Jim Cooper's Orange County; What Orange County People are Thinking

Consider what a fascinating idea would be to find out what Orange County people are thinking what's really on their mind. There is a young faculty member at the University of California at Irvine who is now in his second year of tackling that intriguing job. Dr. Marc while the sorry associate professor of social ecology. And he just completed the second annual Orange County survey of concerns priorities and hopes of Orange County people. I'm Jim Cooper and I'll talk about this interesting survey with my equally interesting guest Dr. Baldassarre today. Dr. Baldassarre took data from one thousand and three randomly selected residents of Warren County

from all geographic areas giving a cross-section of families and of old young and middle aged people using scientific survey techniques with an error factor of only 3 percent plus or minus. Dr. Bober sorry to find some remarkable insights on aspirations and attitudes of Orange County people. You found the number one concern is a county wide vexation over transportation. The discontent is so strong that 65 percent are in favor of a 1 cent sales tax to improve transportation without ever knowing the details of the whole plan. The growing number of have nots in housing was highly evident and was a concern for improving public education. The discontent and the sense of hopelessness with articulated them on young adults who feel the dream of adequate housing is further than ever from their reach. What happened to them has enormous influence on the whole direction of the county in the future. Dr. Baldassarre was born in Manhattan New York the son of a Presbyterian minister. He was graduated from the State University of New

York at Stony Brook and obtained his doctoral degree from UC Berkeley an urban sociology. He worked two years in a post doctoral fellowship on survey research before joining U.S. eyes socially Khalidi department in 1981. His wife Sara Rosenfeld is a research associate at UCI and worked on the project. Welcome to our program and welcome again to Orange County a place where you've been in that two years now many years. You have an amazing insight into what we do in the county what all of us who live in Orange County really are for a newcomer and I suppose that's because of your scientific training that has enabled you to what shall I say. Take a peek at who we are and what we're thinking about. Well it's partly the training and it's partly that tends to have a lot of people through my work. Help me direct the research to answer certain kinds of questions. What propelled you into this kind of vocation. Well I've always been interested in what people think and I've

always been intrigued with communities and how communities work. And. I have through my training in psychology and sociology decided that I wanted to apply some of that knowledge so I understand a little bit better the place that I live and work. So you can combine sociology and finding out what people are like. And sociology and maybe and psychology and maybe feeling some of what motivates them. That's what you know of the reasoning might be it seems to me that's terribly intriguing part of your work not just getting the raw data but then making some synthesis of that data and making some subjective reflections about it. It's very difficult and of course there's always error involved in any kind of survey or a study of what you said when you said 3 percent under ideal circumstances. But. If you always have to have to be careful and you know

advising the validity of again from ation and double checking it seems to me that the difficult test that you face is not just acquiring the data and the percentages of how many people think this and how many people think that but then the tougher job is to say what does that mean. That's why I have the right of the field such and such a way. Do you find that them and that it's all 90 percent of the 10 percent is going to have quieting the data asking the question and then the 90 percent is finding out what it all means and what's behind those answers. One of the questions that I think that our viewers might want to know about and I'd like to start out with this woman that that you found out that 37 percent of the people in Orange County based on your survey think that Orange County going to be a better place in which to live. Thirty two percent think it's going to get to be a worse place and 31 percent see it as seem to feel they don't know that that older more or less the same or they don't know would you enlarge what about and what does that question say do you have the percent 30 percent

a third almost a third of the people in this county Think Orange County going to the worst place in which to live. Right. Constantly asked whether that's good or bad. Thirty seven percent think it's going to be a better place. We don't really have any national statistics to compare that to and we really don't know how that compares with how people thought about Orange County five or six years ago. But it is of some concern when there are so many people that are either uncertain about the future or have pessimistic views about the future and I think that I know some of the reasons why people feel why people have represented these rather mixed feelings about the future. In your report do you label the statistics and say these are the actual numbers and then do you label the other part as saying this is conjecture on why we have these attitudes right. Well there are sort of three stages to to a study of this sort. There is the stage of reporting the numbers and then the news the stage of saying well this group felt this

way and who felt that way and then this the third stage which is this is the way I feel that we can interpret all of this information. And I suppose of those three Stieg is the last the final one is this is the one of the subject to debate. That's right. Is that Corey or thing is that you. Absolutely right. My my interpretation of those that use MY did might be very different from your internet right. Yeah. And yet going through your 58 page report Mark I read every page of it and I read some pages over again. Absolutely intriguing. Thank you and sum up some of the reflections I thought were almost inescapable. For example this next station about transportation about education vexation about crime and particularly vexation on the part of the young people who feel they are being priced out of the housing market in Orange County and we thought me thought that was part of the American dream. That's right. I think maybe of all the findings this year was no surprise about the attitudes of young adults and Orange County. I want to talk about that. Sense of alienation and depression and young

