While Costa Mesa has done a pretty good job over the years of attracting some quality businesses, primarily retail, to the city, and even though much of this has been due to the accident of geography that put vast tracts of vacant land right where the San Diego Freeway was built, the city deserves some praise for getting out of the way and allowing the shopping centers to be built.
However, if we are to give praise for capitalizing on one accident of geography we must, in fairness, give some criticism to the city for failing to capitalize on another accident of geography. Of course we are speaking of the fact that Costa Mesa borders very toney and very upscale Newport Beach, and one would think that Costa Mesa would try to have some of that toniness and some of that upscale-ness slop over the border and help raise the demographics of the city as a whole and improve the quality of life for its citizens.
Unfortunately, it appears that some sort of different vision, if we can call it that, is the primary mindset of various establishment types in the city. This vision of Costa Mesa is now shown in increasing gang activity, more poor people, more slums, more failing schools, more social dysfunction.
What the city needs to understand is that things change. Once, the highest and best use of the bluffs in Costa Mesa was for oil wells and industrial buildings. Now, the bluffs have a higher and best use: expensive ocean-oriented homes. Huntington Beach understands this change and has built beautiful upscale homes on its equivalent of Costa Mesa’s bluffs. Just a few years ago, those areas of Huntington Beach were full of oil wells.
To not analyze this problem in this manner but to continue on with the band-aid approach is a sure-fire way to help speed the decline of Costa Mesa into the Skid Row of Orange County.
H. Millard
Costa Mesa
