The corner of Water Street and Crem at Highland’s northern edge provides a serene and pristine December nocturnal view of the San Bernardino basin below. The blinking blue and red lights of the planes in their final approach to LAX, Ontario and John Wayne airports stand out against the backdrop of Orion and the Southern California starscape. East Highlands Ranch is a protected and sterile enclave standing in sharp contrast against the blight and slums of Baseline Avenue – running off into the western horizon. The $101 monthly homeowners association fee is a necessary evil to force standards and compliance and preserve property values among fragmented and isolated neighbors.
Patton State Mental Hospital on Highland Avenue is surrounded by modern development and is a fascinating throwback to the setting is must have enjoyed in the early days designed for the rural isolation against the eastern foothills of the Los Angeles corridor.
The glory days of Norton Air Force Base and cold war economic infusion have given way to the black hole known as the San Bernardino International Airport plagued with corruption and delay; the silent runway terminating at Tippicanoe.
San Bernardino is consumed under the weight of a heavily Mexicanized culture dominated by gang warfare and territorial claims. The clothing hanging on the conveyer belts in the dry cleaners next to Stater Brothers on 5th street in Highland speaks volumes about the economic nature of San Bernardino County at large. A large majority of garments draped in thin plastic are sheriff and police uniforms.
When urban areas begin to disintegrate economically the best remaining jobs become those in law enforcement and the county judicial system. South Redlands and Highland have managed to stem the tide against blight – to a certain extent. The Redlands Mall sits empty. An economic bright spot in the region is the Native American San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino which provides economic reinvestment via gambling. California Casino’s are essentially consolation prizes to make historical amends for land theft and displacement of first nation peoples.
The problem with Southern California in general is that there are too many people for the available resources. Something as simple as parking or making a left turn on green has become a major ordeal. If you go back to the early days of the 1991 LA Riots the smoke of those fires drifted to the foothills of Pasadena. What happens in these scenarios is that the inner city populations burn down their own business districts and the white police create lockdowns and borders to contain the violence – primarily so that the unrest does not spill over to the white affluent enclaves of West Los Angeles and Orange County.
When society collapses, among other things, one of the unpredictable elements is that people will not be able to refill their prescriptions for their anti-anxiety medications and primarily their anti-depressants. Under these current circumstance of societal peace the pace of compressed fragmented society is already at a frenzy and near breaking point. Seething just under the surface of road rage and routine gang violence are the makings of a San Bernardino Apocalypse. The only escape routes are over the mountains or through the deserts.
Just as Google routinely shakes the sandbox to realign artificial manipulations of search, so too, the next big Earthquake will shake the core of the region and those left standing are those who are prepared beforehand. Although already so, the racial lines will become more defined. The Asian enclaves of San Marino, South Pasadena and Arcadia; the Latino frontiers of Pico Rivera, Montebello, Bell; the African-American townships of Carson and Commerce and Long Beach, set in amongst everything else.