adults but first let's go through them. Let me go through these demographic very briefly Ariel talk about them. These are some ones that I've extrapolated that tells us what kind of people we are. All of us who live in Orange County so let's take a look at some of the latest demographics tell us what people exactly are like in the profile. The survey shows that most Orange County ends are between 25 and 44 years of age 48 percent of the county's entire population lives within these age brackets a kind of a youngish. Population we have our two million incomes are higher than almost anywhere else in the state if you add the three highest categories you'll see that 63 percent of all orange county families have incomes above twenty five thousand a year. And 18 percent of all families have incomes of more than 50000 a year high income. The location of. The population education status is also very high. The study shows 69 percent of all Orange County ends have some college education and fully one third are college graduates. The average ORANGE COUNTY WORKER tends to be college educated and working in a white collar occupation the

newest figures show that 69 percent of all workers are white collar jobs while 31 percent are in blue collar work. Finally the majority of Orange County residents 55 percent of our 2 million population have lived here less than five years with a full 32 percent who have been here two years or less. A very mobile and new coming population. Traditional family life prevails in Orange County 56 percent of all adults are living as married couples. But the next largest collective percentage 29 percent are living in some manner as a single Orange County is becoming a two family work center. Although 47 percent of all families still have only one worker in the family 39 percent or four out of every 10 families in Orange County now have two wage earners. In the area of housing 62 percent of all the people in Orange County own their own home while 38 percent are renters. However this study showed three out of four who are renters really are interested in buying their own home. Those are some interesting demographic that tell one Orange

County you're going to come from the you know to many other places. How does this spell out in your mind that Orange County is a different kind of place to live. Well I think that Orange County in many ways represents the new suburban metropolitan County which is beginning to emerge as the dominant metropolitan form in the United States. It will probably always be ahead of other counties and in the near future at least in terms of income then and economics and so forth. But if we see a high proportion of white collar workers we see a decline in the proportion of blue collar workers. We see a 10 increase in income. We see a highly educated population that is involved in and the newer the so-called newer sunrise industries. So we don't have we don't have steel mills we don't have heavy manufacturing we.

We are a lot of the verse of the R&D and high tech. Yes institutions Norn right and we know even from the 1982 survey compared to the 1983 survey that we're seeing an increase in education an increase in white collar occupation and an increase in incomes since last year. Did you take into account in your study that unemployment for example in the United needs with only five point two percent right which is 38 percent better than the 8.4 percent statewide average. That's right. And I would read 38 percent better off in unemployment than there is the state of California. And I think it's it's explained by the fact that we have we have a much more diverse and new economy and we also have a very highly skilled workforce. So we have people with job skills. But let's take a look at some of the things that I found absolutely fascinating in this and I'd like to ask you to make some comment is there any other comments I want to make on the demographics. Is it fair to say Orange County is a unique place.

It is unique in that it's if we look at the county as a whole and particular city said leads not only the state but the nation in many respects in terms of income and education. And I have to look at why people here think that Orange County will be a better place to live in the future. We look towards the fact that so many of the residents here are. High income men have high occupational status and have every reason to expect that things will be better in the future. But you still have this nagging. 32 percent one out of every living thing that going to be a workplace. That's because of some community problems. That's not because of people's day to day experiences or their family lives or their quality of life so to speak it's because of some community problems that developed here as the county has grown. A couple things I thought that was interesting also in spending that willingness to spend dollars. Yes very few people across the country like to spend dollars and yet you found out that the 5 percent would burden themselves with a 1 cent sales tax right.

Even without knowing what the master plan for candidates and it's very interesting if you if you ask people Do they want more money spent on taxes. They'll say no. But if you ask them for a specific. Services that they feel are needed. They say yes and it's an encouraging sign actually that people would. What would recognize which is which step away from the view that taxes are good or bad and say this is a problem we need to do so I think that is in some ways it sounds to me like they're accepting social responsibility saying we better do something about this awful transfer. I think we've seen that in respect to transportation and school system well in orange. I think I was going to say I see this chart on schools here and I know it's difficult but it's a bar chart. And this one chart this one side of the chart the highest by far 74 percent of the people are saying they're willing to do some public service spending that strengthening in the school to schools going on these special interpretation on that.

