from the ports of LA and Long Beach." SBD may be too far east for that, too.
posted by notyou at 3:39 PM on November 8, 2015 [4 favorites]


San Berdoo. I was born there. Maybe I can afford a piece of it now.
posted by Oyéah at 4:17 PM on November 8, 2015


It's unfortunate and typical that that the former mayor is basically blaming those who left a sinking ship for the current problem. First off, it's kind of a racist argument to make... the truth is, San Bernardino, like much of the Central Valley, is growing at a brisk pace. .. but something is telling me that he's not complaining about poor latinos leaving San Bernardino.

The truth is, this has been happening for awhile, throughout the Central Valley, with old areas becoming more and more run down, and more remote and out of the way of where the real economy is happening. The end result is more sprawl, and dead cities. If you blame rational actors for acting in a way that undermines your plans, you are pretty much doomed. You really need to find ways to get rational actors to help solve your problem.

Really, if you were Amazon and wanted warehouse space in the Central Valley, would you build your campus in the heart of a city like this, and encourage your employees to work there -- with dying neighborhoods, poor schools, underfunded police, poor infrastructure, drugs, and crime -- or would you build it somewhere like a small town unto itself, where you can control things better?

That points out a big problem... there is way too much space in the Central Valley, way too many people, and not enough actual economy. Every time I visit it, I am stunned by how it keeps growing and sprawling rapidly, even in the midst of hard times... and a lot of that has to do with poor zoning and planning, some of which would likely be a remnant of the very large, long-term influence the GOP has had at the local level in these parts of the state.

Build pretty much anywhere. Drill for water anywhere. Pump as much water as you want, even if it drains aquifers dry, or get your water for free, no metering required... at least when it is available. Put it in bottles and sell it to people around the country... we don't care! It's not as though we have droughts! By all means, grow rice in the desert. Frack away! Take the water, grow alfalfa, and ship it to China to feed their cows, too!

Just don't expect even a Democratic governor to do anything about the unsustainable state of affairs, even if it all adds up to the biggest sources of the state's water shortage, because, hey, it's already tough enough in the Central Valley. Basically, it's a comparatively no-accountability capitalist dystopia, where they can't even change things as the system starts to circle the drain, because, well... the area can't afford it anymore.

When it comes to zoning, they had similar issues in Santa Cruz County at one point, with everyone wanting to build away from the beaches of Santa Cruz, in the coastal redwoods, outside of city limits, not paying city taxes, and still requiring services such as fire, electricity, policing, etc. Their solution was to greatly restrict development. They badly need more of this in the Central Valley. Those vacant stores in rundown parts of San Bernardino need to have a non-negative value... and then they need to be sold or rented.

Personally, I think that if they fall into blight, the owners should be fined sharply and then have their property seized. Encourage public internet or wifi. Develop programs similar to Oakland's Popuphood, getting someone -- anyone -- into these spaces with a sense of ownership, cleaning derelict buildings and jumpstarting businesses. Art studios, live/work spaces, hacker spaces, art schools, band rehearsal spaces, etc. Approach the big dotcoms and give them great deals... because at least their employees would pay taxes and increase commerce and demand.

Basically, anything is better than the status quo. They need to try more things, in the hope that a few things actually work.
posted by markkraft at 5:24 PM on November 8, 2015 [9 favorites]


This is the future of the United States: A number of large cities will continue to grow and get larger (although I won't necessarily say prosper - their median incomes will stagnate and decline - although the upper-middle classes may grow slightly), and smaller towns and cities across the US fall into deeper and deeper death throes.

We'll point to municipal leadership - and blame leaders for lack of vision, but - truthfully - there's not a hell of a lot they can or could have done about it.

I encourage everyone to go read Douglas Rae's City, which makes a compelling case that most towns are born, boom, and die based on geographic happenstance, and enlightened leadership rarely is a factor.

The truth is, most towns are 'company towns', dominated by a single industry or employer (in San Bernardino's case - an Air Force Base) - and even college towns and state capitals are 'company towns' in a way. All rise or fall due to factors largely beyond the control of mayors and city councils.

And, yes - we're going to see a lot more losers than winners going forward.
posted by The Giant Squid at 5:28 PM on November 8, 2015


the truth is, San Bernardino, like much of the Central Valley, is growing at a brisk pace

San Bernardino is not in the Central Valley.
posted by one_bean at 6:02 PM on November 8, 2015 [4 favorites]


No, it's in San Bernardino County, of course, but it is in pretty much the same boat, about twenty miles away, just on the other side of the mountains. It's *MUCH* closer to the Central Valley than L.A., certainly... and has a very similar economic structure, heavily dependent on a combination of agriculture, transport, and warehousing.
posted by markkraft at 6:30 PM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's not a suburb of L.A -- it's too far away from centers of commerce to allow for an effective commute.

