Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
munities that have limited tolerance for outsiders. This conservative sociopolitical trend
extends south to San Diego, which also has a sizable US military population.
California Babylon: A Guide to Sites of Scandal, Mayhem and Celluloid in the Golden
State
(2000) by Kristan Lawson and Anneli Rufus is a guilty-pleasure guide to infamous
and bizarre locations throughout the state.
Lifestyle
Few Californians can afford to spend their entire day tanning, sipping lattes and doing
yoga, what with UVA/UVB rays, the rent and gas prices to consider. Most Californians ef-
fectively live in their car, commuting an average of 30 minutes each way to work and
spending at least $1 out of every $5 earned on car-related expenses. But they have zoomed
ahead of the national energy-use curve in their smog-checked cars, buying more hybrid
and fuel-efficient cars than any other state.
Few coastal Californians could afford a beach dream-home, and most rent rather than
own on a median annual household income of $61,400. Eight of the 10 most expensive US
housing markets are in California, and in the two most-expensive areas, Newport Beach
and Palo Alto, the average house costs over $1.5 million. Almost half of all Californians
reside in cities, but most of the other half live in the suburbs, where the cost of living is
just as high, if not higher: San Jose near Silicon Valley has been ranked the most over-
priced city in America.
Even so, coastal Californian cities (especially San Francisco and San Diego) consist-
ently top national quality-of-life indexes. Self-help, fitness and body modification are ma-
jor industries, successfully marketed since the 1970s as 'lite' versions of religious experi-
ence - all the agony and ecstasy of the major religious brands, without all those heavy
commandments. Exercise and fresh food help keep Californians among the fittest in the
nation. Yet almost 250,000 Californians are apparently ill enough to merit prescriptions for
medical marijuana. Dispensaries have proliferated up and down the coast, now outnumber-
ing Starbucks coffee shops in some places.
Homelessness is not part of the California dream, but it's a reality for at least 135,000
Californians, representing over 20% of the total US homeless population. The demograph-
ic of homeless people is varied, but the largest contingent of homeless Californians are US
military veterans, estimated at 31,000 people. What's more, in the 1970s mental health
