Cityhood: Tough Choices

In his new book, “An Empire Wilderness,” Robert D. Kaplan marvels at the modern-day Orange County he uncovers during his travels around the country. How different what he finds is from the stereotypes that exist. For one thing, he notes, there is a false perception that “there is no there there.” Instead, he finds a county made up of many centers, which “are missed by people whose eyes have yet to adjust to the postindustrial age.”

People who live and work in Orange County nowadays can see the postindustrial age all around them. It’s a landscape of new urban centers where high technology plays a pivotal role. These centers are served by sprawling housing developments and suburban malls.

And yet, within this new world, there is a search going on. It’s the struggle in new communities to establish a sense of place and identity within school systems and city boundaries. Many have come seeking a new start, but the sense of wanting to belong to a community is strong enough to motivate them to action.

As new cities are created, freshly arrived residents find themselves participants in the process of formative grass-roots democracy. Whether it be in letters to the editor debating the merits of cityhood, or in petition campaigns to obtain enough signatures to put the issue of incorporation before the Local Agency Formation Commission, residents are getting a primer on local self-governance.

These issues are complicated: The annexation plan that might argue against cityhood in one place is not even in play in another, where there may be very good reasons to set up an entirely new city. Beyond this debate lies the question of whether county government in Santa Ana adequately represents the concerns of local citizens, and whether the new localities have the wherewithal to meet the financial responsibilities of providing local services and meeting state mandates.

The need for revenue from commercial and residential development has forced these questions to the forefront and placed new pressure on both city and county governments. A 32nd city is under discussion for the Saddleback Valley. Annexation is at issue in Lake Forest, itself one of the new communities. It recently rankled some neighbors in nearby Foothill Ranch and Portola Hills with its plans to annex a shopping center in an unincorporated area. Lake Forest argues that these nearby areas already have been declared within its sphere of influence.

In each case, residents and community leaders will need to tailor their solution to the particulars of their geography and economic situation. They must look at how land can best be utilized. They need to consider the wisdom of setting up services that may duplicate those that already exist. They have to consider whether they are creating a competition between communities where joining forces may be more desirable.

While the romantic vision of a new suburban landscape is key to this debate, a lot turns on the age-old questions of who gets the money, who wields the power, and how neighbors get along. For example, the discussion of a new kind of supercity bringing together Rancho Santa Margarita and Coto de Caza has resulted in some disagreement, with leaders in both camps divided over their interests and their vision of community. Recently, Coto de Caza went ahead and applied to become a city on its own.

Taken together, all these experiences raise some painful choices on how communities define themselves. They even raise the specter of whether some of the class distinctions of the old world will play out. These new trends summon community leaders to identify areas of mutual interest. In doing so, they must exercise a level of maturity that may be difficult in communities so lacking in a local political tradition. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. But how the new communities are shaped matters to everyone. They will play a critical role in the future of Orange County.