I don't know how long ago you left, but in the mid-00's housing boom, places further out than SB were being pitched as bedroom communities for LA. Whether they were meant to house people commuting to jobs in the closer suburbs (like, live in Norco to commute to Pomona or something), I don't know, but even towns like Temecula and Murrieta were blowing up.

about twenty miles away

Where do you think the Central Valley is? Try over 100 miles - just over the mountains is the Mojave, and more far-flung bedroom communities like Victorville and Hesperia. You can go there, and then go over another set of mountains at Tehachapi, and then you're in the Central Valley.
posted by LionIndex at 6:34 PM on November 8, 2015 [6 favorites]


No, it's in San Bernardino County, of course, but it is in pretty much the same boat, about twenty miles away, just on the other side of the mountains. It's *MUCH* closer to the Central Valley than L.A., certainly... and has a very similar economic structure, heavily dependent on a combination of agriculture, transport, and warehousing.

Perhaps before opining on the cultural geography of a place you learn about its physical geography first.
posted by one_bean at 6:40 PM on November 8, 2015 [4 favorites]


San Bernandino has never been the same since Norton AFB became San Bernandino International Airport. There remains a Hells Angels Berdoo web page.
posted by bukvich at 8:16 PM on November 8, 2015


That's a bit harsh, Cool Papa Bell. It's not desert, first of all. The CSU there does just fine as a CSU (indeed, it serves the population with the worst educational outcomes in the entire country, and has pretty high graduation rates relative to the other CSUs). Its population is much poorer and less white than it was even 10 years ago. It is the face of suburban poverty. It used to be an ag town. Then a factory town. Then a town fed by the housing bubble. Now it's looking to be a warehouse town.

I spent many years living out there, and I'm kind of tired of the disaster porn/God the I.E. Is a total shithole talk I hear all the time. Look, they get it. It's really dire for lots of people there. Not for everyone, but for many.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:33 AM on November 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


Yeah, the closing of the Air Base was a killer.

You know how money fled the urban downtowns in the 60s-80s? That same thing happened in SB (and to a lesser extent places like Pomona, Santa Ana, and even Pasadena). The poor stayed in the historic downtown areas, and the money went to bigger houses and strip malls outside the city core. Pomona is coming back, and so is Santa Ana. But 35 miles from Pomona is DTLA. 35 miles from SB is Pomona or desert. It's just not close enough to the big city to draw much in the way of money or creative sorts.

It's the second-poorest metro area in the country behind Detroit. And Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga, both of which have a bunch of money, boost the area's standing quite a bit over just SB and places like Colton and Rialto and Norco.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:52 AM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


No, it's in San Bernardino County, of course, but it is in pretty much the same boat, about twenty miles away, just on the other side of the mountains. It's *MUCH* closer to the Central Valley than L.A., certainly... and has a very similar economic structure, heavily dependent on a combination of agriculture, transport, and warehousing.

Over the mountains (the Angeles Crest/ SB Forest) to the north, you're in the 'Antelope Valley' east of Lancaster and Palmdale, at the beginning of Highway 395 (Victorville). To the north is Mojave (the town) and past that the Owens Valley and the towns on the way up to Mammoth, Mono and Yosemite (between the Sierras and Death Valley), or Barstow to east. There is not much agriculture of note in the Victorville area, and basically none further into the Mojave (the desert).

The Central Valley is reached by I-5, and is separated from the Antelope Valley area by the Tehachapi foothills. Also, by most peoples' estimation, you enter the Central Valley when you descend the Grapevine (or just at Bakersfield). That's about 130 miles on the freeway from San Bernardino.

The LA metro area is a big place.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:18 AM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


I spent many years living out there, and I'm kind of tired of the disaster porn/God the I.E. Is a total shithole talk I hear all the time. Look, they get it.

So, why are Riverside, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga so much better? Hell, even Fontana (whose high school team is called the Steelers) looked at the Kaiser Steel Mill and said, "Fuck it, let's approve the construction a world-class race track."

But in SB, it's always, "Hey, we got the National Orange Show Fair. Just celebrated its 100th year! Whoo-hoo."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:14 AM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Papa, SB is an armpit, but the Orange Fair is a ray of sunshine for little kids
posted by growabrain at 11:23 AM on November 9, 2015


LAT -- Full Coverage: San Bernardino Shooting

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posted by snuffleupagus at 5:24 PM on December 2, 2015


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