Can "the Desert" handle a million people?
More to the point, can the Palm Springs/Coachella Valley region handle a million people without creating a huge mismatch in jobs and housing that will create a swell of outcommuting from the area into the more job-rich parts of Southern California.
At a Lincoln Institute conference in Riverside on Thursday, January 24, John Wohlmuth, executive director of the Coachella Valley Association of Governments, outlined the daunting challenge facing the Palm Springs are in the years ahead.
The Coachella Valley has doubled in population since 1990, to more than 400,000 people. It's expected to hit a million people within 25 years. Currently, the Coachella Valley is blessed with with short commutes – some 60% of workers in the area commute 15 minutes or less to work. But that's mostly because the job growth is in low-paying hotel, service and construction jobs. The blue-collar workforce drives from Indio or Coachella to Indian Wells or Palm Desert. The Coachella Valley is among the most inequitable regions of the state, with many high-income retirees and low-income workers
But as the population increases – and the indigenous working-class population seeks to increase wages in order to buy houses – where will the workers go for higher-paying jobs? Probably not somewhere in the Coachella Valley. They'll have to drive to Riverside, Ontario, and beyond for good pay.
So there's the dilemma for the Coachella Valley: Low-wage jobs equals less commuting; the desire for higher wage jobs is going to extend the Southern California metropolitan commuting pattern from Moreno Valley out to Beaumont, Palm Springs, and beyond
-- Bill Fulton
