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Economic Diversity in California
Susan Helene Kramer
Every once in a while there
is talk amongst the residents and politicians about dividing the state in half,
into North California and South California, but it has not happened yet. I
think that even though the state covers so much ground, 163,696 square miles,
that the northern and southern portions depend on each other economically for
their strength in the national and world economy.
There is also a great diversity of attractions in the north and south, with
mountains and snow, and Mt. Shasta and Lake Tahoe in the north, as well as
other mountainous vacation resorts in the north. I'll point out some
attractions of the southern area of the state in the paragraphs below.
The photo features a Joshua tree in the Mojave Desert in the south-eastern area
of California.
Both the north and south are dependent on the produce of the flat Central
Valley, which is known as the Sacramento Valley to the north, and the San
Joaquin Valley to the south. The Central Valley is 22,500 square miles in size.
Most of the 20 inches of annual rain fall in the Sacramento Valley. Two major
rivers, the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River, fed by their smaller
river tributaries run down the center of the Central Valley.
The Central Valley produces about 8% of the United States’ agriculture value.
With the Central Valley geographically straddling both north and south, I don’t
see how the land could be divided into two states.
To give credit to the south, there are the ocean resorts of Santa Barbara, San
Diego, Los Angeles and more. And after all, think of all that Hollywood studios
produce, and they are mostly surrounding Los Angeles.
Southern California houses the majority of the California’s military bases so
that is another employment reason the north benefits from the south. This
includes Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy installations.
The north and south have kept their peace, enjoying the strengths of each, and
help out the poorer areas as needed. The width of the state is 250 miles at the
widest and 770 miles long. That is a lot of room to have some natural or
man-made attractions to suit all tastes.
Traveling around the state by car gives you access to the widest range of
attractions, all under the roof of one state, with one set of rules, making it
easier to move to another area without the fuss of learning new state rules. I
found this was useful in moving 350 miles south of San Jose to the warmer town
of Santa Barbara.
California is a large state and by keeping it one economy, I see the whole
state - north, central, and south benefiting by the combined resources for the
strongest economic growth going forward.
References
http://militarybases.com/california - California Military Bases
http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr187/psw_gtr187_05.pdf -
Central Valley Statistics
Traveling directions
Rand McNally
Road Atlas
Article by Susan Helene Kramer; photo credit Stan Schaap
- Joshua tree, Mojave Desert, California
Copyright 2012-2015 Susan Helene Kramer
Santa Barbara, California USA
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Published by Creations in Consciousness
email susan@susankramer.com
web site http://www.susankramer.com