Bakersfield: The next 25 years
Bakersfield: The next 25 years
The best way to summarize the evolution of Bakersfield over the past 25 years would be to call it a city reaching maturity. The population of the city more than doubled and Bakersfield’s residents were able to reap in the benefits – and disadvantages – of living in one of the 57 largest cities in the United States.
To some, the growth of Bakersfield is an unwanted thing. The negatives of dirty air, increasing traffic and a sprawling city outweigh the positives of better shopping, improved education and quality entertainment. But those locals have a big surprise coming – the growth of Bakersfield is inevitable. In fact, current projections expect the city to reach 576,000 residents in the year 2034 – 25 years from now – with the metro area nearing one million at 837,000.
Currently, Bakersfield sits at 328,692 residents and 490,500 in the metro area. So where are these people going to live? Are Bakersfield’s great students going to continue to move to other parts of the country? How bad is traffic going to be? And maybe worst of all, how dirty is the air going to get?
Bakersfield will certainly be a different city in 2034, and while no one has a crystal ball to see exactly how the city will look 25 years from now, there are some local residents who are working hard to shape Bakersfield into a better place now and into the future. These people were kind enough to sit down and discuss the future so the rest of the city can get an idea of what Bakersfield will look like 25 years from now.
DOWNTOWN IS A KEY COMPONENT
Some might say that Cathy Butler might be a bit biased when saying that Downtown Bakersfield is a key component in the future development of the city. Butler, president of the Downtown Business and Property Owners Association, certainly has a stake in the future of downtown, but few would argue with her thoughts that returning Downtown Bakersfield to a vibrant place where residents would want to spend time as being important to the future of the city as a whole.
But in order to do that, there needs to be cooperation between the city, downtown business owners and several organizations to make some real progress. Butler is beginning to see that happen.
“We’re looking at the future,” Butler said. “There are opportunities now. The window is open and we’re trying to pull as many things together because you never know when it’s going to shut again. It depends on the property owners and the businesses, and if their attitude is that we’re just going to sit there, nothing is going to happen.”
Once upon a time, downtown represented the retail hub of the city, but since that time it has transformed time and time again, from being the nightlife center of the city – with occasional gunshots and stabbings – to being home to quaint antique shops, and now being reborn once again as being the core of the arts scene in Bakersfield. Numerous venues, from art galleries to performing arts and more, have found a home downtown that has once again transformed the face of the always-changing area.
The Arts District is now being joined by the Mill Creek project to give residents an idea of what is in the works for downtown. For those not in the know, Mill Creek is transforming the Kern Island canal – which runs through Central Park – into a “natural” creek complete with public art, fresh landscaping and more. New residences and mixed-use development with also contribute to the project to create a vibrant feel to a once dilapidated area.
But the future could take things one step further. The new federal courthouse, which appears set to be built on the Central Park grounds just east of Mill Creek, could once again change the face of Downtown Bakersfield.
Imagine downtown and the almost V shape it would take on – the federal courthouse to the east, Mill Creek moving south to the Marriott and Rabobank Arena, more legal activity at City Hall and the Bank of America building, and up into the Arts District and the hopefully soon-to-be-open Padre Hotel. The only move remaining would be a corridor to connect the top of that V, and there are actually plans in the works for just that.
Architectural firm Renfro & Cunningham has pitched an idea that is currently being called the Bakersfield Initiative that would, in effect, bring the feel of Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade to Downtown Bakersfield. The Bakersfield Initiative would transform a downtown street – ideally 20th Street – into a shopping, business and residential mecca that would extend from the Fox Theater to Central Park.
“It’s a clever idea – you don’t shut the streets down like in Santa Monica, but in the same manner, wider sidewalks, pushing activity into that corridor,” local investor and Chairman of the Board for the Downtown Business Association Bob Bell said. “And if the federal courthouse gets done, that’s more than a possibility. It’s more like a probability.”
The idea is an exciting one, with retail dominating the ground level, offices on the second floor and residential on top, creating what will begin to be a common theme, a place where people can live, work and shop all in one place, which could decrease traffic and help to lower air pollution.
In the meantime, Butler and Bell continue to work with what they currently have while looking to bring downtown even closer together. The new trolley system allows for free transportation throughout downtown and the interaction between businesses, such as the festivities of First Friday, has created a safer and friendlier environment to visit.
VISION 2020’S VISION
While we might be taking a look at Bakersfield 25 years from now, Bakersfield Vision 2020 is taking more of a fast track approach to improving the city. The group, led by Sheryl Barbich, is taking steps to better Bakersfield and it isn’t just coming up with ideas – Vision 2020 is taking action.
Vision 2020 was created to find out exactly what residents of Bakersfield really want the city to become, then create ways to make those things happen. The result was a collective effort of 13,000 residents that resulted in a long-term vision and action plan for the city.
The project determined seven key areas that it would target: economic development and education, transportation and community planning, image, downtown, quality of life, youth and family, and health and wellness. It’s truly amazing to see how many of these topics depend upon one another.
For example, take economic development and education that, not surprisingly, go hand in hand. The Ready to Start program was the brain child of Gene Voiland and is a program for children who did not attend preschool to not only help them catch up and be ready to start kindergarten at the same educational level as other students, but also give them the social interaction skills necessary once school begins.
The first group of students who went through the program is now in fourth grade and the results have been stunning.
