California : The Geography of Diversity

by Miller, Crane S.; Hyslop, Richard S.

• ISBN13: 9780767413459
• ISBN10: 0767413458
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-08-27
• Publisher: MCG

Summary

The second edition of this popular, topically arranged text is an account of the most vital, significant, and fascinating aspects of California’s rich physical and cultural landscape.

Table of Contents

1. Lotus Land Revisited

Travelogue Tales and Romantic Musings

California Through the Eyes of the Spaniards

-Early American Images

-Literary Visions

-A Taste of Today

Diversity in Perspective

-Environmental Diversity

-Cultural Diversity

-Population Trends

Isolation or Uniqueness

2. The Unstable Landscape

A Quartet of Deadly Temblors: The San Fernando, Whittier Narrows, Loma Prieta, and Northridge Quakes

Faults, Folklore, and Fact

California Adrift

-Plate Tectonics

-A Bermuda Triangle for California and Rerouting of the San Andreas?

3. Landorm Provinces and Their People

The Peninsular Ranges

-The Interior Highlands

-The Los Angeles Basin

-The Islands

The Transverse Ranges

-Onshore

-Offshore

The Coast Ranges

-The Northern Faults

-Valley Settlement

-Landlocked Counties

The Klamath Mountains

-Erosion and Deposition

-Getting Away from It All

The Southern Cascades and Modoc Plateau

-Lava Almost Everywhere

-People Almost Nowhere

The Great Basin and Southeastern Deserts

-A Focus on Death Valley

-Reservation and Rancheria Roulette

-A Manmade Sea

-Thinly Populated Deserts

-Basin Settlement and Transient Tourism

The Sierra Nevada

-Ancestral Formations

-Granitic Intrusion

-Block Faulting

-Pleistocene Glaciation

-Recreation and Retirement

The Great Central Valley

-Fold and Fill

-California’s Cornucopia

4. From Droughts to Downpours

The Lure of Mild Climate

-The Legacy of Horace Greeley

-Midwestern Graffiti

-The Grapes of Wrath

-The Resort Mentality: A Place in the Sun

Climates, Microclimates, and Controls

-Altitude and Air Masses

-Latitude and West Coasts

-Oceanic Influences

-Air Pressure and Winds

Weather Modification

-Unintentional: Smog

-Intentional: Rainmaking

5. Water: The Controversial Resource

Water Resources: An Uneven Hydrography

Water Use and Droughts

Impacts of Stream Diversion on Mono Basin

The Western (Californian) Revolution in Water Law

-Common Law Riparian Rights

-The Doctrine of Prior Appropriation (the Colorado Doctrine)

-The California Doctrine: A Marriage of Convenience

The City’s Search for Water: Los Angeles and the Owens Valley War

-Mulholland’s Dream

-The Owens Valley War

Businessmen Versus Naturalists: The San Francisco Water Controversy

More Water for Southern California from Somewhere Else

The CVP: A Boon to Agriculture

Water Conservation and Reuse

The Pacific and the Columbia: Prolific but Unlikely Water Supply Alternatives

6. Energy: The Assumed Resource

Lifestyle Change: Can California Maintain Its Mystique?

-Is the Mobile Culture Affordable?

-Is the Poolside Goddess a Thing of the Past?

-Can Californians Become Energy Spartans?

Energy and Electricity: Consumption and Supply

Hydropower

Oil and Natural Gas

Coal

Geothermal Power

Nuclear Power

Solar Energy

Wind Power

Deregulation, Conservation, and the Environment

7. From Redwoods to Sagebrush

Principal Biomes

-Coniferous Forests

-Woodlands

-Grasslands and Marshlands: The Central Valley as an Aboriginal Environment

-Desert Shrublands

-Chaparral and Coastal Shrublands

-The Littoral

The Success of Exotics

8. The Historical Geography of California

The Original Californians

European Exploration

-Spanish Dominance

-Mission Settlement Patterns

The Mexican Period

-The End of the Mission

-The Romance of the Rancho

Foreign Incursions and Early Statehood

-Mountain Men, Sailors, Pioneers, and Heroes

-The Gold Rush

-The Decline of the California Indian Population

-The Rise of the Beef Industry

Transportation and California’s Evolution

Dry Farming and Irrigation Colonies

The “Black Gold” Rush: The Rise of the Petroleum Industry

The Ascent of the Western Stars: The Making of the Movie Capital

World War II: Enter Defense Plants, Exit Japanese Americans

Postwar California: American Suburbia

Patterns for the Present and Future

9. Contemporary Folkways, Cultural Landscapes

Cultural Geographic Oddities

-Logging Paul Bunyan-Style: Redwood Country, Northern Forests, and Plains

-Argonauts and Ghost Towns: Gold Country

-A State Without Wine Is Like a Day Without Sunshine: Wine Country

-Sophistication: The San Francisco Bay Area

-Nashville West: Bakersfield, the Central Valley, and the Farm Belt

-Neon Glitter: Southern California and Los Angeles

-Beachboys, Boating, and the Body Beautiful: Southern Coastal Playgrounds

-Resort Mecca and Commercial Hub, The San Diego Region

Mad Dogs and Californians

-Creating Dreams: Disney, Knott, and Others

-Eating Your Way to Nirvana—By Railroad, Bistro, Pub, and Drive-in

Recreation or Else

-Spectator Spectacles: There’s More Than One Coliseum

-Active Play: Everybody Is a Star

10. The Farm: Agricultural California

Agricultural Records, Resources, and Commodities

Livestock Products and Feed Crops

-Cotton: King of the San Joaquin

-Rotation Crops: Replenishing the Soil

-Rice: Automation in the Sacramento

Vegetables, Citrus, and Avocados

-Ventura County: California’s Fruit and Vegetable Industry in Microcosm

-Tomato Technology: People Versus Machines

Deciduous Tree Crops

Viticulture and Winemaking

-Windmaking

-The Mission Grape

-The Green Hungarian

-Vinifera’s Enemies

-Wines, Varieties, and Climates

-A New Wine Geography for California?

Oddities in Commodities

-“Where’s the Pot?”

-Another Kind of Grass

-Christmas Tree Farming

-Energy Crops: A Sweet Solution

11. The City: Metropolitan California

Patterns of Metropolitan Growth

-Metropolitan Statistical Areas

-Shrinking Central Cities

-San Francisco’s Depopulation: 1960–1980

-Where Did they Go?—A Bay Area Rebound

-Suburbanization

-Los Angeles: Suburbs in Search of a City

-Getting Los Angeles Back on Track

-Los Angeles and San Francisco: A Tale of Two Ethnicities

Urban California at Work and Play

-Retail and Wholesale Trade

-Manufacturing

-Tourism

-San Diego as the Tourist Mecca of the Twenty-First Century

The Impact of Urban Sprawl on AGriculture

-Land Economics and Land Tax

-Urban Shadows

-Where Will New Suburbanites Live?

Conserving Agriculture in Suburbia

-Agriculture Cities

-Conserving Easements

-Agricultural Zoning

-Preferential Assessment and the CLCA

12. California on the Threshold

The Prospects

The People

-Growth and Population

-Immigration, Migration, and Ethnicity

-The Social Fabric

The Pacific Rim—The Pacific Century

The Natural Environment

-Federal Regulations

-State Regulations

The Water Problem

The Problem of Movement

The Future