Morris H. Newman Encroachment and Coexistence: Preserving the Edge Conditions of the San Joaquin Valley, Architecture California, 14. no. 2, November 1992, p. 24
[p. 24] ". . .
The landscape of encroachment, of course, is an archetypal image of California. Much of the state's urban space was originally farmland that was overtaken by land speculation and home building. Los Angeles residents above the age of thirty [now fifty, KR] can remember when the San Fernando Valley and Orange County were largely agricultural; now development has swallowed much of Northern San Diego County and is gnawing at Ventura County. (Perhaps ironically, the farmland of the San Joaquin Valley could itself be viewed as an encroachment, as the entire valley was wetlands until the nineteenth century.)
[p. 25] The landscape of encroachment is a sort of Steinberg cartoon of sharp contrasts: vast versus compact, vertical versus horizontal, soft versus hard. Even the symbolism is at odds: homebuilders love to sell the countryside with sylvan names like hills, lakes, valleys, and bluffs. . . .
[p. 26] . . .
" . . . In the wake of Proposition 13 (the 1978 tax revolt initiative that limited property taxes) the majority of cities have been in fiscal crisis for more than a decade. Many of them have started redevelopment agencies with the hope of acting as developers and creating new sources for property taxes . . .