“This year was the watershed year,” Barbich said. “They got real standardized testing just like everyone else did in fourth grade, and they made it. They stayed up with their peer group that had the advantage of being born into a family that took them to preschool. So those kids are 10 years old right now, and in about 10 years they’re going to be graduating from college. That’s a whole batch of kids that wouldn’t have been there, and they’re in our community.
“I think this will ultimately do the things that other economic development won’t do because the work force will be better. What we hear from Richard Chamberlain and other people trying to bring new business and new jobs to the community is that the work force sucks. It doesn’t have the literacy ratio and our percentage of people with a college degree is just 12 percent as opposed to 25 percent statewide.”
The intended result of programs recently put into place like Ready to Start are better jobs moving to Bakersfield as the workforce improves. That turns into more discretionary income available in the community that leads to better quality of life.
The reason why these types of programs are important is simple: Bakersfield’s population is going to grow no matter what. The types of jobs available and who is qualified to work them will go far to determine what type of city Bakersfield will 25 years from now.
Vision 2020 isn’t only focused on education and the work force. Programs like Get Moving Kern are working to continue to increase the knowledge and understanding of exercise and nutrition. Youth leadership programs encourage students to stay and work in their home community as they learn more about it. The Tree Foundation is working to make Bakersfield a more beautiful place to live.
But Vision 2020 also looked at transportation and community planning, which seems to be a hot topic throughout Bakersfield. Goals included finally connecting Highway 58 to Interstate 5 that should significantly decrease surface street traffic from east to west throughout the city, as well as increasing the ease in which residents can move around the city while spending less time idling and at traffic signals, in turn reducing the negative impact of car emissions on air quality.
Interestingly enough, another of Vision 2020’s goals is to help Meadow’s Field become a regional hub, helping to ease an overburdened LAX. According to Barbich, LAX is simply going to need another regional airport to help with its overwhelming traffic, and that regional airport is either going to be in Bakersfield or Palmdale. But Barbich thinks that Bakersfield is the right choice.
“There was always this talk that they would send the extra traffic out to Palmdale,” Barbich said. “But now we have a big new expanded airport and a new terminal without many flights right now. And, the way it was set up, it’s very easy to add another duplicate side of the terminal and you can add another runway. It’s set to be a regional airport to offset some of that traffic.
“That would be a big boon and it would bring some cool jobs in while making it much easier for everyone in Bakersfield to travel.”
BUT WHERE WILL THEY LIVE?
While we’ve determined that downtown could once again become the heart of the city and that Bakersfield’s workforce will be better educated to bring in better jobs, the fact remains that more than a half-million people will be living within the city limits in 2034. Where will they live?
It might be easy to simply think that the city limits will continue to grow west out to Interstate 5 continuing Bakersfield’s recent sprawling trend, Planning Director for the City of Bakersfield Jim Movius said that is certainly not going to be the case.
“I think what we’ll see in the future is much more compact growth,” Movius said. “We’re probably looking at smaller lots for single-family homes and more mixed-use development where you have second-story living areas over commercial or offices where people can work and live above it.”
Sound familiar? Movius said that the move to compact growth is coming straight from the state’s legislation on climate change and air quality requirements while also protecting agricultural land. Instead of moving further west, as has been the case over the past decade or so, further growth will have to take place on land already available inside the current city limits.
Yes, that means cramming a lot of people into an area that is already beginning to feel crowded, especially when driving. But the point of this compact growth idea is to get people out of their cars and living closer to where they work, which would cut down on traffic despite increasing the city’s density.
“We’re still going to need automobiles,” Movius said, “but you’re going to see more emphasis on transit systems trying to connect everything because of the mandates we’re getting on air quality and greenhouse gas emissions.”
The single-family home at an affordable price has always been Bakersfield’s bread and butter, and Movius realizes that the idea of smaller lots and smaller homes – essentially cramming more people into smaller areas – is going to be a hard sell. “People aren’t moving to Bakersfield to live in a really dense area in high-rise apartments. I see that as the challenge for Bakersfield,” he said.
The community planning will take on a whole new thought process as well. New local developments currently consist of homes surrounded by large brick walls with one or two entrances to the development every half mile or so. To get mostly anywhere outside of those brick walls requires a trip in a car.
Instead of that brick wall enclosure, the idea is to take the approach that the Westchester neighborhood near Downtown Bakersfield took – a grid-like traffic pattern throughout the neighborhood with many different housing structures, like single-family, apartments, offices and commercial. The idea is to give people an opportunity to use their cars less, whether that means a walk to work or a bike ride to a neighborhood store for milk instead of a five-mile drive to Albertson’s.
Movius did mention several other plans in the works, but the most interesting of the bunch was a trail system throughout Bakersfield, creating more of a sense of connectivity throughout the city. These trails would run parallel to current roads and would separate the walkers, joggers and bikers who use them from traffic by lush landscaping. The trail system would start small, but plans are for a very extensive trail system connecting the entire city in the long term.
2034: A BAKERSFIELD ODYSSEY
As noted at the beginning of this story, there is no crystal ball to peer into to know for certain what Bakersfield will look like 25 years from now, but several things do appear clear. Downtown is making a comeback. Students will be much better educated. The city’s population will grow by nearly 70 percent. And a new way of looking a local housing will take effect.
But there are things that aren’t clear as well. Will Bakersfield adopt to these new housing plans? Can we cut back on car usage to help traffic? Will the air have been cleaned up?
While there are plenty of unknowns, the good news that current and future residents of Bakersfield can take from this is that there has never been a time in the city’s history when the future has been considered so carefully, and with people like Butler, Bell, Barbich, Movius and many others, we can at least say that we know we’re in good hands.