BEANFIELDTROPOLIS
(Morlocks & Eloi for a new age)
At a recent meeting, the Costa Mesa City Council approved plans for five high-rises and more than 1,200 new residential units near the Orange County Performing Arts Center across from South Coast Plaza--the area known as South Coast Metro.
Missing from the approval was any demand on the developers to provide affordable housing in the project area or even outside the project area.
Some wonder where the Morlocks will live who will service the needs of the rich Eloi, living in the new buildings high above the nitty gritty things that make everything work, if these Morlocks can't afford to live in the project area. *
Never fear, dear readers, as you have no doubt already guessed, several movies have suggestions for just such a situation. TheMorlocks can live in the equivalent of dimly lit tunnels down below the shining spires--which is to say they can live in old Costa Mesa and Santa Ana.
But first, some gaps need to be filled in our speculation to properly set the stage and to explain that just used term "old Costa Mesa."
Could it be, as I've written before, that a new city may be aborning in South Coast Metro?
Imagine a Costa Mesa that stops just south of the San Diego Freeway. Imagine a Costa Mesa that has lost most of its tax revenues. Costa Mesa was long ago cut off at the legs so that we can no longer stick our toes in the Pacific Ocean. Now, will the top half of Costa Mesa also be cut off?
To understand why this is possible, even without all the inside baseball, just look at a map of the area.
Draw a rectangle on the north side of the San Diego Freeway paralleling the freeway from the Santa Ana River on the west to Main Street on the east and extending up to around Segerstrom Avenue, or maybe even up to Warner Avenue in some places.
What do you have?
A rectangle that is a multi-million dollar cash cow that straddles the border between Costa Mesa and Santa Ana. This area is developing its own identity separate from the two cities in which it is located. And, having such an identity is a logical step to full city hood.
This rectangle that you just marked off will not only have the new high-rises and thousands of people living there, it already has South Coast Plaza, IKEA, and many other smaller centers and even the new Furniture Center along the San Diego Freeway as well as a law college and many homes in the area west of South Coast Plaza. It also has a huge chunk of Costa Mesa's annual tax revenues.
And, speaking of the new Furniture Center, doesn't that sign with the ball on top along the 405, just somehow look like what you'd expect to see in a 1930's vision of a futuristic city that also has elevated pedestrian walkways connecting up buildings as you see at South Coast Plaza? Don't you half expect to see flying cars landing in the area?
Anyway, imagine that the financial and political powers in the rectangle are getting a little tired of having to deal with Costa Mesa and Santa Ana politics every time they want to build something. You know, things such as having to fight off the constant calls for the developers to donate almost $20,000 per residential unit that they want to build in order for Costa Mesa to be able to build affordable housing--as we heard at a City Council meeting.
Maybe the powers that be have decided that the path of least resistance is to go the way of the City of Industry.
Not clear what this means? Read on.
The City of Industry is about 11.9 square miles in size–about the size of Costa Mesa–but according to the 2000 census, it only has 777 residents.
Costa Mesa, by contrast, and to be precise, covers 15.7 square miles and has, according to the 2000 census, 108,724 residents.
The City of Industry was formed in 1957 to keep surrounding cities from grabbing land in the area for tax revenues.
So, could there really be some developers and others meeting in the present equivalent of smoke filled rooms talking about having the rectangle described above becoming its own city with its own bought and paid for city council that’ll dance to the right tunes?
Sorry, but I don’t know. I'm allergic to smoke filled rooms and their present equivalents and I wouldn’t be invited to any of the meetings even if there were such meetings. The dead swan on the Daily Pilot’s 103 most influential whatevers list has more clout than I do.
But, as a lowly and ever humble observer of the local scene, it just seems logical to me that someone with a financial interest in South Coast Metro would be thinking about this. I mean, what am I, a genius and the only one who can see what is so plain to see? I don’t think so.
If someone wanted to make a move to start a new city out of the rectangle, what would they do? Well, they’d have to have a large enough voting population living in the area to ask for city hood (say, a couple of thousand up-scale people living in new high-rises along with the people living in homes on the other side of South Coast Plaza).
They might also want to have a mass transportation infrastructure (say, like Centerline) to bring in the Morlocks from Santa Ana and the old Costa Mesa (which in our extrapolative and metaphorical speculation has become like the worst of the Westside) to do the menial job of shoveling coal into the huge machines down in the dimly lit tunnels below the park like setting and shining towers and spires reaching to the sky where the Eloi live.
And, so what if the Morlocks emerge in the night and eat some of the Eloi?
That's the tradeoff the rich Eloi are willing to make to have someone else do the menial jobs of keeping the machines working in order for their Disneyland like plastic world to keep running smoothly. Besides, it's mostly the poorer cousins of the rich Eloiwho get eaten.
Of course, the poorer cousins of the rich Eloi--the middle class Eloi--are not pleased that they are the ones who are mostly eaten by the Morlocks while the rich Eloi live in mile high fortresses in the sky. But who cares what they think?
But, back to a more straightforward view of things. One of the points being made here is that starting a new city would require long range thinking, and pieces would have to be put in place a few at a time before anyone caught on to the long range plan.
At some point, anyone who wants a new city would have to go toLAFCO (Local Area Formation Commission) and give them their several thousand dollar fee to explore the possibility of splitting this area off from Costa Mesa and Santa Ana. That’s pocket change to some of the developers in the area.
After that, the middle class Eloi could just sit back in their lounge chairs watching TV while living in the shadows under the overpasses and elevated roadways that crisscross old Costa Mesa and which connect up a gigantic and ever growing John Wayne Airport and various rich Eloi enclaves to Beanfieldtropolis.
And, as we contemplate our new, smaller, less wealthy and less desirable Costa Mesa where English is no longer the lingua franca and as we wonder how it came to be that this chunk of land--with a great climate and a geographic location between tony Newport Beach and tony Beanfieldtropolis--came to be as it is today, we scratch our heads and wonder how all those tiny little decisions of the Costa Mesa City Council could have somehow added up to what we now have. And, seven words pop into our heads: "cumulative effect of many bad small decisions."
Of course, the above is all speculation and mixes fiction with fact. Still....
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* No, not Moorlachs as in Supervisor John M. W. Moorlach. Yes, I know the two names are pronounced the same and, yes, I am aware of so called synchronicity, but the Morlocks in H.G. Wells'story and later movie were big, and Supervisor Moorlach (notMorlock) is, oh...ah...right, I see what you mean, well never mind. And, yes, I am aware that the machines wouldn't be run by people shoveling coal into them. Geez.
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