A review of the Sixties — Part 2

The following article first appeared in the Wednesday, December 24, 1969 edition of “The Ojai Valley News” on the front page. It is reprinted here with their permission.

A review of the Sixties — Part 2
How the Ojai valley has changed


(How has Ojai valley changed in the last decade? Reporter Gary Hachadourian scanned the Ojai Valley News front pages — over 1,000 of them — between 1960 and 1970 to come up with some answers. This is the second in a series of eight articles.)
by Gary Hachadourian

The urbanization of the Ojai Valley in the Sixties was the result of a combination of forces. True, the City of Ojai took many steps which determined, partially, the direction it wanted urbanization to take. But the community was playing a losing game. Growth was inevitable; growth was occurring.

Urbanization was forced in other ways. The City of Ojai — as most California cities — was living under an economic system that forced it to accept and even welcome development of an admittedly questionable variety in order to raise tax money to meet constantly increasing operating costs. Ojai was forced to develop in order to keep from “going broke.” (This particular “force” will be a subject in a later article.)

The changing makeup of the community was another force. A town is what its people are. A community can be no greater than the men and citizens who control its destiny.

The personality of the valley is kaleidoscopic. Its elemental beauty and peace draws all types. We’ll attempt a description. Nothing specific. Just the spirit of the place, for it simultaneously invited urbanization and helped to determine the direction it would take.

Moon nest here

First, we are a self-conscious community. We are landlocked by mountains on three sides. We are endlessly conscious that we live in a very beautiful place — the “center of the universe.” The Chumash Indians also felt that way, for in their language “Ojai” means that the moon nests here. Many residents feel that the sun does. also.

The news stories of the Sixties are filled with congratulatory quotations which say, in essence: “aren’t we wonderful to deserve all this.” There was something aristocratic in our deference to outsiders.

The community’s intimate relationship with nature produced a stern protectionist attitude. The love felt for the valley’s natural beauty was real, because most Ojaians were recently transplanted from city-like environments. They knew that soul-saving open spaces were fast disappearing and deserved to be preserved. They knew their valley was vulnerable to the insistent demands of developers who think of land as money.

Most Ojaians of the Sixties seemed well aware that the valley, lying close to the industrial and commercial centers of the county, is a natural target for extensive — and intensive — residential development. Thus, the community exhibited on occasion an isolationist sentiment. As one letter to the editor said: “let’s pound stakes across the highway at the Y.”

But the community as a whole was prepared to compromise . . . and channel the growth. (Valleyites are also red-blooded capitalists. What else should they be? In this country that’s how money is made and in many cases that’s how they earned the living that brought them a home and acreage with a view of the mountains.)

But, there was a difference between capitalism of the Philistines and the capitalism of Ojaians. The Philistines wanted property because it developed into money, while Ojaians wanted money in order to support property. That’s why seldom do the people who live here treat their land badly.

All this leads to an inescapable and stifling contradiction. It preys on the mind: How can Ojaians deny rights to outsiders that they grant to themselves? How can they think of themselves as the owners of their particular parcel while at the same time acting as overseers of the rest?

How, though, if land is currency, can you rightfully keep outsiders out of the market? This contradiction, in spite of all the restrictive planning, was not answered in the Sixties.

You can’t blame the oldtimers. They came to the valley by choice, for what it offered them. Those who would come in the future would do so more out of necessity, needing space and bringing their conveniences with them. So, if land is currency, there was no way to keep the newcomers out. Restriction planning was not enough.

The area has another characteristic that could be self-defeating. Because of the delight residents feel in living here, Ojaians tend to view themselves as the vanguard contingent of a new urban civilization, a community charged with the heavy responsibility of setting an example of how to live in the suburbs.

They may be right, too. But overconfidence can be self-defeating. Overconfidence can mean a dropping of one’s guard — and the community did that on occasion in the Sixties. Thus the apathy on many occasions when the troops failed to march in the Battle to Preserve Ojai.

These characteristics had a great bearing on what happened in the valley from 1960 to 1970. In fact, they largely determined it.

(The next article places in perspective the events in the urbanization of Ojai Valley during the past 10 years.)




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