The Inland Empire’s Growing Pains
LA’s Exurbs Cope With Residential Development, Distribution Centers And Environmental Racism
Moving is something most will do at least once in their lifetime, whether it be from moving out of a parent’s house, moving from a childhood town to another city, or moving into a dorm for the start of your college adventure.
So, moving is nothing new. But for decades, the trend has been for people to move from rural areas into cities. These days, though, more and more people are making the reverse exodus from highly populated cities to more rural cities and towns.
This trend really kicked in during the Covid-19 pandemic. Cities such as Los Angeles and New York have seen have lost almost two percent of their population since the pandemic, which is a lot considering that millions of people live in those cities.
Los Angeles has seen its fair share of people moving to and from the county. The immigrant population remains high: 3.5 million immigrants live in the county, about 20 percent of which arrived over the last decade. At the same time, the Los Angeles’s metro area’s population decreased by 1.3 percent since the first year of the pandemic. That’s 176,000 residents, or about twice the population of Whittier, whose population is about 83,000. This represented the second biggest decrease among major metropolitan areas.
Where are these people leaving to? Some are leaving the state, but many fleeing the high costs of urban Los Angeles the move is just a little further east, to San Bernardino and Riverside Counties
The Inland Empire, which encompasses the areas around the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside saw an increase of 48,000 new residents in 2021, adding more residents to the growing sprawl in exurban Southern California, where agriculture had been the mainstay.
While cities like San Bernardino, Moreno Valley, and Temecula have grown between 2020–21, smaller cities such as San Jacinto and Hemet have also felt the impacts of urban flight. Both cities are among Riverside County’s oldest communities with San Jacinto being founded in 1870 and Hemet in 1887. The two cities grew in popularity thanks to the rail system making them a popular agricultural train stop.
Today these two cities have taken a more modern approach to growth and their economies. San Jacinto now employs less than 2.1 percent of the population in agricultural, though the city hosts a majority of the 36 remaining dairy farms in Riverside County. Although agriculture is dwindling as a share of the local economy, the dairy farms still greet visitors driving into town, reminders of what the economies had originally been ruled by.
With the increased developments in the two cities, many of these dairy farms have been forced to sell their lands in order for new housing projects that will continue to urbanize the cities. An article from The Press-Enterprise on the decline of dairy farms in the Southern California, addresses how the recessions that put a halt to overdevelopment left dairy-farm pastures vacant for some years. Drive down Gilman Springs Road and many of these are still vacant without any cows or finished housing communities in sight.
A 2012 housing development plan created by the city of San Jacinto identified over 12,000 new housing units to be created from 2006 to 2014 which was allocated by the Southern California Association of Governments. A 2013 development plan called for 2,433 new housing units to be developed between 2014 — 2021. In an even newer housing plan development plan for 2020 3,392 new housing units were to be created on land allocated by the Southern California Association of Governments.
Of course with the addition of new housing units over the years, there is going to be an increase in population as well and that’s where the true c economic and environmental changes come into play. According to the US Census, in 2010 the population of San Jacinto was at around 44,000 while Hemet was at 78,000. In 2020, San Jacinto’s population had increased to 53,000 and Hemet’s to 89,000 — a total increase of around 20,000 new residents in the small 52-square-mile area.
The residential boom brings benefits as well as disadvantages. Small businesses have been thriving. Cecilia Bungay, owner of Hemet Asian Market has been open for around six years, is pleased with the area’s growth.
“I Believe that the increased population that has been coming in the past years will help not only my business but also the ones around the area,” said Bungay. “The area has been starting to grow and the economy has been needing an increase in funds. so with the added people coming in, it’s just going to improve the cities.”
Jey Gifford, owner of a small print shop, saw pros and cons in the area’s increasing allure. “ As far as for an economical point of view, it’s great that this is happening. Businesses will thrive more as well as for those that have a more unique service,” said Gifford. “But as far as the cost of living, it could affect those who are on a set income, like our elderly population.”
About a fifth of Hemet’s population is 65 or older. Elderly comprise about 11 percent of San Jacinto’s population.
Some see the current increase in population as a cause for concern. Bill Ryans, owner of Family Hair Stop, a barbershop in Hemet that has been open for a more than 20 years worries about increased competition in a small market.“Honestly it’s been kinda hard these past few years to compete with these other shops,” he says. “I’m an older guy and my shop isn’t exactly the newest thing out there so many people usually go out to what’s new and who’s younger. Not to mention the increase of shops around both cities. After all, almost everyone gets a hair cut so it makes sense as to why there’s been so many popping up everywhere.”
Just 20 miles north of the two cities is Lake Perris State Recreational Area, including the Perris Reservoir and adjacent protected wildlife area. Opened in 1972 and spanning 8,800 acres the area has been a nature haven for those seeking relief from the often scorching heat and dust of the arid region. The area’s increasing population, as well as the construction nearby of a new warehouse distribution facility and housing tract, have put increased pressure on the retreat, which has seen an uptick in traffic s as well as an increase in wildfires over the past years. In 2015, a 175-acre fire threatened to spread to the lake campgrounds. While in 2019, a brush fire spread over 115 acres of the park.
Some locals opposed the increased warehouse construction. In a 2021 article by the Press-Enterprise, “Pushback against warehouses in the Inland Empire gains momentum,” Andrea Vidaurre, a policy analyst with the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice in the Inland Empire, said people are getting tired of their communities being turned into industrial hotspots. She called for more resistance to these types of projects.
A study conducted by Vidaurre’s group in collaboration with the University of Redlands, showed that 85 percent of all Southern California warehouses are located around communities whose population is primarily minorities. The traffic from large trucks and emissions from the operations of warehouse and logistics facilities reduces air quality and increase the rates of asthma in communities. According to the study, physicians refer to these pollution-burdened areas as “diesel death zones.” The nearly by Ontario area, has one of the region’s highest concentration of warehouses and has a 97.26 toxic percentile, meaning it’s more toxic than 97.26 percent of the census tracts in the entire state. Many of these facilities are next to schools and lower-income neighborhoods, disproportionately affecting minorities.
The study calls this “a textbook case of environmental racism” and urges agencies such as the Southern California Air Quality Management District to crack down on polluters and push for zero-emission technologies at these facilities.
As increasing cost of living continues to drive people out the urban centers of cities such as Los Angeles, rural and exurban areas will continue to grow and transform. The question remains, into what?
