Fresno in the News.

Proving my maxim that the only time Fresno gets national attention is in stories featuring either (a) noteworthy murders or (b) subjects that are intensely embarrasing, Forbes Magazine comes through with an article entitled
Economic Death Valley. Once again, I have new reasons to be proud of my home town. Check this out:

Thanks to a trinity of highs--taxes, business costs and crime--as well as a dearth of cheap housing and skilled labor, Fresno gets our booby prize this year. The metro area of 942,000 ranks 146 out of 150 on our list of Best Places to do business, putting it in the company of burnouts like Scranton, Pa. and Atlantic City, N.J.

Woo-hoo. We're Number One. Eat our dust Scranton.

The numbers speak for themselves. Fresno, and much of the Valley, including Merced (yea, you too, Muncie), have economic numbers that place the Great Valley of the Golden State in an economic category not seen outside of Appalachia. According to Forbes:

Some problems just seem intractable. Over the last five years net migration into the area has been flat, and unemployment stuck at double digits--13.9% for 2002. Not that there's a great labor pool to pick from: Only 16.8% of Fresnans over 25 have a college degree. A terrifying 33% don't have high school diplomas, double the percentage of high school dropouts living in the Bay Area. Even a traditional strong point--affordable housing--has dried up. Just ask Fresno Mayor Alan Autry, who quarterbacked for the Green Bay Packers and spent sevenyears playing Captain Bubba Skinner on In the Heat of the Night before running for office. In 2001 his home was worth $300,000. Now he's paying taxes on a $540,000 appraisal.

A few items involved in the numbers. Education and crime are the product of the farm worker phenomenon. In the neighborhood that feeds the elementary school that my Rotary Club is actively involved in supporting there is a 100% turnover every two years. That is a phenomena probably unseen since the ethnic ghettos of New York City at the turn of the last century. The housing price inflation is fueled by the "equity refugees" from Southern California and the Bay Area who cannot believe the values they get for the money. A two bed/one bath in the Palisades will buy a mansion here.

There is also the political problem. California's true division is not North and South; it's East and West. The less populated, resource rich West doesn't have the same political power as the Coastal strip. An exception to this rule involves the Gray Davis Recall effort where the Valley is the "hinge" of the effort. The Valley is a "red state" composed of Republicans and Democrats who vote Republican in a state that is getting getting bluer by the minute.