Well I think that all Californians have realized that we have a special responsibility to have good schools. That means a lot to the future. The state and the nation and. I think that it's interesting that when US people did a favor all of those spending increases only about 9 percent or so say that yes they want everything they want all spending and increase. But if us specifically about schools you see that three fourths of people are very discriminating about how they want their tax dollars spent and schools I think rightfully so taken the top of the list. The two top ones where they say they would be spending their dollars they would have been in our schools and police police is now really surprise. Yeah it ties in with your concerns on crime that's right police that nationwide people are concerned about police and now and it's a remarkable thing you find out in apartments. Yes. Is this resistance to growth. It's as if they're saying we don't want any more hi right that was a very evident

very evident attitude is I think the 74 percent are saying limit highrise limitless What does that say to you. It says to me that. The predominant form of living and I enjoy County is the owner occupied single family dwelling and people who have that are resistant to changing that in the future. When you find out who is it that wants or doesn't want apartments it's it's the homeowner and it's a long that's a long term homeowner in Orange County who doesn't want that change. There's a lot of. I think confusion and. Maybe even prejudice about apartments. Yes it's heartening. We don't want apartment because it's not another way of saying we don't want people who live in apartments we would rather have people come and live in homes. That's right. The allotment can't afford and the other part you study they can't the homes are out of reach not only for for the new workers moving into the county but for Again

they the new generation of Orange County is growing up and starting their own home. So it's I think it's a very important problem in the mix of housing that will occur in the county as all kinds of implications for the social structure as well as the economy in the future. I think maybe we have to get a political science on this next question I want to ask you about Mark but it gets into that area of how people Invision themselves on a political spectrum and I see that you say approximately one in six people in Orange County uses the label liberal referring to himself right. Well one in three sites that sell us philosophy is conservative. So 33 percent of the people if I'm reading this right are saying I look up on myself of the conservative. Yes. They say only one in six looks at planning a write off as being a liberal rather that say to you about the political. Complex and the ones kind of well if we were to place Heinz County. On a political spectrum it would certainly be right of center of liberal versus conservative

you'd have to be right to be on the conservative in the right most people consider themselves as middle of the road but certainly slanted over more towards the right of the middle. Did that surprise you a little bit. Not at all. Now when you look at the. Again the social complection of the community and. The. The social issues in the county It doesn't surprise me that people would would call themselves conservative in the middle of the road rather than rather than liberal. If ghost gets back to the demographics really do you have any reading on whether their people are wildly to the left or wildly to the right that it doesn't seem on your studies. It doesn't appear to me that the typical resident or even even the minority or resident would would be wildly to the left or the right. So it's always moderation a good word to use when you're describing what an orange I would say so I think I would I would say political modern moderate

and cautious politically and I think that middle of the road to conservative implies moderate cautious political thinkers and yet a willingness to do things like encumber yourself for more money as we saw in that than the transportation to act as we saw I willing to spend money for school and willingness to spend money for police for specific issues. People are willing to step out of those I think you know overused political categories conservative or liberal and say this is important to us now we have to do it. I think that's one of the that's the that's where the chorus and it isn't brought out that the Republicans have something like an 80000 vote. Majority of the Democrats right now are trying to registrations that would the writers and even here they've been almost even now with the Republican registration is larger right. A sizable majority of parents you say 65 percent agree that drugs and alcohol are a problem in Intermediate School and 78 percent of all the parents in Orange County

think it's a major problem in the high schools. That's in the enormously high that they are terrible. It's probably an acceptable. I think this is one of the reasons why people are. Questioning what's going on in schools and wondering how what it is that will help. We found out when we did our series on the chemical People project which was and which we had 85 town hall meetings all across the county. That there was an enormous. Wave of concern that maybe had not been articulated before but this would seem to articulate a fix it put a number to it 78 percent concerned of drugs and alcohol there. There are things that are going on in our high school city that obviously demand close and immediate attention and I think that's what parents were telling us and one of the one of the figures if not in your survey what we uncovered in our chemical People program. Was that one out of five seniors in every high school in Orange County will either using or have tried cocaine by the time he got into his senior year

through is amazing. I mean. I think that it you know it indicates again it's it's time to start thinking about the next generation of Orange County residents. I think we've been as a county so busy thinking about who is moving in. And migrants that we've sort of forgotten the children so to speak. One of the things that I'm really intrigued with and I'd like to comment on that is a subjective quality mental attitude that was evident in this I want to ask you how you got better and then what do you think about it. But words like depression sadness loneliness among young people 18 to 24 the highest the highest level age group in the whole county to have loneliness. The group beat the people between 18 and 24 and you said that even among that group Women tend to be higher than men. That's right. How to do it. How did you have obtain that information.

