Why are there so few people living along California's northern shore?

[memphis]

In particular, I'm thinking of Mendocino and Humboldt counties. I visited last year and it was incredibly beautiful up there. I'm not really complaining because it's much prettier without a lot of development. But it's still very surprising to me. In contrast, even without big cities, Monterey County has >400,000 people and San Luis Obispo has nearly 300,000. Mendocino and Humboldt have just about 100,000 each.

[All Along The Watchtower]

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_County,_California#History

Mendocino is rather similar in that regard.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yeah, it doesn't matter how beautiful a place is if you can't get a job there, most people won't move there.

[barfbag]

Liberal protectionism is preventing people from finding work. I don't see Texas having this problem.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Texas looks like this:


What's to protect?

[jimrtex]

Texas looks like this:


What's to protect?

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[The Ex-Factor]

Wikipedia explains it better than I can:

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Coast,_California



This one too:
http://www.mapsofworld.com/usa/topographic-maps/maps/california-topo-map.jpg

I believe the Diablo Range/associated mountains in the Central Valley is also a big reason why the Central Coast has been so sparsely developed. San Luis Obispo is totally surrounded by mountains and hills, for example. CAHSR commissioned a study at one point about the costs of building the line through the Central Coast rather than interior California and they were just insane.

[Sbane]

There just isn't enough buildable land along the north coast. And the forests and hills are protected, as they should be. Only the area around Eureka is buildable, and even there it probably can't support a population greater than 500k or so. And even then it would have very tough access to the rest of the country. Also, the weather up there really isn't that nice. The weather is more like Seattle than San Francisco not to mention Los Angeles. It is because of the weather that Southern California keeps growing even during a huge recession.

[Torie]

The high Hispanic population in Socal has something to do with the continued population growth. The Oregon and Washington coasts are largely empty too. And bear in mind that the ocean is frigid and the sky very often foggy. That is why Sunset Beach right on the coast in SF was a working class neighborhood, and even today, one of the less chic areas of the city. The climate sucks. Heck it was 59 degrees at midday, with a wind, and man it was cold. This was just last week in the middle of the summer.

Things change as you go south around the bend of Point Conception (about a 90 degree turn). The ocean suddenly is at least 10 degrees warmer, and it is far less foggy. And basically the coast all the way down to the Mexican border is filled south of Point Conception except for where Camp Pendleton is - about a 150 mile stretch.

[opebo]

So they should move Camp Pendleton up to Northern California and sell the one in SoCAL.

[Sbane]

So they should move Camp Pendleton up to Northern California and sell the one in SoCAL.

It depends on how much sonar testing the Navy wants to do up there. Northern California is an even better whale habitat than Southern California (though dolphins just love Socal waters) so that is a concern. Environmentalists would be very opposed to any such move, and environmentalists are obviously very powerful in California. I would support the move provided they limit their sonar testing off California waters and they don't disturb old growth forests.

[Kushahontas]

Texas looks like this:


What's to protect?

...the worst

[mianfei]

Yeah, it doesn't matter how beautiful a place is if you can't get a job there, most people won't move there.

That’s the key issue – there are few jobs though for me 59 degrees most of the year is perfect – Eureka is like Tasmania or New Zealand in having about the world’s best climate. More than that, in the age of low-input agriculture the region was problematic because of poor parent materials – there are large tracts of nutrient-poor serpentines in the region.

[MarkD]

Both of my brothers live in Mendocino County, one of them has lived there for about 30 years, and I lived there for nearly three years, Jan. 2005 to Nov. 2007. I agree that there aren't enough jobs in the area to attract more people. The accessability of the area is an issue too. All of the roads leading in to Ft. Bragg include many hairpin turns through mountainous terrain.

[cinyc]

Most of the small population of Califonia's north coast is hemmed in between mountains and a very rocky shore with few natural ports.  There's no San Francisco Bay or flat Los Angeles Basin there. And it rains a lot.  

Because of the lack of ports, it wasn't the type of place where people founded towns back in the day when access to water mattered more. Because of the mountains and lack of major ports, it wasn't the type of place that became dense with railroads, which was also important to city development before highways.  What little population that is there is centered around the city of Eureka and Humboldt Bay.  But Humboldt Bay doesn't lead to a major river, like the Sacramento, to bring in agriculture to the ports from the very fertile Central Valley.  Inland Northern California is very rocky and not very fertile.

[Indy Texas]

Liberal protectionism is preventing people from finding work. I don't see Texas having this problem.

Unemployment Rate in Texas (Feb '17): 4.9%
Unemployment Rate in California (Feb '17): 5.0%

No significant difference.