Monday
Sep012008
California Cities in the Year 2000 (1961)
Monday, September 1, 2008 at 9:41AM The March 12, 1961 Independent Star-News (Pasadena, CA) ran an article which heavily quotes Ed Dolker, deputy director of the California Department of Natural Resources. A short excerpt appears below. You can read the entire article here.
"There will be 60 million people in California in the year 2000," Dolder said. "There will be two great metropolises in our state - one that extends from Salinas to Moterey counties and the other from Santa Barabara to San Diego counties."
Read more:
Edmund G. Brown's Californifuture (1963)
James B. Utt on Space Travel (1963)
General Dynamics Astronautics Time Capsule (1963)
Governor Knight and the Videophone (Oakland Tribune, 1955)
Reader Comments (10)
Wow, that Dolder guy wasn't very well informed. While his predictions of the cost of housing was pretty close, his geography, demographics and California history was lacking.
While Cal's population was still booming at the time, it was slowing and Monterey county (was there even a Salinas county back then?) has never had a large population. I could understand if he had said the Bay area east to Sacramento would be huge population centers, but Monterey and Salinas?
He just barely missed his population prediction by 27 million. I'm sure it scared a lot of schoolkids and their parents which was probably the intent. California has always been a heavy ag state, anything less would not be able to feed the state of 60 million, let alone the rest of the world.
I think he's referring either to the city of Salinas or Salinas Valley - there's still no Salinas County.
This article is pretty frightening. I love the idea of taking vacations by government lottery. But no love for the Bay Area? I guess it was a little too early to predict the rise of Silicon Valley, but still, it's amusing to think that the farmland of the Central Coast would ever be a huge population center. Although I guess if you got rid of all the forestland down there, there'd be more places for people to live.
I live on the central coast and frankly, there's just not that much livable land, or water, to support a huge population. It is great farm and ranch land. If you look at population maps of California, you will see the areas that can and do support large populations. The central coast can only support large populations on the weekends. Which works out great for us.
Bring your money and enjoy our beaches, wine, shopping and scenery, but make sure you're gone by Sunday afternoon, thankyouverymuch.
Like I said before, I think the article was all about scaring kids to be environmentalists. I see it all the time in the media, society and politics in California. Not that there's anything wrong with that method, but I don't like manipulating kids like that.
Of course, if all californians would multiply the way mr. "Edward A. Hundley of Slocomb" did in his life (bottom right in the original article) things would look quite different by now....
Wow, that Dolder guy wasn't very well informed. While his predictions of the cost of housing was pretty close, his geography, demographics and California history was lacking
http://mirretro.ru
Wow, that Dolder guy wasn't very well informed. While his predictions of the cost of housing was pretty close, his geography, demographics and California history was lacking
http://mirretro.ru" REL="nofollow">Новейшая история
Never mind all that California stuff. How great is the headline for the http://www.flickr.com/photos/sots/2817659517/sizes/o/" REL="nofollow">other article at the bottom of that page:
"158 Survive Man"
Feel better Matt!
Surely what he really said was, "one that extends from Salinas and Monterey to" something or other north of SF. The reporter was probably vague about the geography of the Other State. Rodger Cunningham
Come back Paleo-Matt - the world needs your past future muckraking.
Doesn't the world deserve to smile?