What how did you achieve that. Well my wife is a specialist in a field called the sociology of mental health which uses surveys to measure depression and anxiety and other. Mental health symptoms and. She developed for us in this year's survey a series of items that. It's used by the U.S. government to measure depression. And we we took that scale and then we administered it to everyone in the survey and then compared different age groups and found I think very Mysore a surprise that the youngest adults in the county had the lowest mental health ratings even controlling for all sorts of other facts so that you know let me read it to let me read this quote to you. Among young people women are significantly more depressed than men. Single people and people who are divorced or separated are more depressed than those who are married young people in Northern especially central Orange County are more depressed than those living in the south county. In figuring it is to me that you could ask questions that would evoke that the listener that had a response

that been working on it for about 20 years in Washington and they've come up with a series of items that deals with both physical and psychological and social symptoms of depression. And then of course we compare different groups in the county to to find out which groups had the most severe problems the next age group up the very next age group up from the very youngest 18 to 24 is the next most concerned. Now it comes to the question of how you interpret that that we had was earlier. So now we have the figure to this 18 to 24. And we're using words like depressed loneliness. What are some of the other words that you write to them. Hopelessness a sense of helplessness. The hopelessness is alienation from the mean alienation. Hopelessness. Feeling that you're not in control of your life. And it is that we have people that may be wanting to think it's going to be a worse place to live that's right we find that there are some some very interesting reasons why

the groups in Orange County. Have these levels of depression and. The policy implication is that. That group more than any other group is interested in leaving Orange County and striking out elsewhere and finding out finding a home somewhere else and this. This because of the stage and the economic and urban cycle we're in an Orange County. This concerns me because we need to win they need the youth to take the entry level jobs in Orange County and to to you know build the foundation here. Let me read this quote from your study which I'd like to have you make some comments on. It's our belief. That in order to convince existing residents to stay here and to assure continued prosperity meeting in Orange County some movement need to be made in transportation and housing. Ever since our 1982 survey there's evidence that residents are losing patients with existing

conditions and that leaders must begin to act now it seems to be about for action. I think it is going to add a little bit. Well. In 1982 we started asking questions about the transportation system and Orange County how people felt about the freeways. What was their experience on the commute to work. And we asked some of the same questions and expanded in those questions in 1983 and we found that the tween 1982 and 1983 level of satisfaction with freeways level of satisfaction with the commute to work declined quite markedly greater much greater than that error term. And every month according to our survey every month more and more people are becoming dissatisfied with the traffic the traffic situation in Orange County. And to the extent that the county which we characterize as being right of center is interested in. Burdening it's already there with X with a sales tax over the next 15 or so years.

These young people coming back to the young people are they disillusioned then by a combination of these things the combination of. A bad transportation of low access for housing. Being crowded out of all the good things that makes a good life I think is a combination of those things that make up all the things the young people are most concerned about housing. We found a great proportion of young adults in Orange County who were doubling up with with others and living with their parents beyond an age where children would normally do that yet live with their parents. This occurs because we don't have a we have very high housing costs both for rental and of course for homeownership. To we we do not seem to be able at this point to have the housing for young adults and they're very frustrated and yet there's a resistance to bringing in more apartment that's right there which might alleviate some of that strain that's right. We found among kind of an unhappy company fatness. It's not a great combination it's something that's. You know

fortunately through surveys and getting the word out it's certainly not too late to act on it. But these these are problems these are really good for the county. We think of young people. Waiting to tie into the world set the world on fire and saying the world is my oyster. Did it surprise you that we had this this sense of loneliness and despondency and despair and yet it does. It's unfortunate I guess to some extent it's becoming a national trend this. There is more talk about teenage suicides and teenage alcohol abuse and drug abuse. And then maybe there ever was before. But I think that what aggravates the situation here is the housing doing something about transportation doing something about housing a very positive step that you see. If we could do and make some movement in an on both fronts and the next few years we would be we would be having a lot more people I think would be a better place in the future. All in all do you like living in Orange County you're very much. Yeah. And you think that I should ask you the question yourself. You're going to be a better place or

workplace in the future what's your opinion. I think it will be a better place. I don't know if we're going to go along our time is almost up now and I want to thank you again back to both of them for a fresh view of what people are thinking in Orange County and good hunting on your future. Thanks very raw information. Please join me next week at the time we take our cameras into an Orange County Institute which does magic in the field of human rehabilitation. I'm Jim Cooper. Thanks for being with us. The Christmas songs.

