Gustine, Ca 2010

Most people think of California as sunshine and beaches. But that describes only a small part of the state. At its heart, California is made up of small agricultural towns that have more in common with the Mid-West than the West Coast. Gustine is one of those.

Gustine, like many Central Valley towns, had little to it in best of times, and has even less to it today. The downtown area comprises a single street, nearly completely abandoned despite the many cars parked along the street. This bank embodies the irony of it all. It's for sale.

I have driven through Gustine on my way home to Turlock for nearly 15 years and seen it as nothing more than a place I pass through. But people live here and work here. It is not just a "pass through" place. At the last census, Gustine, incorporated in 1915, had about 4,700 people.

The big industry in town is dairy, established by Portugeuse immigrants. The city calls itself the "Festival Hub of the Valley" largely because it is home to the largest Portuguese festival honoring Our Lady of Miracles-another irony.

It is located in the Great Central Valley, a place the Economist has referred to as "The Appalachia of the West". A lack of economic diversification paired with high poverty and unemployment rates are only exacerbated by poor economic times. You can smell the "Great Recession" as you walk through these types of places.



Perhaps the most lovely building in the downtown is this one. Formerly a bank, it is now a hair salon.

We looked in on the antique store, which was nice. Another shop that billed itself as a thrift store, but was closer to a junk shop. There was an auto body shop that specialized in refurbishing antique cars. It had a Model A for sale in the window that my boyfriend salivated over. There was a bar with pool tables.

Gustine is a village that still maintains a certain mid-century charm, a time when the Southern Pacific Railroad encouraged growth and prosperity throughout the region.

Places like this small hotel have been shuttered for a long while. No visitors. No investment to make it a place people would want to stay.

What will become of these small towns? Will they just become ghost towns that wither back to nature? When the farmers have sold their land to the last developer, and the young kids have moved away, will these towns persist? Why, when there is so much empty space, are we continuing to build new retail spaces? Why, when there are so many affordable communities like Gustine in need of diversification and industry, do we continue to spread out in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles area? In this day and age, with all the computers, wireless connections, telecommuting, distance learning, and the like, do large companies need to concentrate themselves on California's thin strip of earthquake prone coastline?

There are so many places like Gustine . . . places where there wasn't much in the boom times, and where there is even less now.