Is there adequate room for Californians? While a comparative assessment of employment, housing, and quality of life is not easily calculated, there are some measures that might help us approximate an answer.
The State of California covers 155,959 square miles. Census 2000 reports a population of 217 people per square mile. New York averages 348 and Texas 78 people per square mile (the national average is 80 people per square mile). Twenty percent of the state is national forest. One percent is state owned parks, reserves, and recreation areas. Along our most famous border, the Pacific Ocean, half of the 1,100 mile coastline is privately owned and inaccessible to the public. Conversely, there are 850 public access sites along the coast, which range from developed beach parks to narrow pedestrian walkways.
If the quantitative assessment is not obvious, then one relies on qualitative assessment. New Urbanists believe the future can only be met with greater density and a central framework of public spaces. Meanwhile, environmentalists press for more open space, not just for the sake of recreation, but to preserve native ecosystems. Are we too tight, or sprawling beyond reason? As architects who shape the environment daily, we apply our own qualitative measure to local projects, reconciling facts with experience and perception. The answer may differ if we are waiting for a bus in San Francisco, shopping in a Los Angeles mini-mall, cheering in a San Diego stadium, or sitting amidst the Central California Sequoias. Wherever we are, the answer is not easy to figure, if it can be figured at all.
Sources: California Department of Finance, California Coastal Commission, U.S. Census Bureau.
Author Lisa Padilla, AIA, is an associate partner in the Los Angeles office of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, where her project focus is urban design and master planning for public and private institutions. She is a member of the arcCA editorial board.
Photo by Marc Phu.
Originally published 3rd quarter 2001, in arcCA 01.3, “Publicness.”