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A study shows 69 percent of all Orange County ends have some college education and fully

one third. Are college graduates. The average Orange County workers tend to be college educated. And working in a white collar occupation the newest figures show that 69 percent. Of all workers are white collar jobs. While 31 percent. Are in blue collar work. Finally the majority of Orange County residents 55 percent of our 2 million population have lived here less than five years with a full. 32 percent. Who have been here. Two years or less. A very mobile the new coming population. Traditional family life prevails in Orange County. 56 percent of all adults are living. As married couples. But the next largest collective percentage. 29 percent. Are living in some manner as a single. Orange County is becoming a two family work center. Although 47 percent of all families still have only one worker. In the family 39 percent or four out of every 10 families in Orange County now. Have two wage earners. In the area of housing. Sixty two percent of all the people in Orange County. Own their own home while 38 percent.

Are renters. However. This study shows three out of four who are renters. Really are interested in buying their own home. Those are some interesting demographic that tell one Orange County if I'm going to come from the you know to many other places. How does this spell out in your mind that Orange County is a different kind of place to live. Well I think that Orange County in many ways represents the new suburban metropolitan County which is beginning to emerge as the dominant metropolitan form in the United States. It will probably always be ahead of other counties and in the near future at least in terms of income then and economics and so forth. But if. We see a high proportion of white collar workers we see a decline in the proportion of blue collar workers. We see an increase in income. We see a highly educated population that is involved in. And. That the newer the so-called newer sunrise industries.

So we don't have we don't have steel mill we don't have heavy manufacturing we. We are a lot of the birth of the R&D and high tech institutions in orange. And we know from even from the 1982 survey compared to the 1983 survey that we're seeing an increase in education an increase in white collar occupation and an increase in income since last year. Did you take into account in your study that unemployment for example in the 1980s we were only five point two percent right which is 38 percent better than the eight point four percent statewide average. That's right. And I would we have 38 percent better off in unemployment than there is the state of California. And I think it's it's explained by the fact that we have we have a much more diverse and new economy and we also have a very highly skilled workforce. So we have people with job skills. Let's take a look at some of the things that I found absolutely fascinating in this and I'd like to ask you to make some comment is there any

other kind if you want to make on the demographics. Is it fair to say Orange County is a unique place. It is unique in that it's if we look at the county as a whole and particular cities it leads not only the state but the nation in many respects in terms of income and education. And I have if we were to look at why people here think that Orange County will be a better place to live in the future we look towards the fact that so many of the residents here are. High income and have high occupational status and have every reason to expect that things will be better in the future. But you still have this nagging. 32 percent one out of everyone think that going to be a workplace that's because of some community problems. That's not because of people's day to day experiences or their family lives or their quality of life so to speak it's because of some community problems that develop here as the county's grown.

A couple things I thought that was interesting also in spending the willingness to spend dollars. Yes very few people across the country like to spend dollars and yet you found out that the 5 percent would burden themselves with a 1 cent sales tax even without knowing what the master plan for when taken in it's very interesting if you if you ask people Do they want more money spent on taxes. They'll say no. But if you ask them for specific services that they feel are needed they say yes which is an encouraging sign actually that people would. What would recognize which is which step away from the view that taxes are good or bad and say this is a problem we need to do so I think that in some ways it sounds to me like they're accepting social responsibility saying we better do something about this awful event. I think we've seen that in respect to the transportation and school system well and I think I was going to say I see the Chardon schools here and I know it's difficult but it's a bar chart. And this one chart this one side of the chart the highest by far 74 percent of the people are saying they're willing to do some

public service spending that's reacting in the school to schools going on these special interpretation on that. Well I think that all Californians have realized that we have a special responsibility to have good schools. That means a lot to the future. The State. And the nation and. I think that it's interesting that when you ask people do they favor. All of those spending increases only about 9 percent or so say that yes they want everything they want all spending and increase. But if us specifically about schools you see that three fourths of people are very discriminating about how they want their tax dollars spent. And schools have. I think rightfully so taken the top of the list. The two top ones where they say they would be spending their dollars they would spend in our schools and police police and that is really surprise. Yeah it ties in with your concerns on crime that's right police. Is that nationwide people are concerned about

police and now I mean it's a remarkable thing you find out in apartments. Yes. This resistance to growth. It's as if they're saying we don't want any more high right that was a very evident a very evident attitude is I think that 74 percent are saying the limit highrise limit. What does that say to you. It says to me that the predominant form of living in our county is the owner occupied single family dwelling. And people who have that are resistant to. Changing that in the future. When you find out who is it that wants or doesn't want apartments it's. It's the homeowner and it's a long that's a long term homeowner in Orange County who doesn't want that change. There's a lot of. I think confusion and. Maybe even prejudice about apartments that yes it's our thing. We don't want apartment because it's not another way of saying we don't want people.