Back to the Future for Orange County : * Poll Shows What Has Been Lost in Recent Years, but We Can Restore Our Optimism

It was not so long ago that Orange County viewed itself with a good deal more optimism than was apparent in last week’s Times Orange County Poll. The centennial of Orange County in 1989, for example, found local residents in a positive frame of mind about the future. Now, a few years later, the survey found that nearly four in 10 residents expected to live elsewhere within five years.

What has happened since? In two words, the economy. Back a few years ago, folks were concerned mostly about traffic. But the recession has put things in a different perspective. As recently as 1991, when the rest of the country was mired in recession, Orange County residents seemed oblivious to the pinch, with only one in six believing the recession was serious.

Today, much of the rest of the country has begun to emerge, but Orange County is in a sober frame of mind, with nearly six in 10 Orange County adults considering the state in a “serious” recession and a substantial majority believing it will continue next year.

The last few years have been a time of reckoning for Orange County. One hundred thousand jobs in a once-booming economy, fueled by optimism and growth, have disappeared during the recession, and the county’s unemployment rate has climbed enough to hurt--from 2.9% in 1990 to 6.5%. The strains of libertarian philosophy run deep in these parts, and a general feeling that government intrusion and bureaucratic problems, along with the widely chronicled horror stories of workers’ compensation costs, have been blamed.

But also in the last couple of years, Orange County has closed psychological space with other parts of the country and region through the experiences of the recession.

In the past, for example, it has seen itself as an alternative to the perceived urban problems of Los Angeles. Today, it has its own similar difficulties.

It was telling that one candidate for mayor in Los Angeles was welcomed by a host of opinion leaders in the county during the recent primary election, a signal of recognition that the region is one now, for all intents and purposes.

Today, it is clearer than ever that we are a part of the rest economically and psychologically.

People are wondering aloud whether their children will have what Orange County gave them. A challenge is to work harder than ever to build a sense of community--to make the county for future generations all it has been, and all it promises to be.