Quote:
Originally Posted by IMBY
I always thought San Berdo had the potential for being a rather dense, urban suburb, with the commuter line into DTLA. I would think that developers would have a lot of freedom in that city, with the absence of Nimby's?
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The trouble with our town is that the local economy relied so HEAVILY on the former Norton Air Force Base, which was shuttered back in the '90s. That crippled the city for most of the past two decades. The airbase has been resurrected as San Bernardino International Airport, with a heavy focus on cargo. Amazon has half a dozen warehouses in the immediate vicinity, including a huge cargo terminal at the airport, and new warehouses from all kinds of companies are sprouting up all over the southern half of the city, as well as in Redlands, Rialto, and Fontana. It's a very similar dynamic to the industrial build-out of Ontario and Mira Loma, surrounding ONT, but with the added advantage of a government center.
Yeah, we've got the Metrolink, but that's still an hour-and-a-half ride into Union Station, to say nothing of transferring to L.A. Metro. Quite a commute. I think this city's future hinges on its leverage as an industrial transportation nexus and as a gateway to the mountain resorts and out to the rest of the country.
As for NIMBYism, I haven't lived here long enough to know how much of a factor that is. What I have heard is that being an older city, a large percentage of the residents here own their homes outright rather than renting. I would expect that to generate resistance to teardowns. There is a large stock of apartments, but they are almost all visibly about half a century old now. Though there are some newer ones in the north near the Cal State campus. Typically, most of the new tracts I've seen are SFH. Such a wasted opportunity. On the other hand, the areas immediately north and west of downtown are very densely-built, despite being mostly bungalows and almost nothing over two stories.
When I attended one of those community workshops for the general plan update, most people were very keen on improving the city's walkability, safety, and beautification. I got more than a few murmurs of agreement when I suggested that single-use zoning needed to be abolished, at least downtown. And everyone wants to finally get rid of that godforsaken Carousel Mall, which is now a fully-abandoned husk darkening the heart of the city. It's just a question of who wants to spend real money building something nice here.