RIVERSIDE - As the Inland area continues to grow, it will eventually begin to resemble Orange County, with job growth tied to technology and the city of Riverside serving as the hub, a longtime urban planner said today.
"Over time, the university (UC Riverside) will start growing jobs around it," Edward J. Blakely said at the opening of the third annual Conference on Suburban Issues in Riverside. "Riverside will start to look like Orange County. You'll have a variety of technology-based jobs -- software development and things like that. Then you'll have jobs that support that. The jobs will gravitate to the wealth."
Blakely said Riverside would remain a commuter city for some time, with many residents traveling to Los Angeles and Orange counties for high-paying jobs, but he foresees a point when the city will be the center of economic activity in the Inland region.
The resulting shift will change the landscape, making places like Corona a "preferred area," he said.
"I anticipate Corona will have a job explosion," Blakely said. "It's a preferred area like Costa Mesa. Then there'll be other areas that are less favored geographies. But most of that will be income-related."
Blakely said as the wealth effect spreads, communities like Perris will become "self-contained employment zones," where people live and work in the same place, instead of jumping on the freeway each day.
The conference was sponsored by the UC Riverside Edward J. Blakely Center for Sustainable Suburban Development and held at the Mission Inn Hotel and Spa in Riverside.
Ten days ago, Blakely started work as executive director of recovery management for the city of New Orleans, a job he said entails "running the whole city."
The San Bernardino native, who started consulting on urban planning projects in the early 1970s, said drafting plans to rebuild the hurricane-damaged area has already presented challenges.
"I have a fairly clear mission, but there's a lot of confusion at the federal and state levels as to whether we're doing a recovery or a shutdown," Blakely said. "There are people who believe New Orleans should be reorganized and made into a city of high-rises. I think it should be re-planned, but it's no time to talk about transforming it."
Blakely and other guests spoke at the conference, which focused mainly on suburban planning, particularly rehabilitating aging suburbs.
Other speakers at today's conference included Joel Kotkin, senior fellow at the New America Foundation; Deepak Bahl, associate director of the USC Center for Economic Development; and Robert Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.
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